Sweet!

Toddling around Ramsgate this afternoon, I was chuffed to see that these long-abandoned premises at the end of Harbour Street have been almost instantaneously transformed into a Mr Simms Olde Sweet Shoppe, just like the one they have in The Smoke (Margate)!!

Mr Simms is exactly the kind of emporium we need here in the Millionaires' Playground, what with its 500-penny chews and £14.65 bars of chocolate. That should topple the towers of Haribo and other chewy crap from the counters of the local Costcutters!

Down on the Croisette, things were buzzing. Amusement arcades and ice cream parlours were packed, even the Maritime Museum was open. And everywhere tourists were being dive bombed by flying poodles, keen to snatch the cornets out of their hands. If I hadn't pinched m'self, I'd have thought I was in a thriving seaside town!!

We're Illegally Parked On The Road To Nowhere

It was such a lovely weekend here in the Millionaires' Playground that I decided to whip out my old throbber and give it a bit of a thrashing!

Now that the powers-that-be have opened up the barrier between the harbour and the port, us millionaires are spoilt for choice - take the high road out of town, along London Road, or the low road along Military Road, then out along the port access road and through our lovely, multi-million pound tunnel. I prefer the latter as, fittingly for the Cannes of Kent, it feels just like taking a spin along the jolly old Corniche!

Oddly, though, there were still a number of illegally parked foreign lorries waiting for ferries, which ferries, as we now know, will probably never come. The port itself was deserted. Not a sausage...

To their credit, Kent Highways have done some excellent work installing wooden bollards along the cliff, thus preventing lorries parking illegally on that side. But that, the £32m on the tunnel, £87m on the new dual carriageways around Cliffsend, and the £500,000 spent by TDC on dredging the port for the Ostend Spirit all seem a little, er, pointless now.

I guess it's a case of 'will the last lorry leaving Port Ramsgate please turn out the lights.' Oh, silly me. Kent County Council have already thought of that one too!

Ramsgate Rated As Staycation Destination

As we all know, staying in the UK is the new going abroad this year, so I was chuffed to see the Millionaires' Playground given a rave review on the influential Have A Lovely Time blog this week.

The blog describes itself as encompassing 'holiday and activity reports - by parents for parents', and their correspondent Alice Castle, taking her cue from me (natch), dubs our island 'the new Riviera'. Staying in a rented cottage in Ramsgate for four days with her two girls, Alice waxes lyrical about being only two minutes from Waitrose, the 'pretty town centre' and Peter's Fish Factory. Unfortunately she then takes a wrong turn and ends up going to the Dickens House Museum and Morellis in 'Margate', but then it's an easy mistake to make.

So the next time our council duffers tell you the bucket and spade holiday is dead, and that we must now make our way in the world by assembling Chinese tut and disassembling dumped old DC10s, point them in Alice's direction. And as a little reminder of just how your council has let you down in the last 20 years, here's a montage from the Jolly Boy's Outing episode of Only Fools and Horses, filmed in Margate in 1989. Watch it, count all the things that have been bulldozed or burnt down, and weep!

Climate Chance

With yet another clear blue sky and brilliant sunshine over the old cliff top mansion, it's got me pondering the magnificent micro-climate we enjoy here in the tip of Kent.

After all, when Thanet Earth started growing tomatoes the size of footballs and cucumbers that would make a porn star green with envy, they said this was the only area in the UK with the right growing conditions for their exotic crops. Although the transport links and regeneration status also came into the equation. So why shouldn't our Mediterranean-style beaches attract carbon-anxious, pound-poor Brits this summer?

Yes, yes, I know we've been told the bucket and spade holiday is dead (©1970-2009 Thanet Council), but just take a look at the average summer sunshine figures from the Met Office for 1971-2000:

There we are, bathed in a bright band of orange, and I'm not talking about the rivers of piss running down Broadstairs high street on a Friday night! And our rainfall figures knock those West Country yokels into a cocked proverbial:

The more brown, the less rain. Or possibly the more barkers' nests. Any old how, proof positive that the Ile de Thanet is well on its way, climatewise at least, to becoming the new St Tropez. And with the Met Office saying today that this summer will be 'hot and dry', I for one predict cocktails by the pool all season!

More stats from the Met Office
Met Office forecasts 'hot and dry' summer this year

Deputy Blog

Intrigued by Labour Deputy Leader Harriet Harman's mention of Ramsgate on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday, I've tracked down her blog, and indeed she has some very nice things to say about the Cannes of Kent following her visit here in September:

Ramsgate really was very charming... very pretty harbour... it’s a lovely place.

Well, I must say my opinion of the Labour deputy leadership has gone up tenfold reading that! And she's so much easier on the eye than the previous incumbent!

Cannes Do

I see from today's Sadscene that a chap from Cliftonville is planning to put Thanet on the movie map by holding an international film festival on the Ile.

Carl Tooney, known to his chums at Warner Bros as 'Looney' Tooney (er, not really, I just made that up) is organising the first, week long festival for June next year. And what better place to hold it than Ramsgate, the Cannes of Kent? (Note to self: must bring forward opening of my new theme restaurant Planet Thanetwood.)

Speaking of which, the Millionaires' Playground is due to feature in a Waitrose ad airing from Monday. The 40 second commercial shows organic Kentish apple juice being delivered to our local store, where you can also buy deliciously appropriate Millionaire Shortbread. Ha! That'll teach the Dickensians to get all hoity-toity over a fleeting glimpse of Boredstares jetty behind that irritating nodding dog flogging car insurance!

And finally, Margate is set to feature on a new set of Royal Snail 'British seaside' stamps. Well, two of the donkeys that wander up and down the beach, that is. Such a shame that no-one from the Arsonists' Playground will ever see the stamps in real life. I mean, who in Margate is ever going to spend 78p on postage?