Reds Over Our Heads 2

I asked for photos, and you sent them in their millions! Well, one reader sent millions at least. Here's regular contributor Walter's best shot.

By way of contrast, our local biblio-bloke Michael Child has sent me this pic of the Arrows at Manston in 1968 before, as Michael puts it, 'elf and safety':

Cripes! They must have worn cast iron undercrackers in them days!

Well, we've been treated to all types of military hardware over the Millionaires' Playground today, so I'm just off down the strip to numb my migraine with a couple of bottles of Krug. A bientot!

Reds Over Our Heads

If you're wondering what the noise is in the next few days, it'll be the Red Arrows! The RAF's display team are due to be using RAF Chas 'n' Dave Margate Manston Tracey Emin Kent London International Airport as a base for various air shows in the south east until Sunday (click here for more info).

If anyone gets a decent photo, you know where to send it!

Mad, Bad and Sad

Yet again Thanet politics is giving off more heat than light, as the row between true blue Dr/Cllr Biggles and Labour new boy Cllr Nottingham intensifies into something akin to the mud wrestling that Westgate Pavilion will be putting on in the not too distant future. Or the, er, cockfighting scene between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates in Ken Russell's Women in Love.

Having said that, it's more a case of the red corner slinging all the mud and the blue corner not letting it stick at the moment. While Cllr Nottingham carries on like a proverbial pork chop that has overdone it on the Collis Browne mixture, Biggles is flying way above it in clear air, not rising to the bait. Which probably means he knows whatever it is Notters knows, but is trying his hardest to steer clear of the storm clouds for as long as he can. God help us if it's something to do with his doctorate, which, as long-termers in the Thanet blogosphere will know, is a very touchy subject for Our Simes.

So that's the mad and bad, but what about the sad? Enter absentee Cllr Stephen Broadhurst, the Panama-based right blue member for Dane Valley. Steve rarely paddles his canoe back from the central American state to attend anything so demeaning as a council meeting or a surgery with his constituents, it appears, and now Chippy Tone has caught someone signing into the council chamber on his behalf so that he can collect his £5K in expenses for passing 'go'. Tut tut! Could it have been Steve's security firm underling, Arfur Mullard lookalike and Margate Mayor Ted Watt-Ruffell? It seems unlikely, but I think we should be told!

Meanwhile expect one or either or all three to emulate the late, great, lovely Oliver Reed's party piece by getting up on the bar and whipping their kecks down at a pub near you in the not too distant future, uttering the immortal line: 'Now has anybody seen a cock as big as that? No, I rather think you haven't.'

'Arrowing Experience

Holy ear defenders! I think I'm going to have to switch off my deaf aid! Both the Red Arrows and that knackered old jumbo have just started dive bombing my cliff top mansion.

I presume the dastardly Doctor has something to do with this. Maybe he didn't like my charity suggestion after all!

Margate Bignews

Quite why I should be publicising Margate, let alone a jolly organised by Thanet Council, is a question only Dr Fraudstein, my celebrity psychiatrist, can answer. But I've been asked to point out that the Arsonists are hosting their 'Big Event' on both days this weekend.

Actually it's a replacement for the Kent Air Show which has been held at Palm Bay for the last two years, but whose organisers went nipples up earlier this year. Still, it's free, and there is a full programme of flying, including the splendid Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, as well as clowns, stunt motorcycle riding, bands, and a beer tent. Acts which particularly caught my eye were:

Bruce Airhead – a man and a six foot balloon
Skate Naked –dazzling duo, winners of five international festivals, and
Zios and Zigra our resident robots (eh?).

You'll also get the chance to enjoy Clown Bluey, Bob Jobbins and a chainsaw carver.

Full Saturday Programme
Full Sunday Programme

It seems that the Red Arrows are only appearing on Saturday, so in case you miss them here they are at the Isle of Wight Festival last weekend, as filmed by my fellow Thanet blogger Big Blog Adem:

Right, that's enough of that Margate talk, it's made me feel a trifle queasy. I'm off to see my shrink.