Booze News

Noooooooooooooo! Eagle-eyed reader Ken has sent me this snap of an alcohol licence review notice which has gone up in the window of Waitrose, here in the Millionaires' Playground.

The supermarket is probably one of the few reasons there is any kind of discerning middle class still left in Ramsgate, if not the whole of Thanet, with the booze counter being a Mecca for anyone with a palate that stretches beyond White Lightning and cheap, fizzy leg opener. Ken says:

Apparently the police are requesting a review of Waitrose's licence because of the high level of reported incidents of shoplifting etc from the store. The store apparently reports all incidents and regularly provides names of offenders and security video confirmation but the police do nothing. They are now requesting a review of the licence because of the high offence levels reported. Who would blame Waitrose for shutting up shop because of such stupidity. So where is YOU CALL - WE WILL COME? [See previous item]

Quite. And knowing how jealous our Margate-centric council feels about Ramsgate's revival, I wouldn't be surprised if they withdrew the licence out of spite in the hope that it would drive out Waitrose, leaving us with another eyesore of a building in the centre of town. Or perhaps they're in cahoots with their friends at Tesco!!!??!!!

Janet Sinks Her Teeth Into Thanet Earth

Lorks! I see my old chum Janet Street Porter has had a right go at Thanet Earth in today's Daily Wail. The begnashered one writes:

Last Saturday, I bought some tasty tomatoes in Tesco. On the packet it said they had been grown in Kent. I paid a visit to the 'farm' and discovered it was called Thanet Earth, situated on 220 acres of prime farmland overlooking the beautiful village of Minster and the beaches of Sandwich Bay.

There aren't any fields at Thanet Earth, just an enormous box, the largest greenhouse in the UK, the size of ten football pitches. The lights are on all night, and inside are growing millions and millions of tomatoes.

At the moment, the site is not complete - there are a handful of these enormous greenhouses growing strawberries, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes and salad ingredients, but by this summer, there will be seven. It's larger than an airfield.

How on earth did Thanet Earth get past the local planners? Because they promised employment. For the sake of just 550 jobs, a piece of Kent the size of 80 football pitches has been obliterated by these monstrosities.

OK, they recycle their own water and are energy efficient, and my tomatoes only travelled ten miles, but they've been grown in an environment more like Mars than Margate, fed hydroponically with nutrient enriched water, under lights switched on and off by computer.

And as we now know, not even 550 Thanet jobs Janet! But Ms Street Porter, who lives up the road in Whitstable and has been spotted noshing in Ramsgate restaurants, is mainly exercised by the new Waitrose TV campaign starring Delia Smith and Bloomin' Hestenthal, whom she describes as the Eric and Ernie of TV cookery. I too have a beef about our local Waitrose. Arriving near to closing time the other day, I was confronted by this:

I duly did. And then the blasted thing shut! Kuh!

What's Black And White And Red All Over?

Why, Ramsgate's new, super-duper library, of course!

Pootling down to Waitrose earlier to stock up on Millionaire Shortbread for the weekend, I was accosted by a KCC representative canvassing my views on what colour the interior of the rebuilt bibliotheque should be. My first instinct was, of course, to opine that it should be reminiscent of the glorious red, gold and green interior of Pugin's Grange here in the Millionaires' Playground.

That suggestion was, however, greeted with what I took to be rather huffy disdain, and I was shuffled over to a board covered in photos of municipal (urgh!) libraries from around the county. I must say they all looked more like something Linda Barker might have designed for a children's ward after a bad night on acid, but I eventually settled on a not-too-tawdry puce-coloured scheme. Having pointedly asked if the library, which burnt down in 2004 and is due to re-open later this year, would contain a museum as before ('No'), and whether we would be consulted on which books would be stocked ('No, we've already bought them'), I turned to the thorny question of whether it would be mostly a 'One-Stop Benefits Shop' as has proved all the go in Margate. 'No, that hasn't exactly been a rip-roaring success,' came the rather sharp response.

Meanwhille I see that our local biblio-bloke, Michael Child, met with a lukewarm reception when he tried to take photos of the ongoing works the other day. You can see his report, and pictures, here.

Ramsgate Ad

And just to even the score, here's that much nicer advertisement for Waitrose featuring Ramsgate! This one you can click on.