Makeover

As you can see, Thanet's Premier Blog has been revamped! My team of highly trained graphic designers have been working for weeks on the relaunch, combining all the familiar elements that has made Eastcliff Richard a must-read for tens of fousands of Fanetians every month with cutting edge internet elan!

Hope you like it!

Having A Quick Rank

Yippee! I see I'm up 33 places in Wikio's UK blog ratings this month! I'm now the 521st most influential blog in Britain. Hurrah! The Krug's on me tonight!

Think Of A Link

Most of us luvverly Fannit bloggers are now running a 'news feed' in the sidebar on the right of our blogs. This means that you, the reader, can bounce around the blogosphere to your heart's content, hoovering up all the latest news and gossip about Kent's Ramsgate Peninsula. It's probably the kind of joined up thinking that's got our beloved council going all trembly at the knees and appointing a Blogsniffer General.

However, some of the blogs out there aren't playing ball. I won't name names, but Thanet Life, Thanet Strife, Promote Thanet, Tim Garbutt's Blog, The Gaddfather of Ale, Maisiegrace's Weblog, and Mrs Tara Plumbing are just seven missing links that spring to mind. Now, I realise that some (Thanet Life) are just too important to muck in with the rest of us. However, others (Thanet Strife) may just be lacking the technical confidence. To whom I'd say it really is terribly easy. And if you'd like a few tips just email me. I'm not necessarily suggesting a news feed, as that may not fit in with the aesthetic qualities of your jottings. But a link to other Thanet bloggers ensures that you're not, as we say in the blogging trade, a dead end!

Blogs Have Ears

Ahem. It's come to my attention that the, er, authorities have been crawling over my blog. I'm not at liberty to go into details, although I can confirm it's not connected with a certain Tesco bag. Quite why these people have nothing better to do than peruse this drivel, lord only knows. But there you go.

It's not the first time Thanet bloggers have provoked harassment in recent months. Clearly it gives the lie to Lovely Rebecca's editorial in last week's Gazunder when she wrote: 'If bloggers impede the work of rightly-respected people with mindless scandal-mongering, people will quickly stop reading what they write.' It seems that the contrary is the case, as the more mindless scandal mongering I put up here, the more it seems to get rightly, or perhaps wrongly, respected people's attention.

Meanwhile, don't have nightmares as I've taken one or two, um, precautions. Right, I'm off to buy a pair of sunglasses and a false beard!

Top Banana

Now that many of us Thanet bloggers run a live feed from other local blogs on their sites (see Recent Thanet Natter in my sidebar on the right), I've noticed some competition has crept in. I won't mention any names Tony, but timing your publication so that you go straight to the top won't get you anywhere. It's certainly not the sort of cheap ploy I shall be stooping to!

Technical Hitch

Thanks to all the readers who've emailed this morning to say they couldn't access my drivelly jottings. I'm indebted to Tony Flaig at Bignews Margate for finding a technical fix - according to yer man with the hot dog on Margate seafront the counterstateromeriser most of us bloggers use currently has incompatibility problems with Internet Explorer 7. Whatever that means. Anyway, I've removed it, so you should now be seeing me in glorious technicolor!

One or two of you seemed concerned that I'd been 'got at' again, but no. That'll probably be next week.

Update: Apparently this bug has now been fixed, so I've reinstated my counterstateromeriser thingo. However, if anyone is still encountering problems accessing the Isle of Thanet's premier blog using Internet Explorer, do email me at richardeastcliff@yahoo.co.uk.

One For The Blog

I'm indebted to our local biblio-bloke Michael Child for reserving me a copy of Grumpy Old Men - New Year, Same Old Crap in which the author, my old comedy writing chum David Quantick, describes blogging as 'essentially the diary of a boring bloke in Ramsgate with too much spare time on his hands'.

Hmmm. Not the first time that point has been made vis-a-vis my jottings. If you recall, it wasn't too long ago that I was described by one local Tory councillor as having so much time on my hands that I must be a 'welfare sponger with a political axe to grind'. Fortunately, however, conclusive proof appears later on page 98 that I'm not the Ramsgate blogger Quantick has in mind. 'Your bloke in Ramsgate may be vain enough to think that someone cares what he had for tea on 5 May 2006, but even he doesn't think that everyone in the world needs to know.'

Having checked my entries for 5 May 2006, I can see no mention whatsoever of what I had for tea! Phew, that's alright then. No need to remove DQ from my Christmas card list!

Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again

Although having been accused of Glitterite tendencies in the past by less savoury elements of the Thanet blogging community, maybe I should rethink that headline.

So, you may well be asking questions like: 'What about Club ECR?', 'Why isn't he festering in jail?' and 'How did those big holes get in my Warburtons Seeded Batch Loaf?' Er, well, maybe not the last one.

The truth is, dear reader, that after a long, dark night of the soul (courtesy of P&O Cruises) I have become a convert to the Church of Responsible Blogging. Yes, I know it sounds like a one way ticket to Dullsville, but there you have it. There will be no more mocking, negativity, or, indeed, gloating on this blog. Sordid comments about pillars of our local community will be deleted. End of. And if any pillars do find themselves objecting to what I write, they can do what other sensible people have done in the past and rectify the situation via the comments facility, or by emailing me. The address is at the top of the page. If you don't want your email mentioned on this blog, just mark it NOT FOR PUBLICATION.

Not that I have received any such communication recently, or found rozzers from Her Majesty's Metropolitan Police knocking on my door having followed a trail of, um, Warburtons breadcrumbs. No. What you see before you is a chastened, wiser, and hopefully more Christian millionaire celebrity. Amen to that.

PS: Just to prove I've changed, I've even got rid of those pointless exclamation marks!

Click here for a long, hard stare at my other organ The Isle of Thanet Gazunder

Life's A Mitch

As ever your super, soaraway Eastcliff Richard is first with the blogging news! Say hello to Ramsgate Mitch, who's retired from the world of serious work and now devotes his time to family, renovating his house and 'trying to keep out of mischief', amongst other things.

Mitch says: I'm going to try and use this log on a daily basis and let you know about things as they happen here. There won't be anything controversial because the whole set up is global not just one known person to another. Some of the 'blogs' I've looked at seem to want to shock and maybe push radical thinking beyond acceptable boundaries. Not here it'll be my day to day happenings that could be of interest to those who know me.

I wonder who he could mean by that?

A Crafty Rank

Not a reference to my old showbiz pal Wossie's impertinent inquiry into David Cameron's teenage fantasies. No. What I mean is that avid observers of this drivel may have noticed that I have promoted a couple of local bloggers to my 'Millionaires' Row'.

Zumi has proven to be a person of discriminating tastes, much in my own mould, and a real asset to the Millionaires' Playground. And Captain Dog seems like a thoroughly decent cove, not averse to the odd tipple, who's about to become a dad for the first time. Good luck with the nipper, Captain!

No slur intended on the other 'Exciting New Talent' still awaiting promotion. It's more a question of it being handier for me to find the blogs I visit most if they're higher up the sidebar. Nobody could ever accuse me of not being selfish!

Glued To The Blog

Urgh. Must have had an off pint at the Beer Festival yesterday. The world's just fallen out of my bottom. On second thoughts, though, it's more likely to be something to do with the Thanet District Council regulation hot dog I indulged in after the tenth pint.

Talking of which, that flying doctor chappie over in Westgate appears to have developed blogarrhea. Ten posts in less than two days, and some of them very loose indeed. There must be an election on or something.