'Cheap Space And Out Of Control'

Yes fashion fans - that's top designer Wayne Hemingway's verdict on the Arsonists' Playground in a recent interview with The Sun! Although I have to say it sounds more like the sort of thing a bent Tory council leader might utter to his 'investor' chums.

Oh well, as you probably all know by now, Wayne's in charge of revitalising Dreamland by shipping in a load of knackered old rides and poshing it up a bit. Sort of like Jimmy Godden Mk2, but with red specs and a designer tie. His latest utterings at least give poor old Margate some much-needed publicity. But, as we Millionaires' know, Ramsgate's miles better!

PS: Bet you didn't know that our beloved Duffers over in Cecil Square have spent £620,000 of our council tax buying several of those knackered old rides on behalf of the Dreamland Trust? Well I'm here to tell you they have. It's in the small print of their 2012 accounts. Doesn't sound that cheap to me, but it does seem a little bit out of control!

Click here to read interview with Wayne Hemingway in The Sun

Wheelie Bins On Fire, Rollin' Down The Road

Apologies to the late, great Bob Dylan (He's not dead - Ed.) for appropriating his lyrics, but there appears to have been a spate of what can only be described as 'arson about' across the island recently.

Not that earner burners and the like are unknown here in Fannit. But having torched all the big stuff (Dreamland, Pleasurama, most of Margate), the local ne'er-do-wells have now turned their attention to the slightly more trivial pursuit of popping the odd Bryant and May into our wheelie bins.

Showing a modicum of talent for the job, they are targeting the recycling bins, being, as they are, full of combustibles such as paper and plastic. Even the local fules know it's hard to set light to cat turds, soiled nappies, and used condoms.

Regular contributor Steve has put an FOI request into the boys in brown at Kent Fire and Rescue, and come up with some startling figures. In the three-and-a-bit years since records began, there have been 74 wheelie bin fires on the Ile de Thanet, that's around two per month. Out of those 74, almost a third (26) have been in Central Harbour ward, down here by our lovely Ramsgate Royal Harbour. Thus confirming my theory that the closer to large amounts of water something gets, the more likely it is to burst into flames.

I guess it's all in the name of 'fun'. But, as they say, it's all fun and games until someone gets burnt to death.

In Crematoriam

In Memoriam
Jimmy Godden
Funpark operator and, er, pyrotechnician

So, farewell
Then Jimmy Godden.

'Strike a light!'
That was
Your catchphrase.
And 'Stop arson about!'

Now an act
Of Godden
Has taken you
To that great
Funpark in the sky.

Or that other
One, down below.

Either way,
You were probably
Insured.

E. C. Richard (29)

East Of The Wantsum

Here's this week's East of the Wantsum (click it to big it). Good to see a mostly positive reception for Margate's favourite daughter in this week's Gazunder, despite her having a couple of knockers.

Right! I'm off to the Arsonists' Playground now to join in the Tracey Emin love-in, so don't expect to hear a Dickie dickie bird for a while, especially as I hear Barnacles now serves Gadds'!

Wither Margate?

Reader Dan from London writes:

I grew up in Thanet in the 80s but moved away when I went to uni. I now live and work in London as do most of my former Thanet friends, and my parents moved from Thanet to Devon in 1990. I saw your item about Google street view coming to Thanet last week and when I looked I was shocked to see so many derelict properties in Margate. The last time I was there, twenty years ago, it was a vibrant, colourful, fun, bustling seaside town.

I was so upset that I decided to come down on the train for a day at the weekend and take a look around. I can hardly express my feelings about what I saw. How on earth did this happen? I have attached some photos which you are welcome to use on your blog.

Kind regards,

Dan

Well Dan, there are enough theories around to write a PhD on the decline of Margate! It's not all bad news though. Next month there's an empty shops symposium, there's literally tens of millions being spent on arts regeneration, heritage theme park regeneration and a whole bunch of 'renewal' types beavering away. Last week another £4m was gifted for flood defences, and only today the council announced that Margate's Visitor Information Centre was the only one on the island that's going to remain open! Even Arlington House is going to get a facelift courtesy of Tesco, as long as the residents can cough up £17,000 each towards the cost of the makeover.

So the message is 'Don't get too despondent'! Any-old-hoo, I haven't been to Margate in the daylight for months, so let's take a look at wot you got:

Yep, murals on the boarded up shops. Keeps everything looking fine and dandy! Er, but not here though:

Or here:

Or, er, here:

And no, I haven't seen the Shell Ladies recently either. One or two Hell Ladies, but no Shell Ladies haha! Ooh, here's the Rice Bowl, my favourite Chinese restaurant in the Hole of Fannit!

Hang on. What's that sign in the window?

Oh well. At least you can still buy fags and your paper, can't you?

Nope. looks like Harbour News on the Piazza (Parade in old money) has scarpered too, along with the restaurant next door:

Flamin' Nora! This really is getting depressing. I could use a drink in one of them trendy new bars!

Oh yes, that place rather ironically caught fire a year or two ago. Never mind, I'll try up the high street.


Now, here's a place that's had millions spent on it. The Turner Contemporary Temporary:


Oh gawd! I see what you mean Dan. Pass the razor blade!

Confibula Comeodi

Or 'Clamp Comedians', as we say in the Queen's English. I see intrepid yourfannitinnit newshound Tom Betts has followed up his video of Dreamland's queer clampers with an exclusive front page splash today!

According to the paper at least one of the CSS Parking Solutions operatives who've been clamping little old ladies and demanding £120 for the release of their vehicles has not been properly licensed by the Security Industry Authority. It could mean that the poor, disabled 80 year olds with terminal illnesses that these people have been preying on at Dreamland, the Lido and other north island beauty spots may be able to reclaim their folding. Hurrah!

But that's not the end of Tom's revelations! The kitten-loving former Tory Mayor of Margate Ted Watt-Ruffell, who used to be Chief Clamper at Dreamland, reveals in the story that absentee former Tory councillor Panama Steve Broadhurst's company Probe no longer has the Dreamland security contract from our Jimmy's Margate Town Centre Regeneration Company. So who's keeping an eye on the place now? A carelessly discarded cigarette end, a clumsily knocked over can of unleaded, and it could be 7/4/08 all over again!

Click here to read full story in yourfannitinnit

Update: Knickers! Thanks to all who pointed out my link to yourfannitinit was bogus. It's fixed now. That's what you get for having to drink half a bottle of Buckfast just to take the edge off in the mornings.

Quad Pro Quo?

Just to prove I can speakus Latinus, just like our local biblio-bloke, my headline's a reminder that quad bikes and assorted other crotch rockets will be whizzing all over Margate Sands for the next two days (click on the pic for details).

That's if they can see the beach for the smoke, as I gather another former hotel that was being converted into apartments went up in flames in Cliftonville this morning.

Carousing with the Margate millionaires last night, the consensus was that the Arsonists' Playground would be better served for publicity and visitors if one of its many teenage mothers gave birth to quads. But that's just an opinion. To be honest the Westcoast bar was kicking, and later in the evening punters spilled out from the Mike and Bernie Winter Gardens having spent a splendid two hours in the company of my old showbiz chum Dara O'Briain. Yes, the Turnip does look like a multi storey car park, but I gather our Frank has bought up most of the property opposite and plans to put a classy establishment in, along the lines of his, er, fashionable Digby and Fayreness gastro pubs. Whether the chattering classes who visit the gallery will be satisfied with chicken in a basket remains to be seen.

Meanwhile I see Communities Secretary John Denham has urged poor old Redcar, which has just had the guts ripped out of it by Corus, to model itself on Margate by building an arts centre and painting murals on all the shop fronts. So at least Margate can look forward to Redcar overtaking it as the emptiest high street in Britain!

Click here to read about John Denham in the Northern Echo

Right Royal Rumpus Over Margate Slur

Yikes! I see a Labour election candidate in east London has got himself into a right pickle by declaring the Queen has 'more front than Margate'. Rather stupidly, he made the comment on the Facebook page of a Tory MP who is campaigning for a public holiday to mark the monarch's diamond jubilee in 2012.

Peter White, the Labourite in question, who is seeking election to Havering Borough Council, wrote: 'What is the point of celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of someone who is born into a position of privilege, she is a parasite and milks this country for everything she can. She has more front than Margate asking for extra money from the civil list. Maybe she should sell a couple of her properties'

It's got me wondering whether 'more front than Margate' can be considered an insult at all in the 21st century. It seems more of a quaint anachronism. After all, the Arsonists' Playground itself has rather less front than Dymchurch these days. Although if you equate 'front' with, say, 'smile' it would be one with several teeth extracted by arson, multiple wooden dentures, and one great big, oversize concrete molar springing up behind Droit House. Hmm, on second thoughts if I was the Queen, I wouldn't exactly be flattered by the comparison!

Click here for more on BBC News website

More BS About Margate

I'm indebted to a comment from 'Turner Burner' for alerting me to the fact that the Arsonists' Playground was featured in yesterday's Times.

This latest coverage from a national newspaper follows the same, tired old format. And I have to say it makes my blood boil. For those of you unfamiliar with the grubby world of press and PR, here's the formula:

- Thanet Council's press office rings umpteen old hacks muttering mystical keywords like 'Turner', 'Emin', 'regeneration', 'Bilbao', 'St Ives' and now 'Sir Alan Sugar'.

- Eventually one of the old hacks, who can no longer sustain a career by recycling the three ideas they've ever had, thinks it might be nice to have a day at the seaside.

- Hack arrives at seaside and is, er, treated by the press office to lunch with Our Sandy at one of his mates' cafés.

- Hack is then given the two-minute tour of the hole where the Turner Centre will eventually be, and introduced to Derek Harding from the Margate Renewal Partnership for a chat about 'regeneration' and the £60m being spent. (By the way, is it just me who thinks that figure's been plucked out of the air?)

- Hack heads back off to town on the rattler, mashing together 500 words on his laptop from Sandy and Derek's quotes and a load of other old tosh culled from the internet, and arrives home in time for G&T's at his local. Job's a good 'un.

Now, having said that, Fiona Hamilton who wrote yesterday's effort appears to have taken a few minutes from her hectic schedule to do some original research - by walking along the seafront and up the high street. During her tour she spotted 'rundown shops, fast food outlets and derelict arcades' and Dreamland which 'closed after an arson attack' (forgive me, Fiona, but Jimmy Godden had already closed it way before the, er, unfortunate fire). Later in her piece she spots 'fast-food outlets, deserted arcades and sex shops' again, along with 'gangs of youths wandering the streets'. 'Local newspapers often carry reports on knife crimes and assaults,' she adds. Yes, Fiona, they do. But probably not as often as they do in that London.

Eventually Fiona stumbles upon one Maureen Collington, who has lived in Margate for more than 20 years, and describes the approach by the council as a disgrace. 'They’re wasting all this money on art and it’s not what people want. Margate is proper seaside. But they’ve let it die.'

And a young mother shopping in the high street tells her: 'That Turner centre - it’s the biggest load of f***ing rubbish that I’ve ever heard of. What a waste of money. Most of our 15-year-olds are illiterate, they couldn’t give a stuff about going to an art gallery.'

Which only goes to prove, a little original research can go a long, long way!

The Times goes to the seaside
The Apprentice does Margate

Luke Box Jury

Phew! Thank heavens all that unpleasantness about Jade Goody is behind us!

Now, moving swiftly on (in true Thanet Life style), here's a young chap that's come to my attention who really does seem to have captured the spirit of the Arsonists' Playground. Musically speaking that is. Luke Edwards lists his influences as Pete Doherty, Arctic Monkeys, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Lily Allen, the Thanet Loop and Sandy Ezekiel, among others. His latest outing, Dreamland Ode To Margate, includes such pricelessly observed lyrics as 'over time this dreamland became a nightmare' and 'we idolise Pussycat Dolls and WAGS, binge drinkers and thugs and dirty slags'.

Do pin back your lugholes and take a listen. And Luke old bean, you really need to add Thanet's premier blog down there as one of your influences!

Luke Edwards on mySpace

You're Torched!

Click here for full story on The Mirror website

Arson About

Not for nothing is the seedy north of the island dubbed the 'Arsonists' Playground'. According to the BBC News website, Foreness Water Ski Club in Palm Bay has received a visit from the chaps in the Swan Vesta sponsored tracksuits, and may now have to be demolished.

As ever, Kent's finest are on the case. And as ever, that's probably the last we'll hear about it.

Click here to read full story on BBC News website
Click here for picture on Thanet Extra website

Does Bob Know It's Christmas Time At All?

More mutterings and mumblings have reached the old Eastcliff shell-like over Sir Gob Beldof's sudden and unexpected withdrawal from the grand Margate Christmas lights turn-on.

Sir Gob was due to perform the ceremonial switch-on this Saturday, as penance for intimating back in January that Margate was 'ugly', but had to pull out due to a last minute appointment in Qatar, according to his 'people'. Or was that an appointment to buy a new guitar? Or was he suffering from catarrh?

Er, a-n-y-hoo, it now seems that security might have been the real issue. Apparently his advisors became rather nervous over suggestions that an old-stylee lantern parade might have been held as part of the ceremony and that the former Boomtown Rats frontman and Saviour of the Third World might have had to mingle with, um, ordinary people. Which, it seems, posed an unacceptable security risk. Hence the no-show.

Meanwhile many of the decos that he would have turned on (presumably whilst surrounded by a 500 metre cordon sanitaire) have blown down in the winds we've had over the past few days. As the people who put them up didn't realise that we occasionally get a bit of a blow around these parts. Oh, and the Christmas tree has been lying on its side in the Old Town piazza for several days. And has been well and truly pissed on by the Margate twitterati over the weekend.

Happy Christmas Margate!

Update: Well, surprise surprise! Since I posted that earlier today, Sir Gob's people have announced that he will be making the onerous trip from Faversham to switch on the lights after all! He's going to do the honours at 4.30pm, just before he jets off to buy a new guitar. I presume his team are now satisfied that security will be up to his normal standard for visiting a third world country.

Click here to read full story on Gazunder website

Beeb Man To Light Up The Town

By Isle of Thanet Gazunder Entertainment Correspondent R Slicker

Council chiefs say they are 'delighted' to have found a replacement for Sir Bob Geldof to turn on Margate's Christmas lights this year.

Sir Gob was due to perform the ceremonial switch-on on 29 November, but has had to pull out due to another engagement. The Boomtown Rats frontman was panned back in January for referring to 'the ugliness of Margate' in an edition of Kent County Council's free newspaper Around Kent. He subsequently offered to attend the lighting-up ceremony by way of making amends.

Now Thanet Council has revealed that the BBC's former Political Editor, Andrew Marr, will do the honours. 'We're delighted to have found someone even uglier than Sir Bob, and Margate for that matter, to perform this service,' said a council spokeswoman. 'However, we will be advising parents not to allow children under the age of twelve to attend unless they are accompanied by an adult.'

Click here to read Sir Gob story on BBC website

Andrew Marr - 'even uglier than Sir Bob'

Duffers Investigate Dreamland Fire

Click on picture to enlarge

An Ugly Night In Margate

Crumbs! I see Sir Gob Beldof has been booked to turn on the Christmas illuminations in the Arsonists' Playground this year! If you recall, the soap-dodging celebrity was panned back in January for talking about 'the ugliness of Margate' in an edition of Kent County Council's free newspaper Around Kent. But in a subsequent ECR poll the tables were turned when he was voted uglier than the town he'd vilified.

Thanet Extra is reporting he'll be switching on the lights in November, presumably just after the last trader to leave has switched them off. I gather, though, that it won't be an event for the little 'uns. I mean, Sir Bob and our Sandy on the same stage? You wouldn't want to give the kids nightmares, would you!

Click here for full story in Thanet Extra

Fire In The Hole?

Eagle-eyed reader David sent me this snap of the fire chaps attending something or other on Margate's recently super-duperised Lower High Street on Sunday. At first glance it looks like the boys with the Bryant and Mays have been at it again, but a much more prosaic answer has been provided over on the excellent Margate Architecture blog. Apparently some scaffolding had fallen down.

When Will Margate Stop Burning?

My spies on the seedy north side of the island tell me that Margate has gone up in flames yet again. Firefighters were called to the Arcadian on Fart Hill to tackle a blaze this morning. Apparently their progress was impeded somewhat by the seemingly interminable roadworks along there as part of the crazy, pointless, multi-million pound de-dualling scheme.

The Arcadian looked to be in a sorry state anyway - just about ripe for an earner burner if you ask me. I'm told it was originally a photographer's studio in Victorian times. With the loss earlier this year of Ramsgate's Marina Restaurant, also a former Victorian photographic studio, the chances of cashing in on our marvellous, seaside heritage seem slimmer by the day.

Update: It now transpires this was a rubbish fire round the back of the building, so apologies for the, er, rubbish report. Click here to read full story in the Thanet Times.

Dusting For Prince

You know me, I could never be accused of cynicism. Ahem. But news that the Prince's Regeneration Trust has been commissioned by Dreamland developers Waterbridge to scribble yet another report on future uses for the site seems a tad like Charlie's eponymous forbear being asked to fill out a post execution survey for the Choppers' Union.

There have been so many schemes, plans and inspections regarding what is now effectively a deserted piece of prime sea front real estate with a few bits of Grade II listed charcoal scattered about, that most Thanetians have given up wasting their precious head space on the topic. Our beloved council have come out in favour of a 'mixed development', giving over the majority of the site (well, 51%) to a 'heritage theme park', with the rest consisting of the usual luxury apartments etc. Even the Save Dreamlanders appear to have given up the ghost and gone over to the other side, getting into bed with the developers on the promise of a funfair full of knackered old rides that have been bought up from other seaside towns who've been glad to see the back of them.

The Princes Regeneration Trust is no doubt likely to reiterate the same old nonsense. Meanwhile Her Majesty's Rozzers have yet to come up with anything other than a big, fat zero in their arson investigation. So if any of you harboured any thoughts of PC Plod and Big Ears coming to the rescue - dream on! (PS: I have now removed the O' from my name as this post has no doubt put paid to any chances of me copping something in the New Year's Honours.)

Click here for Dreamland story in yourfannit
Click here for press release from the Prince's Regeneration Trust

Goddenzilla Versus Margate

Flaming rollercoasters! It's amazing what you can pick up in the bargain buckets of those seedy shops in Cliftonville. This trailer for a long-forgotten horror flick was on a compilation DVD called Nice Little Burners! Will the locals escape before everything is burnt to a crisp????