Visitor Information Information

My spies on what I like to think of as the Croisette here in the Cannes of Kent report that the visitor information centre in the newly renovated Custom House didn't open today, despite coachloads of crumblies and other incomers being deposited in the plethora of car parks that Thanet Council has so considerately conferred on us by knocking down all our amenities.

This is curious, as I was under the impression that Ramsgate Town Council had done a deal with diminutive developer Terry Painter to provide visitorial services on a 7/7 basis. Word has it that the man who has more fingers in more pies than Greggs has suddenly and unexpectedly pulled his finger out of this particular pastry. Anyone know any more?

Still, riding to the rescue is none other than my old sparring partner Cllr/Dr Biggles, who's emailed me with details of a new tourism application he's come up with. Simes writes:

If you can spare the 50p cost of an SMS then you might like to test and let others know of a tourism application concept that I came up with. It uses some very clever technology developed and patented by one of our local companies, that leverages the latest generation of mobile phones and we've already got the likes of Avis and 118 118 using the platform for marketing purposes.

Anyway, if you want to find out at any time what's on in Thanet, send the text "tourism" to 80012 and you'll get a link sent back to your phone. From the menu you can then choose Thanet!

It's not 100% comprehensive but we are using Thanet for proof of concept collating information on local events. What makes this so unique and interesting to the larger players is that we can attach one-time vouchers that can be redeemed at local businesses; i.e. 2 for 1 deals etc

All feedback appreciated!

Happy to oblige, Simes! Although forgive me if I don't try it personally. I'm still reeling from your 'trails of breadcrumbs' diatribe a few years back, and I'd hate to think this was some ruse to snaffle my mobile number!!!

Now Island's Beaches Turn Blue

Hurrah! Ramsgate Main Sands has once again hoisted a Blue Flag in this year's prestigious and eponymous awards!

Margate Main Sands, Stone Bay and Westbrook Bay have regained their blue dusters after losing them last year, although Walpole Bay has lost out. This is almost certainly due to the number of superannuated, incontinent crones and pit bulls on string weeing in the water in those parts. Other winners are Bottomy Bay, Joss Bay, St Mildred's Bay, West Bay and Minnis Bay.

Viking Bay in Boredstares, which has only ever managed one Blue Flag (in 2006), has failed to make the grade yet again, as the frothy yuk there is about as wholesome as the liquid that must have seeped into Nick Clegg's undies when Dave told him he was going to be Deputy Prime Minister yesterday.

So here on the sophisticated south side, we have the south east's only south facing sandy beach, the finest restaurants and bars outside of London, and a marina that makes Cannes look shabby. What with that and the Blue Flag, I fully expect the cash registers to be tinkling with tourist tenners for the next four months. Which, er, is what I say every year!

Click here to download full list from Keep Britain Tidy

Stupid Kent

Just to prove how wide-ranging the readership of this blog is, here's a Stupid Kent contribution all the way from Mr/Mrs/Ms Malaprop in Folkestone!

Stupid Kent

Stupid Kent

Stupid Kent

It's all gone terribly quiet, hasn't it? I suppose the combination of a short week along with a general election on Thursday has conspired to shut everyone up!

So while we're waiting for Friday's result, after which the inevitable recriminations will hopefully start, I thought we could amuse ourselves by spoofing Kent County Council's new £400,000 Saatchi campaign to draw visitors to our beloved county.

Click on the pic to read all about it. Then either email me your ideas (with a relevant photo if possible) at richardeastcliff@yahoo.co.uk, or put them in the comments section below. Here's my starter for ten!

Real Deal

Unlike some ferry companies I can't mention, LD Lines seems like a proper, reliable outfit and are forging ahead with advertising their new service between Ramsgate and Oostende (Ostend in old money).

48 sovs for a car and up to five passengers return seems like a snip. In fact by going direct to the LD Lines website I shaved another three quid off that. For comparison I tried booking Norfolk Lines from Dover to Dunkerque (Dunkirk in old money) with five people and a car, and they wanted £27 more!

LD Lines have also constructed a full page on their website about the delights of the Millionaires' Playground, so it's just possible we could get some visitors from t'other side in return, a stark contrast to the tourism-job-sapping Manston - Edinburgh flights.

And while we're on the topic of deals, don't forget that Ramsgate's very own Eddie Gilbert's, easily the best fish and chip shop in Thanet if not Kent or indeed the entire world, is currently offering free chips with every large portion of fish to celebrate National Chip Week. The offer ends tomorrow, so hurry! Sadly LD Lines have left EG's, Age & Sons and many other top Ramsgate eateries off their website, so they need to pull their finger out there!

Click here to book LD Lines Ramsgate Ostend
Click here for Ramsgate page on LD Lines website
Click here to read more about free chips at Eddie Gilbert's
Click here for more about National Chip Week on Guardian blog

East Of The Wantsum

Here's this week's East of the Wantsum - click it to big it. My spies tell me that so far none of our kilted brethren have taken up the offer to fly from their capital to our septic isle, despite my attempt to advertise its obvious attractions.

So any Thanet 'jobs' that the flights may have created have been cancelled out by the jobs we'll be losing in the Thanet tourism trade. After all, the people flying to Edinburgh won't be spending their money on food or drink or leisure in Thanet, will they?

Creature Feature

Now that we've established Kent's Ramsgate Peninsula has the finest climate in Britain, what we need is a cheap attraction to replace all the burnt out attractions on our coast. And what better than to take a leaf out of the Kilties' books?

I therefore present to you - THE CHANNEL CREATURE! Yes, folks, there's something incredibly large and mysterious lurking in the water. And no, it's not that hairy, obese bloke who dives off Broadstairs Jetty come rain or shine. According to the 'Association of Marine Research' a 'gigantic' and 'extremely fast moving' creature has been spotted off our shores, and they've even got a rather murky video to, er, prove it.

It all sounds like a load of cods, but what with UFOs and panthers being spotted on and over the island on a daily basis (presumably by the sort of people who've just polished off their third slab of Stella for the day), we could have the makings of Thanet - Mystery Island here!

Is it a borrie? Is it a submarine? No, it's THE CHANNEL CREATURE!

Update: Thanks to a tip-off, I understand that this is some crappy ad campaign being driven by a bunch of oh-so-clever types at Unruly Media. Apparently they're offering 75 smackers to any blogger that carries it. So come on then, where's my 75 quid? Or you could just tell us what you're 'advertising'! Tossers.

Bucket And Spade Is Bread And Butter

Talking of decaying seaside towns getting a Sugar coating, I've received this email from former councillor and town crier Paul Conyers-Silverthorn:

Open Letter re Tourism in Thanet

The national press is full of stories of the re-growth of domestic holidays and the windfall increase in inbound tourism due to the weakness of sterling. When I was a councillor I was unable to generate interest in an overall strategy for the develop­ment of tourism. I cannot remain silent when I see what appears to be a failure in tactical response right now.

I urge councillors and everyone involved in tourism and the provision of tourist and leisure facilities not just to promote their own business interests but to get together to create a joined-up response. In Thanet we have a wonderful tourism product base: superb beaches and a far more clement climate than anywhere in mainland Britain save Torbay. There is a pressing need either to grasp these advantages and enhance them or to sideline them in favour of other 'maybe' developments and watch them decline. If we enhance our resource we will also be in a better position to attract business investment.

One main forum exists through which action might be coordinated: Thanet District Council.

Broadstairs, Ramsgate and Margate each has its own small promotional organisation and 'fan club'. Each means well but has meagre resources. Together, and in cooperation with various other organisations such as the LVA, KCC, museum trustees etc., a concerted effort could be made both to market Thanet for business and leisure and to ensure sustainable improvement to the product base.

Yes, we are in the middle of a financial crisis. But this has thrown up a raft of opportunities, of which we need to take advantage urgently - that is to say, before other groups of mutual interest coalesce elsewhere in the UK with the same inten­tion.

I would welcome comments on the above.

Paul Conyers-Silverthorn
Tel: 01843 861993
E-mail: paul.conyers-silverthorn@virgin.net

Well Paul, I presume this is the same Thanet District Council which has singularly failed to provide any feature event for the island's premier town this year, after losing our excellent Powerboat Weekend to Gravesend!

Getting The Blues Gives Isle A Boost

Cripes! Just when you think there's no news about, ten stories come along at once! Well, one anyway. Following the granting of several gongs from the Marine Conservation Society's latest Good Beach Guide a couple of weeks ago, those nice chaps at Encams (Keep Britain Tidy in old money) have today awarded Thanet a record ten Blue Flags for the Ile's beaches, including a welcome return of the Blue Flag for our lovely sands here in the Millionaires' Playground. That's a whopping eighth of all Blue Flags in England! Here's what Encams say in their press release:

We should be smitten with our own beaches – and mate with Margate (Surely Ramsgate - Ed.) not Majorca. Thanet, which takes in Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs, today basks in the glory of ten Blue Flags. This is the best performance anywhere in the country for a decade.

Hurrah! Keep Britain Tidy Chief Executive Phil Barton added:

We keep being told that our love affair with the seaside has been on the rocks. But as far as we are concerned England’s beach resorts go from strength to strength. Now is the time for the English to rekindle passion for traditional beach holidays in this country. Our beaches are fabulous places to visit and that’s official. Blue Flag is only awarded to beaches that have good access, top notch facilities, are litter free and have clean sea-water. We are challenging people to avoid overseas air travel and be kind to the environment by holidaying at home.

Clearly Phil didn't visit Viking Bay the other weekend when it was strewn with more than 100 bottles, empty drink cans and dirty nappies (eeurgh!), but I think we'll, er, gloss over that. And as for the precise location of the putting green they list as one of the attractions on Ramsgate Sands, lord only knows! Still, if it means more people holidaying at home, and fewer knackered old jumbos polluting the air over my cliff top mansion, I'd even be prepared to publicise the little-known fact that there's gold nuggets buried in them there sands!

Click here to read Encams press release
Click here for list of Blue Flag beaches

Money Down The Drain Was Well Spent

Well, it was for Margate and Broadstairs at least. According to the Marine Conservation Society's latest Good Beach Guide, the new Thanet doo-doo treatment plant built by Southern Water last year 'is benefiting beaches from Margate to Broadstairs'.

This bucks the general trend in the South East, which, according to the MCS, 'appears to be paying the price for the rate of new build in the region, with its high population density and extensive house building programmes'. It attributes this year's overall 10% drop in top-grade beaches to the unusually bad summer last year, with all the rain washing those germy borries off the streets and farmland directly into the ocean. Yurgh!

The MCS classified Margate Main Sands as 'recommended', the highest level, which it has achieved for two years on the trot. Viking Bay in Boredstares still only managed a 'basic pass' (the statutory minimum for water quality) for the second year in a row. Ramsgate Sands went from 'basic pass' to 'guideline' (good water quality standard only). Which seems to be a step up, so there may be a chance of getting our Blue Flag back this century!

Meanwhile I see today's Gazunder is reporting a 'huge surge of froth around the Thanet coastline', due to 'molecules of fat and proteins and sex cells from algae trying to breed becoming foamy when churned up with air bubbles'. Time to get out the rubber togs, methinks!

Click here for MCS story on BBC website
Click here for MCS Good Beach Guide
Click here for algae love custard story on Gazunder website

Only One Port In A Storm

According to our port's latest publicity bumf, Oostende is apparently the only continental destination available from Ramsgate. Well, call me old-fashioned, but I thought if you were in a boat you could pretty much go wherever you like, so it seems rather limiting to advertise the port's services in favour of its one and only customer - TransEuropa Ferries. And if we're only going to advertise their route, why aren't they paying for this sort of marketing mullarkey rather than the beleaguered council taxpayers?

Anyhoo, I thought I'd bone up on Oostende (Ostend in old money) and managed to get hold of their impressive tourist magazine, which is described in the intro as 'bursting with sensuousness'. 50 glossy pages chock full of photos, maps and places to see and stay, it does indeed make the place look like a veritable tourism paradise. And most of their marvellous monuments appear to have been restored or kept in spic and span nick! Oh to be Belgian!

Click here to visit Oostende tourism website
Click here to visit Thanet tourism website

Painting The Town White

As we all know, Ramsgate is on the up and up. Not only is the trendy East Cliff's Granville Cine-theatre-ma getting a long overdue lick of paint, but this, erm, hut opposite our imposing railway station is also receiving the millionaire treatment.

One of our local bear hench bigwigs told me over a beverage the other evening that those nice people at Pierremont Cars have bought the place and are planning to run a swish car hire centre from it. Bentleys and Mercs only, one presumes. And so handily positioned for all those City types alighting from the futuristic fast train service!

Actually, I think it's a charming piece of art deco architecture which has been neglected for too long. Did you know it used to be the Ramsgate tourist information bureau? Yes, you probably did. And I think I know a bibliophile who might have a photo of it from its heyday. Michael, a link please!

Tourists Flock To TV Isle

by Isle of Thanet Gazunder Travel Editor Honor Freebie

It's official! The Isle of Thanet has become TV adland's top destination! And now tourists are flocking to admire the Isle's natural and man-made wonders, seen by millions in hit commercials like (fill in hit commercials here - Ed.)

Here are some of the top attractions they're raving about:

Mount Emin - at 80 feet, Mount Emin is the highest point in Thanet.
The Pleasurama Tundra - miles of deserted wasteland, home to a huge variety of wild animals (rabies vaccination advisable).
The Great Temporary Fence of Ramsgate - The only man-made structure which can be seen from outer space.
Westworld Cross - Hours of fun for all the family in Thanet's answer to Disneyland's car park.
Turner's Hole - stand on the very spot where the famous artist once stood (pay and display)
Luxury Apartment World - tickets start at a reasonable £189,000.
Madeira Falls Log Flume - foamy fun for all the family!

Madeira Falls: Foamtastic!

Littoral Litter

The amount of litter on Britain's beaches has increased by more than 90% since 1994, according to an annual survey by the Marine Conservation Society. Top ten items found on the beach were:

1. Pieces of plastic, 1cm-50cm; 13.2%

2. Cotton bud sticks; 8.6%

3. Pieces of plastic, less than 1cm; 6.2%

4. Crisp/sweet/lolly wrappers; 5.6%

5. Polystyrene pieces; 5.5%

6. Plastic caps/lids; 5.4%

7. Rope; 4.3%

8. Cigarette stubs; 4.2%

9. Plastic drinks bottles; 3.9%

10. Fishing net; 3.3%

Well, maybe on Margate beach, but here in the Millionaires' Playground we have a better class of litter. Having combed the sea shore this morning, here's what I found:

1. Fortnum's picnic hamper
2. Copy of Country Life
3. Seven bottles of Dom Perignon
4. Five bottles of Krug
5. Apple iPhone
6. Two jars of Gentleman's Relish
7. Pair of Prada sunglasses
8. Chemical toilet from Sunseeker Portofino 35
9. Porsche Cayenne (minus wheels)
10. Bentley Continental (burnt out)

As you can see, even the cast offs are classier in Ramsgate!

Fun In The Sun

As temperatures here on the UK's Costa Cutter soared into the 90s yesterday, I decided it would be a splendid opportunity to check out how the tourist trade was coming along. So it was on with the leathers and onto the old throbber for a quick thrash around the island.

First stop Ramsgate, and as befits Kent's premier Monte Carlo style resort the place was heaving. Versace wearing, Ferrari driving millionaires were parked up along the marina, sipping lattes and nibbling ciabattas outside the continental cafes on Harbour Parade. It might have been the croissette, if it wasn't for the knackered old jets taking off from RAF London Kent Ramsgate Manston International Airport every ten minutes.

Next Boredstares, and despite the strange moustachioed men in Victorian bathing costumes giving some of the young middle class mums cause for concern, the joint was jumping. The experiment in converting the wibbly-wobbly jetty into a new beach is coming along a treat too. The sand now obscures all those boring white lines in the car park, so I was forced to place my gleaming machine on top of a Sharan load of chip munching nippers that had hogged the bike bay.

Then Margate. The unmistakeable smell so beloved by Ronnie Biggs was in evidence, but even I will admit that the front was packed. Albeit mainly with second generation unemployables wheeling the third generation along in pushchairs.

I pushed on to God's Waiting Room, Westgate, but as advertised the place was dead. Or at least heavily sedated. Not for nothing is the mini golf course on Westbrook front called Strokes.

Wish You Were Here?

While Mr Ceaucescu (no relation) was in Margate filming the latest contribution to ECR TV, he popped into that tourist office on the piazza and picked up this:

A handy, postcard size guide to all the events happening here in Kent's Ramsgate Peninsula during the summer season. On closer examination, though, he was disappointed to find that the Kent Air Show had been scrubbed out in biro:

I had to inform him that the organisers had gone nipples up, and the leaflets were probably printed before the show was cancelled.

He seemed strangely disappointed, and said that his cousin in the Ministry of Information had specifically asked him to send home as many photographs of airplanes as he could. With that, he loaded his gear into his BMW and screeched off in the direction of Manston.

The Tip Of Kent

One reader was so inspired by my recent post detailing a BBC weather forecaster's description of our part of the world that he's designed this natty shirt.

He's asked me if I would put the idea forward to our tourist board, but I can't see it enjoying a great deal of traction, as they say these days.

Although Kent Tourism might be interested. What with all the plans to concrete over the county, I hear they're considering renaming the place The Patio of England, so this could be the icing on the cake!

See My Ramsgate Movie Film

Meandering around the grubby back streets of the internet the other day, I chanced upon a rather anonymous looking blog in Russian which contained this entry:

Рамсгейт

(Ramsgate) — город в английском графстве Кент, на восточном берегу полуострова Танэт, в 100 км от Лондона. Отличные морские купанья. Безопасная гавань с двумя пристанями; маяк. Корабельные верфи, рыбная ловля, значительная торговля яйцами, плодами и др. Жителей (1891) 21733. В 3-х км морские купанья Бродстерз (некогда любимое местопребывание Диккенса).

Of course the word 'Ramsgate' caught my eye, so I popped the Cyrillic into the old AltaVista Babel Fish, and this was the translation:

(Ramsgate) - city in the English county Kent, on the eastern shore Of tanet peninsula, in 100 km from London. Outstanding sea bathings. Safe harbor with two piers; lighthouse. The dockyards, fishing, significant trade in eggs, by fruits and other inhabitants (1891) 21733. In 3rd km the sea bathings Of brodsterz (there is no time dear abode of Dickens).

Hurrah! The mystery was solved! Those creative types at the tourist board have commissioned Borat to make a publicity film for us, and I'd stumbled across the script!