Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Tucker Bush Trial

Sipping a latte and masticating a muffin in Charlotte Court over the weekend, courtesy of the excellent Age & Sons, I couldn't help thinking the ambiance was somewhat lacking. After exerting the noodle to its max, the old 20W bulb lit up. Where had the shrubbery gone? Take a butcher's...

Oh no, wait, there it is...

Hacked off and lying all over the shop! It looks as if the Ramsgate Chopper has been at it again! Tempting as it is to blame our beloved duffers for yet another crime against nature, I gather they're only partly responsible. Apparently they gave the 'Charlotte Court Residents' Association', which seems to consist solely of the chap who rather ostentatiously bought this...

in the full the glare of the BBC's Homes Under the Hammer cameras a couple of years back, permission to prune them.

Prune them? Prune them? That's a bit like chopping off both feet to trim your toenails! Kuh!

46 comments:

David Smellamy said...

So glad to see this didn't escape your ever watchful eye, dear ECR....

I moved to ramsgate about 5 years ago and walk through charlotte court to get to wilkos...it always looked a bit like a wasteland, but since Age & Sons it's starting to look and smell a lot prettier with all those old bins being moved on and with flowers and things being planted. I have absolutely no idea why anyone would prune all those lovely shrubs and trees at the start of the summer holidays! I'm no David Bellamy but wouldn't that be smarter in autumn or spring?

Anonymous said...

gwapple me gwapenuts

Anonymous said...

Age and Sons ..... no comment food and service had gone so downhill and Trip Advisor seems to agree with me!!

SH*T advisor? said...

I LOVE Age & Sons....it's the best place in Ramsgate by FAR. Who on earth cares what moaning old biddies have to say on trip advisor. Use you're own loaf and judge for yourselves..I think the food is great and the people in there are all really sweet.

Anonymous said...

Maybe the shrubs went into one of Age's salads. Seriously most of their recent reviews are good, but anyone who orders steak in a restaurant deserves all they get. Decent restaurants are for food that you can't easily do at home and that certainly doesn't include steak. As for service problems, well that is a British disease, I mean fancy trying to get the locals to do your bidding. Across the water(Channel and Atlantic) it is not regarded as demeaning to be a waiter. Here it's likely to be a Fawlty Towers experience. I shall be eating at another Kent restaurant next week that has been praised. My first experience there couple of years ago was not good on the waiting front in both senses of the word. I will give them one more try. Well I am a Sportsman.

Anonymous said...

anon again!

Ooooer! I aint gonna have him trim my bushes!

Anonymous said...

Having given Age & Sons 2 tries Im not trying for third time lucky it would be a waste of good dosh. First time was in their early days, not bad but nothing special. Last month, poor food, served cold, bad service and when I did complain the attitude was well you know where you can go. I am fortunate to have eaten in some truly outstanding restaurants this is nowhere near!

There are a few decent eateries in this neck of the woods but in my opinion Age & Sons leave a lot to be desired - Not the worst around but they need to pull their socks up to survive.

Anonymous said...

I have heard of shedding leaves but this is a fine example of leaving sheds (and damn all else)

I wonder if the cleared ground would make a nice home for a Russian vine ?

Anonymous said...

9.27. The British attitude with restaurants is if there is a problem no-one complains. Mustn't grumble. Good on you if you did. The only way to get standards raised is to complain. If you buy something duff from most retail areas you can get your money back. Hairdressing is another area where poor results don't get a complaint. Food is a very subjective area and some people, even if given the Koh i Noor diamond would complain that it's the wrong colour . Why the hell do people order steaks in good restaurants. Go to Harvesters if that is your idea of a meal. The problem with most tourist area catering is that a low standard can be got way with because expectations are low in the first place and the knowledge that customers won't be around for more than a day helps.I have two restaurants that I use which serve superb food and are at opposite extremes of the price spectrum. Neither of them advertise as they are always fully booked and i am not giving their names as I am selfish and want to keep them to myself. I mean, people might start ordering steaks and that would never do.

Anonymous said...

I eat steak

A good restaurant will offer a steak

Who the fuck told you that a steak serving restaurant is somehow inferior?

Anonymous said...

No, a steak serving restaurant is not inferior as they know that in a group of people there will be some ignorant soul that doesn't know any better( the sort that order chips in a Chinese) and needs to swear to prove it. Expand your horizons my friend. I do suppose that you know how to cook a steak but I suspect that raw is more your area. Oh dear, I must remember I am dealing with some tiresome people. Such Fun!

Anonymous said...

I actually know the answer to this! I go to Age & Sons regularly and earlier this year I noticed steaks and burgers appearing, I asked Toby, the charming but maybe eccentric head chef, why this was so and he said that he had been forced to do it after numerous complaints from Fannit customers that 'everything on his menu was foreign'. Which I guess was a reference to weird foreign muck like risotto. Age & Sons risotto is the best I've ever had, it really is so delicious. And actually I tried his burger and it wasn't bad at all. Though I agree, it's hardly what you go to a restaurant for.

Charlotte Court pest control said...

What a TWAT! I know this bloody idiot he's is nothing but another DFL moved here two years ago and has been living in this boarded up building for 2 YEARS! Obviously what he thinks we need is more empty looking buidlings and less greenery! What a twat. I honestly could just put him right back on the fast train...

Le faux Swiss said...

So British don't complain?
Yeah right...

As for burgers in Age and sons, how low can you go.

What can we expect next, steak and flies in a Chinese????

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed the swift repartee of the comment at 10:58 PM. Think we might be related though you neglected to mention that your target, of the four letter posting, probably buys his steaks in ASDA.

Anonymous said...

That would be "blue-steak" then anon 10.58 ? If this is "Such fun" I suspect you have missed the fact it is largely you providing it.

Anonymous said...

9:27 AM, Sorry to disappoint you but the comment posted at 10:58 PM is not I. Have remained in the background but must return to defend false accusations. Looks like you might have someone else to banter with. BN

Anonymous said...

Whoops! Previous comment should have been directed at 9:29 who introduced the 'blue' factor not 9:27 to whom I apologise. BN

10.42 said...

Sorry for the language. I was slightly squiffy from the 5 pints of becks vier from the commercial tavern, and bottle of humberto canale Pinot noir from gauchos broadgate - all washed down with a 400g churasco du lomo, cooked medium, with sweet potato and chorizo, spinach and mushrooms.

Perhaps your hatred of meat/meat eaters comes from the fact you've moved on from a bernie inn and now host sophisticated dinner parties where the blue nun never stops flowing, the spaghetti bolognese tastes almost as good as the Heinz offering and the vienetta is never big enough.

Anonymous said...

As an interested bystander, I must conclude, evidenced by terminology and style, that Bluenote and many of his/her protagonists are one and the same person. A pseudonym already attributed to The Rock, ECR and Lucy Mail, whilst claimed by other anonymous posters, crops up every time things are going quiet with a touch of sarcastic humour and a gentle wind up. Then the same person comes back in more insulting style using the 'blue' adjective to seemingly direct their imaginary wrath of the phantom Blue Note. Hence we get 'blue bottle' 'blue steak' 'blue scroat'and now, even, 'blue nun.' Whatever next one might ask?

Anonymous said...

The condescending "My friend" of anon 10.58 is a characteristic comment used by Blue Note.

10.58 is Blue Note.

But who fucking cares (BN note the swearing hook you typically take every time)

Other than BN is a free purveyor of mirth and, therefore, its existence (whether or not a creation of ECR) is surely to be celebrated ?

I am able to reveal that BN is in fact the Charlotte Court Residents Association.

Anonymous said...

If Bluenote is the Charlotte Court Residents Association, I have just seen him dumping his shrubbery cuttings in the garden waste at the Council tip. He was wearing blue overalls and definitely had a DFL look about him. Sneaked in with a transit when somebody else opened the height restriction barrier.

It all happens in Thanet!

Blue Rinse said...

AND BLUE OVERALLS HIMSELF JUST MOVED A WHOLE LOAD OF CUTTINGS AND DUMPED THEM OUTSIDE THE OLD TOURIST INFORMATION CENTRE. There is no escape now, DFL Thanet's watching!

Anonymous said...

does anybody know details for proposed new lifeboat station on Margate Sands

Anonymous said...

No boys and girls, 10.58 is not Bluenote but me, a person who was brought up in Ramsgate. I just sit back and snipe at the obvious but it is just too easy. I am not a meat eating hater, just someone who lives to eat and not, eats to live. I like steaks as much as any carnivore but I have a butchers at the end of the road who provides the best meat around and I can cook it to
my satisfaction at home. What I can't do is the magic provided by a decent restaurant as that takes time and I don't like washing up. Each to their own as far as eating out is concerned but I do avoid any establishment which I see with a KFF van outside or too large a menu to be cooked from fresh. And if you think it's clever to swear rather than having a decent vocabulary, then fine. It's only you that sounds ignorant.

Anonymous said...

Coincidentally, a lady called Alexandra from Cliftonville writes in this week's Thanet Times letters page. She calls for the area around Charlotte Court to be made weed free again and asks TDC to get busy with the weedkiller. Well someone seems to have gone over the top on that request and with even with the dreaded chain saw thrown in.

Alexandra goes on to say that she has no connection with Corby's Tea Rooms or Age & Son, and since she is also from Cliftonville, one is left to wonder what motivates her in this crusade.

Could she be in the pay, possibly even the moll, of the Charlotte Court Residents Association or, since everybody else seems to be, is she Bluenote!

Anonymous said...

What goes on round here is beyond belief!

Anonymous said...

Poor BN (the purported real McCoy with medals to show) the swear word is but poetic licence "My friend".

A self vaunted military man who reinforces his own weak position against strategic doctrine.

A blanket stacker of the Blues and Royals perhaps ?

Anonymous said...

Blue bottle sings my capitaine

Anonymous said...

6.08 you are so right, I forgot that swearing is poetry to some. As for the rest of your message,I should keep off the stuff for your own health or perhaps you have missed your medication again. No that's not fair as I suspect that's normal for Fannit, Innit?

Anonymous said...

Anon 4.42, I think part of the Turner Centre could be used as a lifeboat station unless you have a better idea.

Anonymous said...

Here you go BN the blue I like to have a drink with ECR enjoy ?

Anonymous said...

Anon 4.52 who is not the real BN

When you eat the meat from your butchers down the road do you swallow ?

Ramsgate watcher said...

I walked through Charlotte Court today and a fence seems to have appeared hiding the wheelie bins - but yes the lopped trees do look pretty awful.

Also has anyone else noticed that the For Sale sign on the Boundary Road toilet block seems to have disappeared!?

Bluenote said...

6:08 PM I am afraid I find your comments rather snide. I once mentioned, in response to a comment about defence of the realm, that I had served for twenty years. I made no claim to exaulted rank or any self vaunting nor did I mention which service, corps or regiment.

Since I predate the amalgamtion of the Blues and Royals, it puts me into that era of Aden, Radfan, Malaysian confrontation, Northern Ireland, Rhodesia and so on, when it would be difficult not to pick up a few campaign service medals.

That is it. It was a job like any other job and I neither claim or seek any special recognition for it. It was my choice and what I wanted to do.

Appreciate it if we can leave it at that. You have no idea what my role was or what I may or may not have been involved in so leave out the rather silly blanket stacker comments. I would not presume to guess what you do or did for a living and, to be honest, I do not really care unless it has some relevance to the debate in hand.

Bluenote said...

My thanks to 6:14 PM for an amusing piece of nostalgia and to 6.28 PM for that honey voice of dreams.

10.42 said...

11.42, 4.52, never a problem finding the words to express ones self (thanks to the finest Kent education that money can't buy).

May I suggest you educate yourself on the first principle of running a restaurant - stay in business. If that involves selling burgers to the many while serving 'foreign' to the few, that's more palatable than giving your keys back to the bank manager.

Anonymous said...

6:08 PM It is a pretty sick kind of creep who takes the mickey out of someone else for military service. Perhaps, since you are so clever with your smartarse remarks, you could tell us all what you have done. Probably SFA!

Anonymous said...

have tdc got a job lot of wooden sheds or has the harbour office relocated ???

Anonymous said...

Maybe the virtically challenged one, with his Pleasurama luxury apartments endlessly on hold, has gone over to flogging sheds to his council mates.

Anonymous said...

I've just gone passed Charlotte Court to find the owner of Age & Sons planting flowers and little shrubs. It seems they are keeping calm and carrying on!

Anonymous said...

And me again from 1.52,

There are now new little rose bushes and some other plants looking fairly optimistic. I got into conversation with the owner of Age & Sons and asked which local thug it was who committed vandalism and she pointed out a young (! amazing to see a young person do ANYTHING here, well I suppose not that amazing to see them destroy their environment...) man cutting the next square along wearing a high-vis jacket which declared on the back 'Charlotte Court Volunteer'. Such organised vandalism?!

Anonymous said...

Only went to Age and Sons once for lunch but the poorly-trained waitress couldn't find a menu, the chef kept yelling from the kitchen that 'this is off and that as well' (off the menu, I assume although we never did see one).

Asked for the drinks menu and was handed the coffee list. Girl went off to try to get a menu and never did come back.

Needless to say, we haven't returned nor have we gone back to Harvey's after our one visit.

Have had two luches at Eddie Gilbert's, first great, second disappointing but have been told it had gone through a not-so-good patch but is ok again.

Always willing to give a new venue a chance but there are too many people who think they can dish up second-rate food and no-one will complain. Maybe people don't but they, like me, probably won't go back. That's why Portobello has gone, people didn't go back after their first visit.

Anonymous said...

Interesting to see that last critic, we went for luch on Friday lunchtime to Eddie Gilbert expecting great food and service after all the splash. What we got was an enormous plate of fish and chips each that could have served two but the base of the fish was a soggy mess, the chips undercooked and the samphire overloaded with butter but cold. Appalling service too, all around us there were complaints. I did mail the man himself to ask what the promlems were and he said "too busy and a few staff hiccups" but no actual apology which was not really good manners.

The best restaurant in Thanet is a tiny one in cliftonville that never advertises, is constantly packed, has amazing food and atmosphere and absolutely no pretensions. Excellent food at realistic prices and BYO booze but Im sure there will be people who would knock that as at the end of the day its all personal taste.

I would just like to know where to go locally for a really good chinese meal they all seem to be pretty appalling.

In fact is there anywhere to eat in Thanet, indeed East Kent that has excellent food, good service AND an attractive location? I am really stuck with that one.

Anonymous said...

Excuse the spelling mistake, well slip of the keys in my last post, no edit facilty and forgot preview highly remiss before you all point it out.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the update on Eddie Gilbert's.

We haven't been for some time since my order got mangled as I'd specifically said 'no chips' but, guess what, chips came with the order. The portions were much smaller than when we'd gone before, we were brought the wrong wine and my dining companion's chips were cold and underdone.

Yes, we did complain and haven't been back.

I think the place has become a victim of its own publicity since it got written up in a couple of national papers.

I had recommended the place to friends after our first visit and they came back very disappointed and so I had to apologise for their wasted evening out.