Ramsgate To Get Bayeux Tapestry

As my picture shows, the local youth have already discovered the new hoarding around the old hoarding on the Royal Sands (aka Pleasurama aka Titanic) eyesore here in the Millionaires' Playground.

Now comes a circular from Ramsgate Firster and not so teeny-tiny councillor Gerry O'Donnell saying he's got permission from the site's (extraordinarily slow) developer SFP Ventures and their contractor Cardy to 'paint murals' on it. Gerry witters: 'I have agreed that Ramsgate Town Council should take some overview leadership to ensure that the artwork is of the highest standard achievable in all circumstances'. Hurrah! Let's re-animate Van Gogh!

Er, not quite, as Family Guy lookalike G'OD's missive concludes: 'There should be an element of continuity to underline that we are a community - think Bayeux Tapestry.'

Oh, right you are Gerry. Bayeux Tapestry eh? Hmmm. I'm thinking. I'm thinking bows, arrows, Norman invasion. I know! Seeing as it's not unknown for the locals to stand on the cliff top flicking what I believe are called 'vickies' at the cliffs of France on a clear summer's day, how about this?

Update: I've now put in a request for funding to set up mypleasuramahoarding.com, along the lines of the famous mydavidcameron.com. To get the ball rolling, leave your suggestions below and I'll see what I can do!

Teeny-Tiny Council Gets Go Ahead

As well as the momentous decision on China Gateway last night, our beloved council had other business to attend to, such as granting Ramsgate a town council. First Ramsgate Firster and all-round Family Guy Gerry O'Donnell writes:

One small step for a town council, one giant leap for Ramsgate. Perhaps the district councillors were tired after the bruising three hour pitched battle over the China Gateway. Perhaps.

The churlishness with which they voted in a parish/town council for Ramsgate spoke volumes about the institutional malady that infects the district council chamber.

Sandy Ezekiel baldly stated that the Ramsgate Town Council will be brought into effect after the 1st April 2009 and that elections to it would take place “probably” in September 2009. No words of congratulation for the people of Ramsgate who, he acknowledged, had voted for their own town council in the District Council’s Referendum. There was no wishing them well. Just a minimalist statement that made you feel it was a molar being extracted without anaesthetic.

Richard Nicholson, seconding the motion, was his usual ungracious self and offered no words of good will for the people of Ramsgate. Nor were there any words of congratulation from any of the other Ramsgate District councillors. The people of Ramsgate should take note.

And then came the vote.

As chairman of Ramsgate First it was a wonderful moment. The shine was not taken off by the miserliness in which the motion was carried. Four years of hard, tiring, often frustrating work. But it was for Ramsgate, and for me and the supporters of Ramsgate First that was reason enough.

I believe that Ramsgate now has an opportunity to build itself a better future with a Town Council that will more jealously guard its inheritance and more boldly assert its future potential. No longer will Ramsgate be an afterthought in the District Council’s deliberations.

Now the really hard work begins. We must make sure we elect Town Councillors that really care about the town and who are willing to work.

Well done Ramsgate.

Finger In The Dyke?

Regular contributor Mr Dickens of Broadstairs writes:

Your recent picture of the Major Domo of Ramsgate in waiting reminded me of one of my favourite esoteric websites - menwholooklikeoldlesbians.blogspot.com.

I think he could qualify as a mature rug muncher. Do we have any more Thanet celebrities who might make the grade?

PS: You really must stop your middle class jibes about Broadstairs. I would go on longer but I have to put Flavia and Hugo to bed, varnish the Morris Traveller, compose a Haiku for the Broadie, and still catch the last part of Tess of the D'Urbivilles (volume down whilst I read from the original Hardy).

Click here to visit Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians

Ramsgate Front Page News

As is only appropriate for the island's premier town, the Millionaires' Playground has been splashed on the front pages of two of the local tabloids in the past 24 hours!

First Ramsgate Firster Gerry O'Donnell, aka Family Guy, adorns the front of the Thanet Times, looking for all the world like the man who is going to cost us all half a million smackeroonies, that being the amount touted for running Ramsgate's new teeny-tiny council which is being set up next year. Hmmm. Not sure whether Our Jezza will be too happy with that!

And the excellent yourfannit (available free in the corner of all your favourite local stores, usually behind the twelve boxes of Haribo etc.) tells the tale of another prominent Ramsgatonian, Tim Garbutt, who has apparently spent time in the clink after a rather bizarre argument over his company's name, and a refusal to pay court costs. Tim's wife runs the world famous Surin Thai restaurant on Harbour Street. Who knows, now that he's got a taste for it, perhaps they'll be putting porridge on the menu!

Click here to read Ramsgate Town Council story in Thanet Times
Click here to read Tim Garbutt story in yourfannitinnit

Separated At Birth?

Regular contributor Samantha writes:

I wonder if anyone else has spotted the similarity between our campaigning candidate for Thanet South, Gerry O'Donnell, and the popular cartoon character Family Guy? Are they by any chance related?

Cartoon character

Ramsgate campaigner

As a bonus, Samantha, I found this epic sequence on BoobTube of our Jezza battling a giant cock through the streets of Thanet. Watch out for a cameo appearance by our local, banner tugging Tory councillor!

Man Picks Up Dog And Gets Ear Chewed Off

Lorks! If this email from Ramsgate Firster Gerry O'Donnell is anything to go by, it seems he sent lovely Gazunder editor Rebecca Smith away with a flea in her proverbial after a phone moan about him giving rival paper yourfannitinnit the exclusive on his parliamentary bid:

Rebecca,

Thank you for your 'phone call. I gave exclusivity to Your Thanet over this and another story because they have played fair with Ramsgate First. I do not believe that we have had a fair shake with the Gazette or Times.

We do not ask for nor expect favours, nor do we expect to have letters published. But over the past year I got the message loud and clear from you that we would struggle for any kind of fair treatment from the G & T. The general mood in Ramsgate is that G & T is not really interested in us. You may demur, but that is the word on the street. I have no doubt that this exchange will appear in Smudger as 'Gerry O'Donnell screams blue murder at the Gazette.' But that is what we have come to expect. Fiction.

I wish you and the Conswervatives well which is more that I expect you wish us.

Gerry

Thems fighting words, Gerry! Yee-ha! Break out your voting irons, it's time for some campaignin'! (And keep your minces peeled for my small cameo at the end!):

Gerry Has Eyes On Ladyman's Seat

Cripes! I see Ramsgate Firster Gerry O'Donnell has declared himself in the running as MP for Thanet South at the next general election! In an exclusive interview with yourfannit, Gerry says: 'It's important to raise the level of political debate here and get people talking about the issues which affect us.' Mr O'Ramsgate will be up against incumbent Labour MP Dr Ladyboy, and Tory babe Laura Sandys.

Quite why Gerry chose to break the news exclusively to yourfannit and not the more established Isle of Thanet Gazunder could be explained by an email I received from him recently in which he opined that the Gazunder's editor, the lovely Rebecca Smith, is 'anti-Ramsgate' and 'not up to the job'!

Click here to read full story in yourfannit

Teeny-Tiny Tears Over Teeny-Tiny Council

Regular contributor Steve reports that Friday's inaugural, go-it-alone meeting of the Tim Garbutt inspired alternative Ramsgate council was attended by 'three men and a dog'. Now Chief O'Donnell, head Ramsgate Firster, writes:

Tim Garbutt has used the back of my email to propose setting up his own 'Ramsgate Town Council'. He wanted a public meeting and a committee formed to 'sack the Charter Trustees, TDC, etc etc'. I found Tim's proposals ludicrous and Ramsgate First rejects them utterly.

Before advising those of you who had received my previous email of this fact I stopped off at Albion House on Friday 22nd May at 7.00pm to attend Tim's proposed meeting so that I could inform him personally of the contents of this email.

Though the meeting was advertised in the Gazette it appears that nobody at Albion House was informed and consequently Tim and a couple of other people were unable to gain admittance. I therefore informed him on the doorstep that his proposals were unacceptable and that all he was doing was possibly jeopardising the parish council. There are some churls in TDC who are itching to scratch Ramsgate parish council and that Tim's intervention might give them ammunition.

I have to say I like Tim Garbutt. There is no doubting his sincerity but his waywardness, especially in his hatred of TDC, often leads him to express thoughts that frighten off others. I think Tim thinks that I am now some kind of Uncle Tom - betraying his own. He is wrong of course. Often is.

It is quite obvious that Tim's views are shared by a few, a very few: less than a handful of people judging by the attendance on Friday and that in no way is he representative of the overwhelming majority of the people of Ramsgate.

I hope, therefore, not to hear some councillors suggest there is any linkage between Mr Garbutt and Ramsgate First or the good people of Ramsgate in their pursuit of their own parish/town council. There is none.

To which Tim Garbutt has responded:

Gerry's opinions are all true: however next meeting of Ramsgate Town Council 7pm Friday. In Ramsgate Town Hall or on the steps again.

18 months and no Town Council is too long. TDC is a failed council. Could Richard Samuel provide the keys?

You have to admire the fighting spirit Thanet Council generates. I'll be the first to admit that I'm no great admirer of the Uranians, as regular readers will have realised all too long ago. But I'm afraid that anti-council initiatives seem to spring up in these parts with the same kind of monotonous regularity as luxury apartment blocks, only to subsequently crumble quicker than our lovely listed buildings. So for better or worse, I think I'll be sticking to the current Tweedledum/Tweedledee political arrangement for the time being.

The Revolution Starts At 7pm

Local businessman and publicist Tim Garbutt has emailed to say he's going ahead with his plan to create 'a de facto Ramsgate town council', following TDC's tardy response to the overwhelming desire for more local representation here in the Cannes of Kent. He writes:

The meetings are from 7pm this Friday and next Friday at Albion House (Ramsgate’s Town Hall) - on the steps if it remains locked - to create the Town Council.

Why don’t you stand: you care about the town - put forward a list of nominees too? I think 6-10 people is about the right number?

Well, I'm afraid modesty would prevent me from getting involved Tim. Plus, as regular readers have probably noted, I'm cursed with a certain, er, hamfisted approach when it comes to politics. Still, if there's a free lunch at Mrs Garbutt's world-renowned Surin restaurant on offer, I may be persuaded to change my mind!

FOI FYI

As exclusively predicted last week in your super, soaraway Eastcliff Richard, Ramsgate Firster Gerry O'Donnell has now put in an FOI request to Thanet Council demanding to know what progress has been made towards establishing a teeny-tiny council here in the Millionaires' Playground. In an official letter today to TDC's Chief Executive, Chief O'Donnell writes:

I have been informed by the Communities and Local Government department that Thanet District Council has been allowed to organise the process (as allowed under the 2007 Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act, specifically, chapters 3 & 4.)

As you are aware from my previous email dated 7th May to the Department for Communities and Local Government, we in Ramsgate First, who organised the Petition that triggered the whole process, are concerned by the delays that have attended the implementation of Thanet District Council’s request to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in December 2006 that Ramsgate be granted its own parish council.

I have been previously advised by the department of Communities and Local Government that the delays are entirely of Thanet District Council’s making and that but for these delays there was every reason to suppose that elections to a Ramsgate Parish Council could have taken place in May 2008.

I am now requesting you, under the Freedom of Information Act, to advise Ramsgate First and the Press, within 21 days, of what you are proposing to recommend to the Full Council, and when, so as to fulfil, as soon as possible, the overwhelming democratic will of the electorate of the unparished areas of Ramsgate, as expressed in a referendum organised by Thanet District Council in November 2006, which was to have their own Parish/Town Council.

Yours faithfully,
Gerry O’Donnell
Chairman
Ramsgate First

Strong words from our Jezzer there. Let's hope they have the desired effect!

Parish Pump

News just in from Ramsgate First's impressive cliff top HQ (see above) - head RFer Gerry O'Donnell is apparently on the warpath over the way TDC has been dragging its heels setting up a teeny-tiny council for the Millionaires' Playground.

Despite overwhelming support for a parish council in a petition, and in a subsequent TDC-funded referendum, there's still no date for elections, or, indeed, any sign that anything is happening at all. Now Chief O'Donnell has put in an FOI application to the government department for governing local government asking what progress, if any, TDC have made towards getting their balls rolling.

The suspicion is that they'd prefer to kick these particular balls into touch, using recent legislation which gives them full control over local arrangements, but I'm told that, as the Ramsgate decision was taken before the new rules came in, they'll have more luck finding Lord Lucan partaking of a quick snifter down the Belgian Bar!

Yellow Streak

I've received an email from GOD. Well, that's how it's signed.

Actually it's from First Ramsgate Firster Gerry O'Donnell, who's rather worked up about the Eastcliff Residents' Association's objections to the new colour scheme he's implemented as part of his tenureship of Ronnie Corbett's teeny-tiny kiosk, here on the East Cliff. My photo shows the kiosk before it was, er, defaced. The white bit at the bottom is now a fetching shade of canary yellow. Gerry writes in his 'godcast':

It appears thousands of people have complained at this desecration. Though to date, none as yet, have been willing to put their names to these complaints. ERA it seems knows who they are and quite rightly refuses to tell O'Donnell, an ERA member, of them.

O'Donnell's excuse is that the kiosk is a holiday and visitor ice cream parlour and needs to 'attract' custom.

It is time this troublemaker was shown the door.

Come on Eastcliff Richard, you've got the rope, let's show this criminal what we think of him.

Late news. O'Donnell is planning to erect huge signs, forty feet high stating "Kiosk OPEN" to catch the passing landing aircraft.

He must be stopped. NOW-W-W-W-W-W

GOD

God desecrating his own works, eh? Now I wonder what the theologians would make of that!

Ramsgate's Big Weekend

The Millionaires' Playground is the place to be this weekend! This evening sees the Summer Fiesta at our out-of-this-world East Cliff Bandstand, featuring the St Peter's Stage Band, Vocal Expressions a la Mode, and The Grumpy Gypsy (courtesy of Councillor/Doctor Doctor/Councillor Simon Moores).

And tomorrow we're holding our rip-snorting carnival, with scantily clad luvvlies parading up and down the front dressed in only the skimpiest of sequin-spangled bathing suits. Or am I getting confused with that dream I had last week? New attractions for this year's carnival are:

The Mayor Hair Bunch: Our bouffoned tonseuristas will be handing out free mayor-alike candy floss to the kiddies.

Turn The Councillor Blue: Councillor Mike Taylor, who was recently elected our first and only Ramsgate First representative, but then discovered he had 'always been a Conservative at heart', has sportingly agreed to be paraded around town on the back of a truck and pelted with rotten plums.

Guess The Weight: Plucky Thanet Council officers have volunteered to stand on the rotting Albion House balcony. All you have to do is guess how many it'll take before it collapses!

The weather, however, may not entirely play ball, with the East Cliff bash looking like fun in the sun, while the carnival might end up being a pain in the rain. If only people didn't jet off to sunnier parts and leave our traditional resorts to suffer the climate consequences, we might get our summer back!

A Bit Of Politics

I have to say that the sight of Alastair Campbell attempting to act as he read out his dreary diaries on BBC2 earlier was enough to put me off my supper. I only met him once, fortunately. Verdict? The politest expression I can think of is 'charmless git'.

But it's reminded me of the political shenanigans much closer to home. I'm talking about the Ramsgate Firsters, who successfully campaigned for a teeny-tiny council last year. They even got themselves a chap, Mike Taylor, elected to Thanet Council in May's local polls.

Since then, though, things appear to have gone pear shaped. Mike Taylor flounced off, all Macca-like, from Ramsgate First a few weeks ago citing differences with Ramsgate First First Minister Gerry O'Donnell. He says he's in talks with a national party, but has yet to reveal which particular ship he's jumping to. Will it be UKIP? Nope, been there, done that, got the T shirt. The Blue Rinsers maybe? Perhaps he likes the look of that toffee-nosed twonk on a push bike? Nope, been there, done that, etc. Surely he's not going to cling to the hoary old bosom of Ming The Charisma-less? Nah. Must be talking to Labour, then.

Interestingly Gerry O'Ramsgate has yet to tell his side of the story. Gerry? Are you out there? Fancy spilling the beans? My comments page is always open!

Hazy Days

The beautiful weather continues here in the Cannes of Kent. Looking out from the East Cliff towards Big Deal and Getting Walmer, a sea haze accentuates the coast all the way round to Dover. Across the Channel, a dark brown strip hovers above the Frenchies.

What better way to while away the afternoon than watching the world go by, licking an ice cream outside Ronnie Corbett's teeny-tiny kiosk, and chewing the cud with Ramsgate Firster Gerry O'Donnell? Which is precisely what I did.

Ramsgate First First, Labour Second, Tories Third

No, not a prediction of the local election result by my clairvoyant showbiz pal Mystic Meg, but the order in which their campaign leaflets have plopped through my letterbox.

Curiously I've yet to hear from the Mingers. Maybe that's because they've given up the ghost round here. Or maybe they're conducting an invisible campaign, in line with their policy of electing an invisible leader.

Ramsgate First First

Hurrah! The first piece of local election literature plopped through my letterbox this morning, and it's from those Ramsgate First people who want their own teeny-tiny council here in Kent's answer to Monte Carlo.

Couldn't see much in the way of policies, though, apart from repeated and, to be frank, rather repetitive reassurances (eat your heart out Wossie!) that they want to put Ramsgate, er, first.

Still, they're hoping for a swathe of teeny-tiny councillors, and promise 'we do as you say', so I might pop round to their HQ at 45 King Street later on and suggest they wear their Reg Grundies on their head and go 'wibble'. That should liven the local political scene up a bit!