Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Tongue Set To Get Tongues Wagging

Just a quick reminder that Boredstares will be the venue for a public meeting this evening to discuss the China Gateway project. Organised by local campaigner Chiristine Tongue, it kicks off at the Red Hall at 7.30pm and all are welcome.

And as if by magic, Ms Tongue's film Thanet Under Threat has appeared on BoobTube to coincide with the gathering. I've added it to this post, but to be honest I haven't watched more than a minute as the thought of enduring over an hour of Ms Tongue's dreary voiceover had me reaching for the phone to dial the Samaritans. That and her opening gambit: 'Thanet is in East Kent and has three historic seaside resorts, the most popular of which is Broadstairs'. Kuh!

Still, there is a very amusing, Noggin the Nog style opening animation which condenses the last thousand years of island history into a few seconds. I wonder if Our Greatest Living Thanetian, Oliver Postgate, had a hand in that? If anyone sticks with it as far as the end credits, perhaps they'd be kind enough to let us know!

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

She sounds like a Kentish Pam Ayres!

Anonymous said...

And there's another in the pipeline!!

'Amateurish' is the best description I can come up with.

Anonymous said...

I think they're good.

How many films have you made lately, 12.27?

Anonymous said...

Does one really have to be able to make films in order to discern good films from bad? Everyone can have an opinion on films, books, food etc surely?

I'm not Gordon Ramsay but I know a good meal when I eat one.

Anonymous said...

This woman and her partner Norman are a disgrace, eternally moaning about Thanet. If they dislike it that much could they not move to Hastings and piss off the residents there? After all they work in london and come from Wales, enough said

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 2.24p.m. How many films?

None because I know I'd be useless and wouldn't have the nerve to charge people for a copy as happened with this one. Nor would I show it to an invited audience.

Anonymous said...

Nacho.

Anonymous said...

It's not as good as a lot of GCSE projects I've seen. Making a film doesn't make you a film-maker, it means you made a film. In this case a boring, badly narrated, one-sided film that has no right to be called a documentary. I'm going out now to cut the neighbour's grass, am I Alan Titchmarsh?

Anonymous said...

It's good to see people's efforts to improve the surroundings and stop crap developments from taking place for all our benefit so appreciated. What a churlish lot of crabs you are.

Anonymous said...

Thank you David warming up to address this lot tomorrow ?

Mitch said...

Interesting perspective. I've waited at least 25 years for things to be attracted to Thanet. What caused the change? The possibility of a return on investment. What will attract 'state of the art' building using the latest technology? Again the ability to see a good return, basic economics....But, somewhere the infrastructure has to be able to sustain growth. You need people and they need jobs, housing, leisure facilities, utilities and good transport...

Tony Flaig said...

How come you never give me the oxygen of publicity.

My middle aged git goes off on one in Northdown Park is an absolute masterpiece and yet where are the fawning complements, the praise from ECR?

Blimey I bet its almost as good

Richard Eastcliff said...

Sorry Tony. I'll get straight over to Bignews Margate and give it a butcher's, er, cast my professional eye over it.

Anonymous said...

Just watched the whole film. Some fair points made re' building on parkland. I'm not against seeing that hall pulled down and replaced though in Pierrmont. Where was the building site near the start of the film? Its not one I recognised. On the subject of development lets be clear. We live in a capitalist economy though it has a socialist heart. The two don't mix well. Developers though are not charities, they build for profit. If you look at your private pension you'll see a lot are supported by investment funds based on development. Are developers greedy? Greed is the basis of economy whether you like it or not and I find it hypocritical of people who say developers are only in it for the money. What do you think they are in it for? The really greedy people are the people who own land, i.e. big gardens. 40% of a development goes into buying the land and I know people ask crazy prices for their measly plots. I used to source development land until I got fed up with people's outrageous demands. The film has lots of footage from the 50s and 60s all too nostalgic, forget the past its gone, the only caveat is a pool much like the lido in the same place but covered, perhaps along the lines of an indoor beach would be good. Re sustainable development from Dr. Sanders, Westwood Cross is here, that has to be accepted, it makes sense to put houses next door, the residents can then easily walk to the shops. Comments on big houses being pulled down for denser development is the result of the Town & Country Planning Act which bought in Settlement Boundaries outside of which it is very difficult to build. With development squeezed into an artificially created boundary there is no room to spread out and building densities increase and increase. Only 13% of the total land mass on the UK is urban. People ignore that Thanet does not stop at Birchington and Acol and Minster, it spreads out quite far out past St. Nicholas. If you actually get on a bike and go and look you'll see lots of land that will never be built on. It was refreshing to see Mitch's comments on here, me too I have waited a long time to see development come here, what I don't want are relative newcomers seeking a quiet retirement as we have seen in the past, please go to Cornwall if you want that. Personally I see Thanet's future as exciting with some problems to counter.

Anonymous said...

Gerry, before you assume that Thanet has a great deal of agricultural land off the chalk plateaux, you might like to visit Bibliophile's site (Thanetonline) about sea defences being allowed to fail in the next 25 years. My grandchildren will find themselves living on a concreted over Thanet surrounded by salt marshes unless this madness of over development stops.

Peter C said...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/7607771.stm

Anonymous said...

Gerry. I am a relative newcomer (8 years) I have not come here to retire. I work for a living and intend to continue as long as I can. I do not expect to live in a rural paradise but neither do I expect to sit in a jam of HGV's every time I venture off island, or be buzzed by low flying jumbo's while trying to enjoy Ramsgate beach. I do not expect covenanted public assets to be flogged off against the wishes of the majority. I do not expect local councillors to give themselves permission for inappropriate developments that have been repeatedly refused in the past.
I do not expect developers to have my health and welfare at heart. I expect them to exploit and manoeuvre any way they can to get what they need to make profit. That includes using influence (of all kinds) to persuade the local politicians to give them the neccessary permissions. The people I DO expect to look after my environment and quality of life and to protect me from the tactics of profit at any cost, are the people who are elected (and sometimes NOT elected) to do that. This is not happening in Thanet, where ties between local and international vested interest and the local political bodies are much too close to be healthy for anyone.

Head, SMEG said...

it was interesting to hear the accents and see gerry's/mitch's comments here. Its obvious the narrator comes from elsewhere, but its an opinion, with some passion behind it, and one with some valid points. If they live and pay council tax in the area, whats wrong with their opinion?

Anonymous said...

10:57...low flying jumbos? Didn't you know an airport was there when you moved in 8 years a go? Commercial flights with 727s, 737s too in the early 1990s, Viva Air was one I can recall. I too have lived in Thanet a long time and it was a damn site busier when the military were there. You may not know about the centre of St. Peters being flattened in the 50s by a US jet, and two other crashes I can think of (one in the sea). All rather inconvenient and noisey.

Anonymous said...

That Dr. Clare Sanders looks like she is stood in front of her next cultivation.

Anonymous said...

11.15
Big surprise to you but amazingly I do take some interest in the history of the area.
Am I to understand then that as Thanet has been buzzed (and flattened )by Aircraft in the past that it must continue to be in the future? So much of the island is concrete, why shouldn't the rest of it be?
This is remeniscent of "Drill! Baby! Drill!" the battlecry of the Palin supporters. The oil is in the ground so why leave it there? If so, the future is a very sorry prospect indeed.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for putting our film on your website. And thanks to all of the people who have commented on it. Norman and I live and work here, and have for a long time. We live here because we like it and want to keep the good things about it. Why is that wrong?

I'm sorry about my accent - I'm from the West Midlands, so I've had some experience of industrial development and failed factories. The same problems have beset South Wales. I'd hate to see Thanet having to go through the post industrial clean-ups from toxic industry that my home town of Wolverhampton is having to go through.

But at least the Midlands is aware of the need for planting trees and perserving and creating green spaces, which I see no commitment to here.

The footage at the beginning of the film is the building of Westwood Cross, which we filmed as it was happening in 2004.

Isn't it better to talk about the issues rather than slag off the messenger?
Christine Tongue