Crappy New Year!

Hello ECR fans! In fact, hello generally!

As you can see from the press release below, I've wrested control of the old blog back from those chaps at Angloway Media - hurrah! It was a tough fight, but once I offered the princely sum of one whole British sov, they caved in. So it's out with the old and in with, er, the old again.

What, I hear you ask, is new for 2014 then? Well, not a lot really. Our beloved council is still struggling to clean up after the festivities, and has had to apologise for getting it sooooo wrong with the new recycling system. Same old, same old.

Along the trendy East Cliff here in the Millionaires' Playground, the shelters have been vandalised once more. My contact in the trench coat and trilby writes: 'The shelter nearest the kiosk on Victoria Parade was wrecked last night. Five windows smashed....'

The same East Cliff spy also clocked another of these recently renovated shelters, the one closest to the park, smashed on New Year's Day, adding: 'It also reeks of human poo.' Eurgh!

It's not the first time these shelters have been vandalised, and you have to wonder what kind of nitwit knuckle-draggers are perpetrating these acts of wilful incivility. As you know, I'm not the hang 'em and flog 'em type, but I have to say I'd be the first in line to pop along and blow raspberries if the woefully short arm of the law were ever to catch up with them and they were made to do community service!

Better news, however, on the beer front. I was invited along to the launch of Gadds' Uberhop last night at the excellent Ramsgate Music Hall. This splendid, lagerised (technical term) beer was first brewed for the Planet Thanet Beer Festival in 2010, and has been revived due to popular demand. I must say, I don't remember much about the 2010 Beer Festival, thanks mostly to the Uberhop. Similarly, I don't recall all that much about last night! Happy days!

Gimme Shelter

Or more appropriately 'gawd gimme strength', as the rubber-lipped one also no doubt intoned at some point.

According to reader Ben, this damage was done to one of the recently restored shelters here on the East Cliff yesterday afternoon. The vandals were apparently four nippers, aged around nine or ten, who were, er, getting satisfaction out of heaving stones at the shelter.

The rozzers were called and some names have been taken, let's hope they don't have any sympathy for the little devils. (That's enough Rolling Stones tracks - Ed.)

I had been meaning praise the restoration of these Victorian edifices (14 in all along our lovely front), which the Ramsgate Society supervised having won a £500K grant from the Townscape Heritage Initiative. My picture below shows their previous, parlous state, back in ye olden days (2007), after they'd spent a number of years being neglected by that other gang of mindless vandals, Thanet Council.

Prom

Finally, our beloved council has at last restored the backs of those shelters that have been missing since February, although I'm not sure plywood is in tune with the Victorian theme.

Still, if the worst comes to the worst, and I end up sleeping rough on the seafront like my old newsreading chum Ed Mitchell does in Brighton, I can now be assured of a cosy spot. Hurrah!

Shelter Skelter

All the recent hard work on those shelters here on Ramsgate's swanky East Cliff seems to have been worth it, as these before and after pictures show:

West shelter, February 2007

West shelter, November 2007

East shelter, February 2007

East shelter, November 2007

Hats off to the Foreshores Department of our beloved local council!

Getting Our Backs Up

Following last week's ECR fonejack, Thanet Council appear to have got a wriggle on and are finally replacing the backs of the shelters here on Ramsgate's swinging East Cliff, which they removed to 'repair' eight months ago.

You'll recall that the nice lady in the Foreshores Department, who was responsible for these shelters but couldn't help with the fountain that's 20 feet away because that's the responsibility of the Open Spaces Department, promised on the phone that, with the summer 'rush' now over, the department's contractors would be able to turn their full attention to the less urgent task of, er, keeping the foreshores looking nice. And it seems as if she was as good as her word!

Apparently they'd had a lot of trouble with shelters being vandalised. Rotters, those vandals. They come along, take half your shelter away on the pretext of repairing it, then they disappear for eight months. Shocking!

Prom Service?

Word reaches me that some of you have been having a spot of bother getting through to the right department when dealing with our beloved Thanet District Council on the phone. So I thought I'd give it a go myself. Here's what happened (the voices have been disguised to protect the innocent)...