Twot

Flamin' Nora! It's way too sticky to be crafting my usual finely-honed prose! So here's a link to the Isle of Thanet Gazunder website. It's all there, you won't even have to cough up 70p. The only downside is that you can't line the cat's litter tray with your laptop once you've read it.

Right, I'm off for a cooler. You lot can talk amongst yourselves - you seem to be quite good at that!

Inn-comprehensible Plans

The Pleasurama drama rumbles on, with another public meeting slated for this Thursday. So I thought I'd step back a decade or so and look at the original plans that were submitted to our lovely council, when Whitbread were alleged to be involved in the scheme.

Actually, it's not the drawing of the building that I'm interested in. As you can see, local estate agent and, er, pillar of the community Terry Painter submitted the plans, and next to his logo is the slogan 'enjoy!Whitbread'. That's a rebranding that Whitbread went through in September 2001, when they stopped brewing beer and became more interested in brewing lattes, running restaurants and owning hotels.

Trouble is, no-one at Whitbread seems to have known they were involved in the scheme, as this email from the time suggests:

According to LinkedIn, Jamie Cowen is a real person, and has subsequently moved on to become Head of Mixed Use Development at Sainsbury's Property Investments.

So on what basis did Thanet Council consider these so-called plans from 'Whitbread'? Was any due diligence performed? Did they bother to ask Whitbread if they were actually involved? Or was it all accepted on the basis of Tiny Terry's say-so and a photocopied logo? I, for one, would find that nothing short of inn-credible!

Meanwhile here's how the Pleasurama (aka Royal Sands, aka Titanic) development looks today, more than ten years on:

Superjumbo Lumbers Into Manston

Just a taster there of what we can expect this summer over Ramsgate. Yes, fellow millionaires, it's the brand new, just-out-of-the-box, British Airways Airbus A380 that's going to be doing training circuits over the town every day except Sundays for the next few weeks! (Thanks to reader Samantha for the vid.)

To be fair (Why? - Ed.) it's supposed to be ever so environmentally friendly. And I've been assured that the Rolls-Royce engines only explode every now and then, which is a great comfort.

Once that's gone, we've got the new BA Boeing 787 Dreamliners to look forward to. They only burst into flames about, ooh let me see, once a week.

Still, it'll give the planespotters something to jiggle their joysticks to, I suppose!

Update: Reader Steve writes 'Here are a few more shots of the A380 circuiting over the Channel this afternoon. I'm afraid they're a bit grainy, they were taken on a long lens from Ramsgate. Enjoy!'

Enjoy? What am I now, bloody planespotters' corner? Kuh!

BA A380 dive bombs fart farm

BA A380 dive bombs Deal

BA A380 dive bombs some clouds

BA A380 being followed by a little red thing

Er, not sure that's a plane - Ed.

Drama In Westbrook Bay

With the Ile de Thanet's lovely beaches rammed over the last couple of super-sunny days, it was inevitable that at least one joker would try and drive his speedboat into the sea on a rising tide and proceed to get bogged in the sand. This weekend was no exception.

Reader Sean sent me this photo from the north side of the island, where a chap driving a Highways Agency van reversed his water-Ferrari into the briny, then, yes, you've guessed it.

Sean writes: 'Luckily there was a happy ending. A nice lady in a 4x4 drove to his rescue and tugged him off!'

Glad to hear he was left with a smile on his face, Sean!

Cardyology

Cripes! I see that there's a rumour going round that Cardy Construction, the company that has been booked to build the Royal Sands (aka Titanic) development on the Pleasurama eyesore here in Ramsgate, is in a, um, spot of bother!

This gossip, and (please note Mr Cardy's lawyers) I am definitely NOT saying there's anything in it, was probably sparked by a charge and a subsequent winding-up order that was lodged against them last month, and appears to have been disseminated via Facebook and the local blogs, and other, Broadstairs-based, print sources.

Now, whilst someone has obviously been upset enough, and had their payments delayed for long enough, to go to the trouble of trying to wind the company up, that is definitely not the same as saying the company is on the skids, or that it is about to g* b*** (asterisks there to protect the innocent). In fact it's a tactic that's often used as leverage to get a delayed payment out of a firm when relations have turned a bit sour, and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the ongoing viability of the company. I know this, because my accountant Cyril told me.

Not only that, but according to my information, the striking off letter was suspended three days later, suggesting that the dispute was resolved pretty quickly once it had escalated to that stage.

I must say, Cardy's last set of accounts, for 2012, look pretty healthy. But then the construction industry has been going through hard times, and who knows what their next set of figures will look like. I would cough up the twelve quid for a credit report on them, but Cyril says he needs that for his bus journey home.

Meanwhile there's another meeting at Duffer HQ in Cecil Square tonight to discuss the whole Pleasurama mess. I wonder if Deputy Leader Poole The Fool will acquit himself better tonight than he did here in Ramsgate earlier this week? My guess is 'no'.

Motor Museum Shifts Into Top Gear

My TV chums at Beeb South East were out filming here in the Millionaires' Playground this morning - it was all part of a story about the old Motor Museum (aka Project Motorhouse, aka West Cliff Hall) which will air on tonight's prog.

Ramsgate celebs Brenda Blethyn (aka The Greatest Living Thanetian) and Janet Fielding (aka former Doctor Who companion Tegan) were on hand to help clear the garden for the cameras ahead of next month's benefit (in, er, Slough), which will feature no fewer that ten Doctor Who companions and at least one actual Doctor Who!

Let's hope they raise enough funds to regenerate (geddit?!??!) this derelict building, which is a key part of our lovely sea front!

Click here to watch on BBC iPlayer (About 18 minutes in. Available until tomorrow evening.)

Do also take a gawp at this short promo the Project Motorhouse people made a couple of years ago...

'Cheap Space And Out Of Control'

Yes fashion fans - that's top designer Wayne Hemingway's verdict on the Arsonists' Playground in a recent interview with The Sun! Although I have to say it sounds more like the sort of thing a bent Tory council leader might utter to his 'investor' chums.

Oh well, as you probably all know by now, Wayne's in charge of revitalising Dreamland by shipping in a load of knackered old rides and poshing it up a bit. Sort of like Jimmy Godden Mk2, but with red specs and a designer tie. His latest utterings at least give poor old Margate some much-needed publicity. But, as we Millionaires' know, Ramsgate's miles better!

PS: Bet you didn't know that our beloved Duffers over in Cecil Square have spent £620,000 of our council tax buying several of those knackered old rides on behalf of the Dreamland Trust? Well I'm here to tell you they have. It's in the small print of their 2012 accounts. Doesn't sound that cheap to me, but it does seem a little bit out of control!

Click here to read interview with Wayne Hemingway in The Sun

Will Ramsgate Council Pass A Motion?

Whether they do or not, there'll undoubtedly be a lot of piss and wind at tonight's public meeting to discuss the big, steaming pile of piles that is the Pleasurama (aka Royal Sands aka Titanic) eyesore which blights our lovely seafront here in the Millionaires' Playground.

Unfortunately, Ramsgate Town Council have precisely zero say in the matter, but a number of Ramsgate councillors are 'double-hatters' and sit on Thanet Council as well, so at least they can be made to smell the strength of public opinion.

Do pop along to Chatham House School tonight and spend your penny's worth!

Click here for full details.

Pie In The Sky?

Piloting the old Toyota Priapus down from London yesterday afternoon, there was a 20 mile queue on the opposite carriageway of the M2 stretching all the way from the Medway services back to Whitstabubble!

Loads of happy campers seemed to be returning from a day or weekend on our fabulous Kent coast, equipped with bicycles, kayaks, jet skis, boats and all the paraphernalia of splashing about in the the sun! I lost count of the poor buggers who had broken down and were waiting by their jalopies on the hard shoulder.

And that despite the obvious distraction of watching the Greatest Living Englishman In The World Ever winning Wimbledon! Hurrah!

Mind you, it's a bit of a double-edged sword. The tailback was reminiscent of the M5 down to the Cornish riviera in the summer rush. At this rate we could soon be lining up for days to pay £5 for an elderflower and clover honey ice cream, and having the hand-pulled pork and caramelised onion pies plucked out of our paws by the bloomin' seagulls no sooner than we've coughed up our tenner to buy them. Be careful what you wish for!

Ramsgate Wins Travel Accolade

Hurrah! And, indeed, yippee! The Millionaires' Playground has made it to the top Thanet slot on one of those internet travel sites!!!! I'm not too sure about the politics of it all, though. Still, any port in a storm, eh!?!?? (Geddit??!!!?!???!!!)

Click it to big it.

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!!

Time Flies When You're Plastered

Lorks! Has it really been over a week since I contributed to this drivel? Hmmm. I really shouldn't have downed that third bottle of Sambuca with Cilla last weekend.

Meanwhile all the news that's fit to print has, er, been printed in today's Isle of Thanet Gazunder. The air show at RAF London Kent Manston Margate Tracey Emin Maggie Thatcher Schipol International Airport was a shambles apparently, with vehicles backed up all the way to the M62. I'm indebted to one of my readers for sending me this pic of the catering van exploding due to the sheer number of four stone Shergar burgers being fried to feed the hordes of hungry Thanetians that attended.

Meanwhile Ferrygate rumbles on. One of my spies reports: 'I had the pleasure of talking to a council officer today. I mentioned TransEuropa Ferries and he said that all the staff had been instructed not to discuss this issue with the public.' Makes sense, I suppose. If I'd dropped a £3.4m bollock, I wouldn't want people talking about it either.

And finally, some good news here in the Millionaires' Playground, where our waterworks seem to have been rejuvenated! Not only is our lovely, Niagara-style Madeira Walk waterfall working again for the first time in living memory, but so is the Festival of Britain fountain up by the Granville Theatre and Cinem! There's even a rumour that the Winterstoke fountain might be in the process of being restored! Hurrah!!

PS: If you want a glimpse of what the inside of Pfizer's canteen looks like, I'd heartily recommend a trip to the flicks to catch World War Z, starring our very own Brad Pitt (who, as we all know, was born in Cliftonville, as was the lovely Tom Hanks). If, however, you're hoping to see zombies rampaging through the streets of Thanet, as reported in today's Gazunder, you'll be sadly disappointed since most of the film was shot in Glasgow and Malta, with just the 'exciting' denouement featuring the Pfizer site. That said, I'm sure if you take a walk down Boredstares high street on a Saturday night, you'll get a feel for what might have been.

Ten Things You Didn't Know About TransEuropa

Only in your super, soaraway Gazunder! We profile the defunct ferry firm that cost Thanet's taxpayers a whopping £3.4m!!!!

1. The 'Trans' in TransEuropa is short for 'transvestite', as the company was founded in 1948 by Lichtenstein-based cross-dresser Maurie 'Mary' Mosenberg.

2. TransEuropa's first regular shipping assignment was ferrying proboscis monkeys from Zeebrugge to Harwich for Billy Smart's Circus.

3. In 1967 the company developed a nuclear powered hovercraft, although this project was dropped after failing to get certification from the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

4. In its heyday, TransEuropa's ferries used the entire oil output of Nigeria every year.

5. During each crossing between Ramsgate and Ostend, hungry truck drivers used to consume on average 4,953 burgers, and a staggering 6,832 sausages!

6. More loo roll was used on the company's ships each year than during the entire 2012 London Olympics.

7. The oddest cargo ever carried was a refrigerated container of wigs for BBC celebrities.

8. Every ferry in the TransEuropa fleet had a secret compartment for the owner's Bentley.

9. On one of TransEuropa's ferries, nicknamed The Golden Behind, there was a toilet made out of 18 carat gold in the captain's cabin.

10. Laid end-to-end, 3.4m pound coins would stretch all the way from Ramsgate to Margate, a distance of nearly five miles!

That's enough ferry facts - Ed.

Separated At Birth?

Reader Samantha writes:

Has anyone else noticed the striking similarity between Thanet Council's website banner, advertising their consultation on the latest Local Plan, and the popular board game Monopoly? Have Messrs Hasbro, the owners of Monopoly, been told?

Board game

Bored game

Ha! Well, Samantha, I'm sure The Duffers have paid something in the region of £3.4m out of our community chest for the rights to rip that off! If not, they'll probably end up going to jail, and that'll be the end of all the free parking round here!! (Geddit??!!??!?!?!!!!!!!????!?!?)

And while we're on the subject of lookalikes, another reader has emailed me to ask me whether anyone has noticed the similarity between Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government who has just given Tesco permission to build a 19,000,000 square foot supermarket on Margate seafront, and the Sontarans, the stocky, warlike aliens from Doctor Who? Hmmm, let's see...

 Sontaran

Pickles

Ferrygate - The Cover-Up Continues

Regular contributor Steve has sent me a copy of this reply to his Freedom of Information request for more details about the £3.4m TransEuropa scandal. It's from Thanet Council's Director of Operations Mark Seed.

Not that there's anything you could consider 'information' in it!

Thank you for your communication received on 20th May 2013 in which you requested information about the council's dealings with Transeuropa Ferries.

The information you request relates to meetings and other communications with Transeuropa since March 2011and this information would be directly relevant  to legal action taken by the council to recover the outstanding debt. Premature release of information relevant to a potential legal action could be significantly prejudicial to a legal case taken by the council.

It is almost certain that this information would be released into the public domain and lead directly to the prejudice to any potential case.

The council is owed over £3 million and any prejudice to legal action it may take would be significantly prejudicial to its commercial interests. The application of a public interest test in relation to this under Section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act relating to commercial interests has been applied to this situation and it is considered that the balance of public interest lies on the side of not releasing the information you have requested as the wider public interest lies in retaining the confidentiality of this information at this stage. This will remain the case until the issue with regard to the legal action to recover the Transeuropa debt is resolved.

However, I would wish to clarify a misunderstanding in your request as this seems to be based on an assumption that sums were being paid to Transeuropa, which was not the case. The council is owed money by the company and this sum remains payable. Given the position of the company the council is going to have to seek this sum from any assets owned by the company through legal action.

Ferrygate - One In The Eye For Thanet Council

I see my old chum Lord Gnome of the popular satirical magazine Private Eye has seen fit to publish my latest jottings about the ongoing £3.4m Ferrygate scandal today! In case you're too mean or stupid to trot along to the newsagents and buy a copy, here's what I wrote:

LOST AT SEA

Taxpayers are furious with Thanet council after discovering that it secretly sank millions into a failing ferry company - money that is now swimming with the fishes.

Thanet owns and runs the port of Ramsgate, home till recently of a tatty shipping line called TransEuropa Ferries. In spring 2011, TransEuropa, which employed Slovenian staff and carried mostly Eastern European lorries on ageing, Cypriot-registered ships between Ramsgate and Ostend, went to the council and confessed that it was skint, blaming the rise in fuel prices. TransEuropa had a proposition. If the council would let it off paying its bills it wouldn't go bust, saving the jobs of ten port staff - and only costing the taxpayer £120,000 a month! Thanet's chief exec Sue McGonigal agreed on condition the deal remained secret.

Last month the waters finally closed over TransEuropa. It emerged that under the clandestine deal Thanet had sunk £3.4m into the failing firm - almost a fifth of the council’s annual budget. Only McGonigal, a few senior council officers and the council leader appear to have been in on the secret. No specific mention was made in Thanet’s 2011/12 accounts, nor was provision made for potential losses. No mention of it was made at any public meeting of the council. Moreover, this enormous public subsidy to a foreign shipping company wasn’t even secured: all the Council had was a vague promise of jam tomorrow. The truth only emerged when TransEuropa’s other creditors forced the company into bankruptcy.

Now deprived Thanet is having to introduce deep cuts to make up for the shortfall, including slashing £1m from the housing budget. An application to TransEuropa’s Belgian administrator in the hope of retrieving some money is unlikely to amount to much, as the firm’s last two rustbuckets - its only assets - ended up in Ostend, and both are so old and knackered that they’re probably only worth their scrap value.

Despite calls for her resignation, the £114,000 chief exec has refused to go. The fact that the secret subsidy was instigated with a nod from Tory council leader Bob Bayford, and subsequently endorsed by Labour's Clive Hart when his party took control late in 2011, has worked to McGonigal's advantage, with both parties forced to argue that propping up TransEuropa was the only ‘sensible’ thing to do.

All this comes just weeks after Thanet’s former Tory leader, Eye favourite Sandy ‘Shagpile’ Ezekiel, was jailed for 18 months at Maidstone Crown Court for misconduct in a public office, following dodgy property deals. What a place!

And while we're on the subject of Private Eye, I see the latest edition of Thanet Watch, the self-styled 'Private Eye of Thanet', has published a transcript of my recent UKIP film (starring A. Hitler) without so much as a credit! Which is why I've just toddled around all the local newsagents replacing as many copies of Thanet Watch as I can find with the real Private Eye.

The weirdest thing, though, is that they've redacted all my spicy lingo apart from the phrase 'bell end'.

Dornier Of An Old Era

 

Holy wordplay! I really must sack my headline writers!

Anyoldhoo, I'm indebted to regular reader Phil for this snap of that German bomber which just been salvaged from the Goodwin Sands and brought in to our lovely port here at the Millionaires' Playground!

Not exactly a minter, but it's only had the one owner (A. Hitler) and will make a good project for someone. To be honest, I suspect it's in better condition than some of those knackered old cargo jets flying over my roof into RAF London Kent Manston Margate Tracey Emin Maggie Thatcher Schipol International Airport!!!!

History Lesson

With the news that Thanet Duffer Central has offered the 'developers' of the Pleasurama Eyesore aka Royal Sands aka Titanic Towers more time to cough up the sponds to avoid further 'scrutiny' (ooh, they must be really scared!), I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane and see if history can teach us a lesson here.

So settle down, and please do pay attention at the back. Poole - stop playing with McGonigal's calculator. Yes, it does spell 'boobs' if you hold it upside down, put it down. Thank you.

Now, it all starts back in 1986 with Thanet Council leasing the site to the late Jimmy Godden. Yes Poole, you're right, that is nearly 30 years ago. Well done.

Jimmy didn't much like running amusement parks, but he did like burning them down, collecting on the insurance, then applying for planning permission to build luxury seafront apartments. In 1994, Jimmy and his chums at Thanet Council cooked up a scheme to redevelop Pleasurama which would retain the listed building at the heart of the site. It was agreed that a mixed retail and leisure development would be completed by 31st December 2000, and the council would be paid £500,000.

Then in 1998, before work on the development could start, what happened? No McGonigal, the council didn't receive lots of money and live happily ever after. Bayford? Hart? Any clues? No? I'll tell you then. The site burnt down, and despite the fact that the council could have insisted the insurance money was spent on the new development, they allowed Jimmy to trouser the lot. He then trundled off in his Rolls-Royce to burn some other seafront heritage sites down, leaving Pleasurama to rot.

The council's Chief Executive at the time argued that no further dealings should be had with Mr Godden, and what happened to him? Yes, McGonigal, you're right! He received lots of money, retired early and lived happily ever after!

By 2001, Ramsgate's residents were so unhappy with what was happening to their lovely seafront, and the incompetence of their council, that they called in the District Auditor. Does anyone know what the District Auditor does? No Bayford, he doesn't check bus passes. He's a scary man with a big stick who goes around asking lots of very awkward questions. In 2002 he produced his report, here it is. It concludes that the biggest single impact of what had transpired was 'the lost opportunity to-date of developing a key area of the district for the overall benefit of local residents', and that 'a considerable amount of (council) staff resources were expended on this scheme (615 hours) for very little tangible output'.

What's more, he chastised (it means 'told off', Hart) the council for lacking project management skills, carrying out negotiations with the developer in secret, failure to approach alternative developers, failure to get a proper valuation for the site, failure by council employees to provide proper reports to councillors, and failure to take proper minutes of meetings and keep proper records of costs incurred.

Now, Poole, Hart, Bayford, McGonigal - what do we learn from this? Poole? What's that, you say? Keep secretly negotiating for ten years with one 'developer' you know nothing about, and offer to change the pathetically sketchy agreement you have with them to suit the requirements of their 'bankers'? Stupid boy! Go and stand in the corner!

Ferrygate Fixed!

Cripes! I see that green machine Councillor Ian 'Pile' Driver has fixed it for me to have my ferry fiasco fixed!

A bit of background. I popped a complaint on the excellent FixMyStreet website yesterday, moaning about the £3.4m of council tax the Duffers have poured down the TransEuropa plughole. I wasn't really expecting a response, as the site is more concerned with barkers' nests, abandoned jalopies and street lights that are on the fritz.

But only 24 hours later, the Right Honourable Member for Northwood Ward has marked it as 'job done'! Hurrah! If only everything in life was that simple!

Ferrygate - Sweeping It Under The Carpet

Fittingly for a local authority that was until comparatively recently led by a bent carpet salesman, Thanet's councillors have now successfully swept the scandal of TDC's £3.3m secret subsidy to a foreign ferry firm under the very carpets that the aforementioned bent carpet salesman no doubt sold them in the first place.

Both the Oversight and Scrutiny Panel on Tuesday night, and an extraordinary council meeting yesterday, effectively voted to approve Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer Sue McGonigal's clandestine, multi-million pound cover-up, a commercial bollock-dropping on such a monumental scale that, if she had been working anywhere else, she would have been immediately escorted out the door with only her Miss Piggy rubber and a few paper clips as compensation.

What isn't surprising is that the right wing bears-of-very-little-brain seem to think this is the best outcome, even though you'd expect the idea of their council tax being used to prop up a bunch of Slovenian matelots to be anathema to them. You'd think they'd be arguing that McGonigal has acted like a small town version of Gordon Brown, pumping good money after bad, gifting £3.3m of public funds in unsecured loans, and causing an extended period of austerity to be brought in by, er, the Labour administration. (I think that's the point at which that particular hypothetical Tory argument breaks down.)

It's slightly more surprising that the left wingers seem compliant with this extraordinary state of affairs, but then I'm maybe crediting them with more brain cells than they actually possess. Only the independents appear to have properly got to grips with this fiasco, and understood its full implications.

What seems utterly ludicrous is that the two main Thanet bloggers who have experience of running businesses themselves seem to think there's nothing wrong with a debtor being allowed to rack up such a huge sum in unpaid bills. 'It's money we would never have had in the first place,' goes the argument. But then, if it was only 'funny money', why is £1m being slashed from the housing budget? Why didn't McGonigal use her business and commercial acumen to pull the plug before it all got so completely out of control? Well, the answer to that last one is that she evidently has none.

I dunno. For an island that's not short of whelk stalls, there seem to be very few people knocking about who would be qualified to run one.