Richard's Thanisaurus

Following the sackful of emails I received after publishing a few helpful Thanetian phrases for our water skiing visitors this week, I've been persuaded to produce a Richard's Thanisaurus. The aim of my Thanisaurus will be to collect terms and phrases unique to our lovely little island here in the tip of Kent. You'll find a new definition in my sidebar each day, which you can cut out and keep to form a beautiful, leather bound volume (leather binding £35.95 at all good WH Smiths). If you have any suggestions, email me at richardeastcliff@yahoo.co.uk

In other news, I've removed the Heras temporary fencing counter-uppy thingo from the sidebar as, barring the odd zit or two, much of it has now gone from the East Cliff at least. Also, I see from our local biblio-bloke's excellent blog that there's a meeting of the RAF London Kent Ramsgate Manston International Airport Consultative Committee this afternoon at 2pm. Apparently it's not open to the public (why?), but if you want to get up there and make your voices heard over the racket I can't see any reason not to. Who knows, perhaps Iron Maiden frontman and Astraeus Airlines pilot Bruce Dickinson will be there to give you a quick chorus of Run to the Hills!

Thanipedia

Not for nothing am I known as an ideas man, and this week I've been toying with the notion of inaugurating a 'Thanipedia', a kind of online encyclopedia of all things Thanetian along the lines of Wikipedia.

The old Eastcliff brainbox clicked into gear as I was trying to research the number of fires the Ile has witnessed in the past decade. Finding what I wanted via Google was doing my nut, but imagine if there was a single repository of knowledge where you could rustle up that kind of info quick as a flash. All Thanet history, places, people, and concepts (e.g. 'arson', 'pit bull', 'track suit') would be there.

Mind you, we'd have to keep a close eye on it. Even Wikipedia, which can be edited by anyone on the web, suffers from the occasional attack of mischief. Last week the former Labour leader Michael Foot was temporarily dead for a few hours (as opposed to just looking as if he's been dead for the past 30 years), and the cause of death for one Herb Peterson, inventor of the Egg McMuffin, was rather cruelly given as 'salivary gland cancer' until someone who didn't get the joke removed it.

So come on Thanet, what are you waiting for? You've got the knowledge and the know-how, and I've got the sponds. Let's get to it!