BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.!

I have heard it so many times in Thanet politics “You couldn’t make it up could you”.

No sooner than Roger Latchford OBE has donned his purple rosette on behalf of UKIP, he is on telly spouting off about his pet subject, Manston Aerodrome.  I seem to remember two years ago, the good people of Ramsgate gave a resounding NO to night flying at said aerodrome and voted in a Labour Ramsgate Town Council, tipping the balance at Thanet District Council in favour of Labour.

Well ol’ Rog OBE is now in charge of a group of virgin councillors without an email amongst them. Let us consider our Roger’s pedigree, he was the “brains” behind the Ezekiel Conservative administration. Well at least he was Deputy Leader. No problem there then.

When Rog was in power last time he was in charge of such successful schemes as EKO and Chinagate(way) which we all are  appreciating to this day.  Just a small reminder, in case you have forgotten, these schemes were joint KCC / TDC initiatives in the time of the Ezekiel administration. Excuse me for being a cynic but has Paul Carter just received SEVEN more votes.

Next we will be hearing that Pleasurama is starting again.

British Virgin Islands? (BVI)

A really nice place for a holiday, so I am told. While you are there you can open up a company or two. As long as the government doesn’t shut down this tax loophole, the well heeled will stash their dosh into these companies.  But as ministers also probably “holiday” there it is not likely to happen sometime soon.

Anyway say you set up one of these BVI companies and then want to use it to do an odd development or two in the UK. Say a block of flats or maybe a hotel. In order to protect your identity you set up a UK front company with supposedly only one director and one shareholder. This company signs all the documents for your many projects and slowly but surely the BVI is airbrushed out of the picture.

My question is if you have sunk your hard earned cash into the BVI you would want to keep a tight rein on that director of the front company in case he turned out to be a crook. So how would you do that? Some-one around here must know. Answers on a postcard please.

Thanet Art Gallery “opening” soon.

 
Chalky Walker and his outside broadcast team are oiling their tripods and polishing their lenses in preparation for the big opening event, Local people are excited to see the result of 12 years of hoardings around the site and have high hopes that the finished product will live up to their full expectations. Chalky will be out interviewing visitors and getting their views about the future regeneration potential from such as local masterpiece.

The opening ceremony will be conducted by GO’D who is a larger than life figure in the area, expected to hold back the waves and get the sun shining especially for the event and also for the hoards of local people expected to turn out for the well-wishing.  It is hoped that the blue skies of Thanet so often revered by famous artists will decorate the ceiling of the new gallery.

Numerous local artists have been commissioned to provide a colourful array of varied artistic talent from Thanet and beyond and the response has been overwhelming. My own meagre contribution (see picture above) will have to remain in cyberspace and at the wrong end of town (Whatever happened to my board Gerry! :-()

The “Van Gogh Alfresco” commonly known locally as the Great Wall of Ramsgate “opens” on the 23^rd of April 2011 at 3pm, so put that date in your diaries. Where’s my diary? ….. ah! yes…only 22 days to go!

Oh, you thought I was referring to …er … the other…………………………..

I saw it in the tea cups

NO - I am not claiming to be psychic and I don't read tea leaves but I do like a nice"cuppa"tea. One thing which struck me when I first moved to Thanet was the poor water quality. I moved here from South Suffolk which boasts one of the most modern reservoirs in the country, Alton Water, which was built in the 1970's.
Alton Water was constructed by damming and flooding a river valley. A listed watermill and cottages were removed, brick by brick, from the valley floor and re-constructed in the Museum of East Anglian Life where they are still today. Construction of the reservoir was an upheaval at the time but now it is a country park with wading birds, sailing, fishing, country walks and cycling. This is what I call an integrated plan for the future, which I think is lacking  in Thanet.

Coming back to the tea cups, they are both empty cups from my two cups of tea this morning. The one on the left was brewed using bottled water from Waitrose and the one on the right, brewed from tap water which had passed through two filters, installed in my home to improve water quality. As I said in the title, everyday I am reminded that water quality is not the best advert for Thanet.

This topic is particularly relevent at the moment, when the Environment Agency is consulting on run-off water from Manston airport being discharged into Pegwell Bay, it seems the choice we have is either preserving an outstanding SSSI, which is Pegwell Bay, or continuing to contaminate our drinking water. Well at least Waitrose will benefit from increased sales of bottled water.