Sovereign Rings

Yum! I'm really looking forward to my free slap-up meal for four down at that swanky new hostelry on Harbour Street that's opening tonight. Oh, didn't I tell you? They phoned me the other day to say I'd won the competition to name it. Well, all those suggestions you made were just so... silly. So I thought I'd send in something sensible, and The Sovereign it is!

Towing The Party Line?

Holy joysticks! Footling around on eBay just now, I came across this offer from our favourite Blue Rinser. Yes, the flying doctor/Tory councillor is giving us the once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a banner of our choice tugged around behind his teeny-tiny plane on Christmas Eve!

Bids start at £150, and proceeds go to chariddee. You also get the opportunity to go in the Doctor's cockpit, as long as you weigh less than 185kg (that rules out Santa and most Margatonians then).

With only three days of the auction left, the Doc has yet to be made an offer, but I'm sorely tempted. Seeing him tug TORIES OUT OF THANET or EASTCLIFF RICHARD IS THE BIZ around the Ile would be the Christmas present to end all Christmas presents. Although I'd be a bit ginger about joining him on the flight. You never know, he might develop finger trouble with the ejector button!

Click here if you want your banner tugged

Sub Standards

Last week's Isle of Thanet Gazunder is the gift that keeps on giving. Tucked away on page 15, above an ad for 'The Mayor of Margate's Dickensian Christmas Event' (now everyone wants to pretend they live in Broadstairs) is this nib, or news in brief:

Presumably they mean the Nayland Rock. Oh well, I suppose that's what you get when you shift production of all your local newspapers to one big shed in Auchtermuchty. I look forward to reading future stories about Cliff Send, Peg Wellbay and Dumped On Gap!

Wind Up

Blimey! What an appropriately gusty day for the government to give the go-ahead for another 7,000,000 offshore fart farms. Mind you, it'll give my campaign to promote Ramsgate as The Windy City a boost. And add weight to my plans to convert our crumbling West Cliff Hall into a world class research centre for wind.

As some older Ramsgatonians may know, we're no strangers to wind here in the Millionaires' Playground. And to prove the point, Samantha has sent me another of her splendid clips. This illuminated windmill apparently used to stand somewhere on Ramsgate's West Cliff:

Light Fantastic

Regular contributor Samantha writes:

Reading your story about the closure of the Ramsgate Maritime Museum got me thinking. Being a bit of an 'oldie' I remember the days when the whole of Ramsgate front was illuminated, including the 'clock house' as it was then known. So I rummaged through my old cine film and came up with this. Those were the days!

I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Hereson!

In a mad moment yesterday afternoon I decided I'd forgo the delights of Westwood Chaos (too many autograph hunters) and get all my Christmas shopping in Boredstares. But after an hour of perusing Victorian bathing costumes and hand-crafted Bulgarian tarambukas, enough was enough.

I was trundling back to the Millionaires' Playground in the old Toyota Priapus when a hideous grinding noise began emanating from the vehicle's nether regions. Fearing it was about to burst into flames, or fry the Eastcliff jacksie with 20,000 volts, or both (you never know with these hybrid things), I pulled into that Murco garage on Hereson Road.

'Better call the AA,' I thought. And sure enough, in less time than it takes to say 'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis' the chap had arrived. Much scratching of the bonce ensued. 'I've never worked on one of these,' he finally sighed. 'Where's the gearbox?'.

Now call me old-fashioned, but I thought I was paying my sub for him to know that! I AAsk you!

Museum Destined To Be History

Those blighters at the council look set to close our Royal Harbour's splendid Maritime Museum! The news is tucked away in the corner of this week's Gazunder feature on the council's 2008 budget. The Blue Rinsers are apparently considering withdrawing the museum's grant as part of urgent cost-cutting measures.

But the news is not all bad, as they'll be diverting more resources into keeping the town centre spick and span - by closing the public khazis. Presumably the idea is that the resulting rivers of piss running down the high street will sluice the litter into the harbour. And with no museum to attract visitors, a wee smell or two in the harbour won't go amiss! Genius!

When Is A Library Not A Library? Part 2

When it's Thanet Gateway Plus, of course!

The latest edition of our beloved council's very own trumpet-blowing magazine Thanet Matters devotes a front page and several hundred words to the revamping of Margate Library, which re-opens its doors on the 7th of January and now features Thanet Gateway Plus (urgh!), a 'one stop shop' for council services. But casting the old Eastcliff mincers over the lavish, double-page spread, I clocked only two mentions of the word 'library'. Oh yes, plenty of 'customer service' this, and 'council officers' that, but 'books'? Not a dickie bird!

Santa really must be on his way, as Thanet Matters wasn't the only Christmas present that plopped out of my local paper...

The local rozzers have spent a bob or two too, telling us how luvverly duvverly everything is round here. Actually my housekeeper had occasion to be thankful for the bizzies while I was away. Yet again she came across a posse of them in one of those grimy backstreets, this time tackling some ne'er-do-well with a gun. Cripes!

Anyway, as yuletide is clearly fast approaching, I've decided to put my Christmas deccies up!

Glued To The Box

Tonight's Money Programme (BBC2, 7pm) should make fascinating viewing for chaps of a certain age who habitually found themselves with small bits of plastic stuck in their barnet when they were nippers.

It's all about the resurrection of Airfix, the glue together kit company which Margate firm Hornby bought after it, er, came unglued last year. Hornby have already made a success of Scalextric and, of course, Hornby model trains.

Manufacturing has now been shifted to China, and groovy, new kits for the Playstation generation have been designed, including a snap together Dr Who. Probably a wise move. After all, kids these days would probably be more interested in sniffing the glue than using it to patiently construct a 1:400 scale model of the Scharnhorst!

Click here for BBC Airfix story
Click here for Airfix website
Click here for Hornby website

East Cliff Scores A Hatrick!

According to regular contributor Millicent it was a straight 1-2-3 for our swinging East Cliff at the Ramsgate Society Town Image Awards 2007 today!

The top gong was handed out to our newly revamped, super-duper, out-of-this-world bandstand, with Miles' Bar on the front runner-up, and the new sheltered housing development at the bottom of Thanet Road third. Hurrah!

There was one serious omission, however. Namely why in the name of everything that's holy wasn't the East Cliff's most famous resident invited to the glitzfest? It's not every day I get to go to a slap-up do at our luxury, 12 star San Clu Comfort Inn y'know. Kuh!

Fußball

In the absence of anything better to do, I've been trawling around BoobTube. In honour of my recent experience in Germany, here's a little something for those of you who aren't too easily offended. Spurs fans in particular might want to look away now:

Thanet Gazette Has Me In Its Net. Not!

Yikes! According to my spies on the north side, the hacks at Gazunder Towers are hunting me down like a dog! And they reckon they've narrowed the field of Eastcliff Richard candidates to one of two people, viz:

1. That bloke with the beard and plastic trousers who sat at the back of an Eastcliff Residents' Association meeting the other month.
2. Thanet Council head honcho Richard Samuel.

Both way off the mark, I'm afraid. But whatever they're offering I'll double it!

A Night At The Blogs

Well the Neuries finally kicked in, so I've been catching up with the Thanet blogs.

Bignews Margate - Plucky Tony Flaig has taken on the freemasons, who have apparently been getting free publicity on Kent TV at the taxpayers expense! Good on yer, Tone! Although best stay clear of Blackfriars Bridge until the dust settles, old bean.

Pignews Ramsgate - I'm delighted to see that old ham, Lucy Mail, is back on the horse. Well, the milkman's horse to be precise. Still, it might have been a rash, er, decision (gedditt!!?!?!) to spill all in public!

Prove it, OVIT! - more argy-bargy over on One Voice in Thanet, who has the temerity to suggest that our favourite Doctor/Councillor's Thanet Lifers are occasionally less than politically correct. The cheek! Now Boredstares Blue Rinser Ewen Cameron has thrown his lawyer's wig in the ring, accusing OVIT of skating on thin ice, and saying that if such tendencies existed in the ruling Tory group, he would stand down. Well, let's hope that with the magic words 'Latchford' and 'racist email', I'll be reading about Councillor Cameron's resignation in Friday's Gazunder!

Thanet Strife - Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Some poor deluded tree planters have accepted a cheque for £3,000 from Oasis Hong Kong Airlines, the oozalum flight providers, and Infartil, our local airport operators. Talk about greenwash. Just like most of the birds round here, they've clearly been sucked in!

Click here for Tree Planters (sponsored by Oasis)

Ahoy!

As they say in the Czech Republic. And, er, Ramsgate Marina. Yes, I'm back on Terra Britannica! And after four days celebrating with the Moravians, I've got a hangover that's going to outlast religion.

Thanks for all your kind comments, emails and tip-offs while I was away. As soon as I'm feeling a bit less squiffy, I'll be back blogging like a good 'un. Now, where are those Neurofens?

Hunsatisfactory Service

Well I finally arrived in Uherske Hradiste for the wedding. No thanks to Deutsche Bahn. Quite why I was persuaded to take the train, rather than my Lear jet, lord knows. Oh yes, that's right, I had to flog the Lear due to a temporary financial, er, hiccup.

Anyone who complains about the railways in Blighty should try German and Czech chuffers. Talk about ein koch-up! Wrong trains arriving at the right platform. Right trains arriving at the wrong platform. And my luxury compartment with ensuite for the Brussels-Berlin overnight didn't arrive at all! So I was accommodated in a wardrobe that would have made Tom Thumb claustrophobic. And instead of a shower and WC, there was a washbasin which would have given a finger bowl delusions of Olympic swimming pool grandeur. You'll be pleased to hear, though, that even given these restraints I did not resort to the English manner of relieving myself when nature called at 4am.

My previously shiny opinion of German railway efficiency must have been gleaned from documentaries about the pre-war period, when that twat with the toothbrush 'tache was in charge, and everything ran like clockwork. Not that the Czech railways are any better. Chock full, slow and filthy. Even their shiny, new, super-duper Italian Pendolinos were delivered with a software fault which means they have to stop at every other station for a CD upload. Not for nothing does Fiat stand for Fix It Again Tony.

Never mind, the hotel's very, um, hygienic...

And it's been snowing!

Eastcliff Goes East

Mr Ceaucescu (no relation) has invited me to his sister's wedding. She's getting hitched to a Czech chap, so I'm just about to board the Eurostar at St. Pancreas, then onto a sleeper in Brussels for the trip to Prahaha! Of course, I'll send you all a postcard. Pip pip!

Get Noticed!

Once again I'm indebted to regular contributor Mr X, this time for a snapshot of a notice he noticed.

Talking of noticing, am I the only one to have noticed that the 'temporary' fencing (948 days and counting) along our crumbling East Cliff has grown a bit recently? Is this what the Uranians mean by regeneration? I think we should be told!

Meanwhile a reader revelling in the moniker Oh Little Town of Birchington has sent me details of the new Ann Summers iGasm device, which plugs into your iPod and tickles your, er, fancy in time to the music. Apparently it's got iPod makers Apple all hot and steamy under their matching cuffs and collars. Ann Summers don't say whether it comes in multiple packs, but apparently it does carry a warning not to listen to Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee in the workplace or other public areas. Now that really would get you noticed!

Frustrated readers can click here for details of the iGasm.

Gazunder Goes Gaga - An Apology

It has been pointed out by m'learned friends that a previous post on this blog, entitled Gazunder Goes Gaga, may have contained one or two factual inaccuracies.

I am therefore happy to set the record straight, viz that the Isle of Thanet Gazunder is, in fact, one of the best newspapers money can buy, and that I was particular impressed by last week's new Blog of the Week column, penned by ace reporter Thom Morris, which exhibited impeccable taste by featuring one Eastcliff Richard in its debut outing.

I trust this apology, and the substantial cheque, will now bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion for the parties concerned.

'Ello Me Old China

I see the President of France today signed £14.5bn worth of deals with the Chinese. So, have Thanet's illustrious leaders, who've also recently been in China, done as well? Here's an extract from Sandy's China Diary, which I found on a CD marked 'top secret' that TNT popped through the letterbox this morning:

Day 1: Lord luvva duck! Those tossers at BA lost my effing bag. F*cking tossers. 'Ad a couple of Axminster samples in it too. Tossers.
Day 2: Bleedin' 'ell. They served up snake liver last night. Tossers!
Day 3: One of their blokes woz in me face this morning. IN ME FACE! So I told him to eff off. F*cking tosser!

Speaking of China, don't forget you can catch the Terracotta Army exhibition at the British Museum until next April. Which gives me a perfect excuse to run my picture of reader Terracotta Glenn again!

When Is A Library Not A Library?

When it's a 'one stop shop', of course!

There appears to be a fierce debate going on in the pages of this blog (see comments under Gazunder Goes Gaga below) about whether our beloved council plan to use Ramsgate Library, which is currently being rebuilt after the 2004 fire, as a 'one stop shop' for council services and the like. Such plans are already well advanced for Margate Library.

Observer, generally one of our better informed local bloggers, has opined that such rumours are mere gossip and tittle-tattle, but I beg to differ. The following extract is from TDC's very own Corporate Plan 2007-11. Under Theme 6: Modern Council - What we will do they clearly state their intention to embed council services at some point during 2009-11 in the new Ramsgate Library:

Still, they're only catering to the market, I suppose. I gather student demand in Oxford recently led to the opening of a late night booze and kebab outlet in the Bodleian!