The View From Below.

Thursdays Council meeting was a revelation. Not only did the Labour Administration demonstrate its commitment to equality by voting in favour of equality in marriage for the LGBT community. It also reinforced the widely held opinion that Thanet’s unique version of the Tory Party is one of the most homophobic in the country. The pathetic excuses trotted out as to why they wouldn’t vote in favour were a joy to listen to. The main one seemed to be that they hadn’t had the chance to speak to everyone in their ward to find their views, of course following that logic they wouldn’t have voted on any issue before the Council. They did however mange to find some strong, if somewhat bizarre views on other issues. Congratulations are due to the few Tories who found the courage to vote in favour of the resolution. I have been to various events all over the country when I was a Portfolio Holder and every time when Tory attendees found out I was from Thanet the reaction was always the same “ oh Thanet isn’t that where so and so is a Councillor” followed by a long diatribe about how Thanet Tories are the kind that give the Tory Party a bad name. While I have no problem with quite a few of the local Tories and find some of them quite personable there is unfortunately a small cabal of them that seem to think they are in some way superior to the rest of us mere mortals. I have headed this post The View From Below as I have the distinct feeling that that is where this cabal feel we belong with their arrogant, superior, smug, supercilious and condescending attitude. They seem to believe that they are somehow born to rule and they always know best and seem to delight in talking down to us like naughty schoolboys. Quite frankly some of them need to learn humility and how to talk to people as people as equals and not as some lower class. I quite understand that they are suffering watching the Labour Administration getting things done after years of stagnation and it must be acutely embarrassing for them knowing they had the chance to actually achieve something and make Thanet a better place but failed miserably. So to sum up this small cabal really are the most insufferable snobbish smarty pants, stiff neck, upstarts of the worst kind. Finally I am compelled to ask yet again what is the point of Tom King. This is a Councillor who is at least consistent in his failure to vote on most issues, I am sure that is not what the good people of Westgate voted for. While he sometimes makes good points in his speeches his failure to vote in favour or opposition in line with his speech is puzzling to say the least.

Another fine Bank Holiday Monday

Sat here watching the rain pissing down outside and idly flicking through the BBC News site I came acros THIS article. As usual its the same old tired reasons being spouted out again by a right wing neo fascist group purporting to represent business. Blaming the workers again for wanting holidays. A quick look at the table at the bottom of the article shows that in terms of public holidays here in Britian we are at the bottom of the table. A quick look at the two at the top reveals that arguably the two most successful economies in the world today also have the highest number of public holidays.
For those who cant be arsed to scroll to the bottom and read it I have reproduced it here.

Japan, South Korea 15
Spain, Malta 14
Portugal, Austria 13
Greece, South Africa 12
France, Italy, Brazil, New Zealand 11
Australia, Finland, Norway, Belgium, US 10
Canada, Ireland, Germany 9
UK, Netherlands 8

Now it seems to me that there is a lesson in there somewhere, namely that a happy worker is a productive worker. Of course since the Blessed Margaret decimated our manufacturing industry we have relied more and more on what are loosely termed as service industries. Banking, Insurance, DIY and Garden Centres and of course the holiday/tourism industry. Of course the first two are a complete joke and total rip off and could not by any stretch of the imagination be called service industries, rip off, pocket lining industries for a few maybe. All of which brings me back to the first line of this post. As they all rely on decent weather for folks to go out and spend their hard earned cash surely we should have MORE public holidays to allow that to happen.
Oh but hang on a minute all these activities require cash, as we are now living in a country whose Government seems hell bent on grinding the 'have nots' into the ground and promoting the 'haves' into an even higher division, now as there are many more 'have nots' than 'haves' that plan wont work either. Even a simple day out with the children can cost a small fortune, on the same news site there is a story about two women from Peterborogh who decided to take their two children to London for the day. Total cost for two kids and two adults for one day out was £200 and this included a couple of visits to free museums.
Welcome to Britian, land of the free, that is of course free to be unemployed, sick, poor, impoverished or otherwise downtrodden while the fat cat millionares continue to get fatter and are allowed to get away with virtually anything for the price of a decent dinner somewhere.

Halcyon Days, Frosty Mornings and Developments.

Having just spent two hours doing the weekly shop at Tesco at Westwood I am wondering if I have missed something important on the news, It seems that folks are stocking up for either some bad weather or a siege. I have never seen so many people there on a Sunday morning or indeed with trolleys piled high with edible goodies or fattening crap depending on you point of view.

The whole point of the trip was to avoid the exorbitant £6 delivery charge now being levied at the time of Mrs. Grumpys favourite delivery slot. Readers will recall that she doesn’t mind being called ‘love’ by the delivery driver, unlike some people who seem to object. As usual the object of the exercise was completely missed as several things were purchased that having seen the glossy packaging and lurid advertising Mrs. Grumpy suddenly decided we desperately needed.

However I digress, what I am wondering is that if the plans that Tesco and Sainsbury’s have over on the dark side of the Island will ever come to fruition and if they do what effect, if any, will they have on their respective stores over here on the sunny side. While I understand that whether you spend your hard earned cash in Sainsbury, Tesco, Asda, Morrison’s et al in Ramsgate, Redruth, Ramsbottom or Renfrew it all goes into the companies coffers I do wonder if they will have a negative effect on the amount of business done in the Westwood stores. On the plus side it may help to alleviate the traffic congestion in the Westwood area and co-incidentally reduce the carbon footprint.

 Sitting here idly staring out of the window waiting for the much delayed France/Ireland rugby match to start and looking at the dull, grey, damp drizzly day outside I am suddenly overcome with a nostalgic longing for the long halcyon days of summer of my youth. Of course we also had some crap weather in the winter and I well recall the strange patterns created by the frost INSIDE the bedroom windows in the mornings, no central heating back then. Now we all live in centrally heated hermetically sealed houses all that is missing from children’s life education, that and snowballs, oh excuse me!  I forgot that may upset some prematurely aged, prematurely wizened, childless shreiking harridan (or male equivalent) who thinks snowballs may encourage mindless violence in young people.

Anyway back to my long halcyon days of summer, following the couple of day’s really warm weather in the week when it was nice to feel the warm sun on my back I decided to get my gear ready for this years fishing season and clear my fishing shed out as well. Now when you have been doing something for over 60 years you seem to acquire all sorts of bits some of which must be antiques by now so as well as looking forward to the new fishing season I expect a few boot fairs will be in order as well.

Jo Walters, a personal apolgy

It appears that I may have offended you in some way by using a less than complimentary description in response to your complaint about bus drivers calling you ’love’.   As you have not contacted me I can only assume that either you are not offended or have not actually read the blog.

 

Several people have, wrongly in my view, taken it upon themselves to express righteous indignation on your behalf at my remarks. Clearly you are an intelligent, articulate person and as such are quite capable of expressing your own views and do not need knights in shining armour to defend you.

 

While I do not regret commenting on your attitude and still believe that it is a gross over reaction to an everyday friendly greeting I apologise if I have wrongly described or offended you.   

Beam Me up Scotty

I hear from at least two third party sources that I am going to be taken to the Standards Board for the use of a word that is in common use in the English language although not perhaps in Conservative circles in Broadstairs.
I also hear that the press has been informed prior to the actual event!
I have no doubt that this will be the same person who can’t spell misogynist and chooses to hide behind Anonymous and is being prompted by a fellow Councillor who cant find anything to attack Labour about so is reduced to trying to discredit me.
For information and with acknowledgements to Wikionary here is the definition:-
From Arabic بِنْت (bínt, “girl, daughter”).
The term entered the British lexicon during the occupation of Egypt at the end of the nineteenth century, where it was adopted by British soldiers to mean "girlfriend" or "bit on the side". It is used as a derogatory slang word in the United Kingdom, meaning 'woman' or 'girl'. Its register varies from that of the harsher bitch to an only slightly derogatory, almost affectionate, term for a young woman, the latter being more commonly associated with the West Midlands. The term was used in British armed forces and the London area synonymously with bird in its slang usage (and sometimes brass) from at least the 1950s. The term has also famously been used in the classic film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in which the Lady of the Lake is referred to as a "moistened bint", and in the phrase "grotty Scots bint" in the "English English" scene of the film Austin Powers in Goldmember.
Following the Second World War, workers were imported from Yemen to fill the vacancies left in the Tyneside ship-building industry. The term found its way into the Geordie dialect from the late 1940s onwards and is still used to this day. Although the term can be used in a derogatory sense, in general it refers simply to (usually young) females.
Sorted.

Next onto a brief comment on last night’s Council meeting when Labour tried to fulfill our election manifesto promise to reduce Senior Councillors allowances by 20% to reintroduce Councillors Community Grants. We were then treated to the screams of pain from the Tory benches who were crying crocodile tears about how this allowance was to encourage disabled and other less well off individuals to stand as Councillors.
The hypocrisy of this sickened me as these are members of and wholehearted supporters and advocates of a Party whose national Government has been on a continual and relentless attack on those less fortunate in society.
The whole point of Councillors Community Grants was to help Groups in their Wards, we don’t forget of course that in May 2003 one of the first things the Tories did after taking power was to treble Senior Councillors allowances followed shortly afterwards by the removal Councillors Community Grants.

Finally I see that the QEQM Hospital has gone all techno on us with the introduction of handhelds to record and diagnose patients condition. Although these still require the human input and as such MAY be open to mistakes it is only a short hop from this to the introduction of one of Dr. McCoys tiny diagnostic tools.
StarTrek has of course predicted the use of lots of things that are in common use today.
In Star Trek, “tricorders” are handheld devices used for sensor scanning, data analysis and recording data, similar devices are in common use now, barcode scanners, are good example.
Handheld “communicators” that look like walkie talkies with a flip top — in other words, much like a clamshell mobile phone.
Throughout Star Trek touch-based control panels called PADDs (personal access display devices) were frequently used by crew members. They resemble the tablet-like touch screen computers of today.
Uhura, for a time the Enterprise’s Communications officer, wears a giant silver earpiece while sitting at the communications station. This reminds me of the bluetooth headpieces of today.
Star Trek foresaw the convenience of portable digital storage. We now have USB flash drives that hold gigabyte upon gigabyte of data.
When Scotty meets an at-the-time-of-filming modern computer, he’s confused when it doesn’t respond to his voice as the Enterprise computers do. Today, he might have had more luck with many computers having voice controlled software, smartphones, cars and other electronics now also have voice activation options.
Star Trek ships were able to locate crew members with precision before beaming them up. The U.S. government declared GPS functional in 1995 about 30 years after the GPS type location concept appeared in Star Trek for the first time.


Beam me up Scotty.

Town Council up and running.

I was at last nights inaugural meeting of Ramsgate Town Council to witness the birth pangs of this newly elected body. Like most births it was a drawn out painful affair starting with the head emerging. As some of you will know this is usually the most painful part of the process and so it turned out to be. In front of a packed house, there were probably 60 people in the audience, The Midwife, TDC’s Head of Legal Services struggled manfully to get through the process but was thwarted by the various factions voting on strictly party political lines. Nominations for Chairman of the new body were Pat Doyle, moved by Jill Kirby, Dave Green, moved by Steve Ward and Ralph Hoult, moved by Gerry O’Donnell. Eventually following an elimination vote where the candidate with the lowest number of votes drops out Ralph Hoult was eliminated. Following another failed attempt to elect it was agreed that the two remaining candidates should address the Council in an attempt to break the deadlock. This resulted in Dave Green emerging victorious. He made a short acceptance speech and then presented retiring Mayor Kay Dark with a commemorative badge. Next on the agenda was to elect a deputy for Dave Green, this was achieved in no time at all as Ralph Hoult was elected unopposed.
We then moved on to something headed ‘Style of the Council’ this was just to decide whether to mutate into a Town Council or remain as a Parish, it was duly agreed that Ramsgate should have a Town Council as Ramsgate is indeed a Town.
It was also agreed that the Town Council should meet on a monthly basis except August and December at 7pm, then it was onto the formation of the various committee’s that actually make a Council work. It was decided to form three main ones, a planning committee, a finance & general purpose one and an allotments committee. The normal rules of political balance apply so no one group will be over represented anywhere.
Next it needed to be decided where the Councils home would be, obviously Albion House has to be the choice but as TDC seem intent on flogging it off there is some doubt about this so it was agreed that RTC should sort of squat at Albion House until agreement can be reached. It was accepted that RTC will have to pay a commercial rent for the place but arguments lay ahead about the condition of the building and who will pay for it to be made fit for purpose not to mention making it DDA compliant. The rest of the meeting was taken up with even more turgid and soporific debate and items until it came time to exclude the press and public although by this time considerable numbers of the public had decided that Horlicks and News at Ten was a considerably more enthralling prospect and had left.
Quite rightly in my view the Council decided NOT to exclude the public as there were to be no discussions about individuals salary levels or performance.
Some of the new Members obviously didn’t understand that the Town Clerk is not the person that takes the minutes and writes reports, he or she is in fact RTC’s Chief Executive or indeed that he/she will also have to be the Section 151 Officer. I wont explain what a 151 Officer is here other than to say that all councils that spend public money have to have one and they have to have a CIPFA qualification.
Details of what a 151 officer is and does can be seen HERE.
I am very concerned that Gerry O’Donnell seems the believe that you can advertise a job and then start negotiating pay and conditions either at the interview or after you have appointed someone. No one worth their salt is going to apply for a job where the terms and conditions or salary range are not on offer up front.

Also discussed was what interim assistance may or may not be needed from TDC until RTC actually employs its own staff.


I suspect that the 60 or so folks in the audience who came looking for some kind of revolution and some world changing actions and decisions went home disappointed, unfortunately Annual Meetings are always rather long drawn out turgid affairs. No doubt in the coming months RTC will start making decisions that will have a far reaching effect on the Residents of Ramsgate including potentially increasing your Council Tax.
I also noticed in the assembled multitude some ‘furiners’ there was among others, from Birchington John (am I an Independent, no I am an Independent in public and a Tory in private) Worrow. From Westbrook there was Cllr Dean (call me Bert) McCastree and from Margate Cllr John (Snowy) Watkins. I can only assume that they were there to gather information about how a Town Council looks and works having as they do aspirations in that direction themselves.

I am still concerned that some of them are unable to grasp the basic premise that if you are going to spend money it has to come from somewhere and the only source of income are the Taxpayers of Ramsgate but only time will tell if I am being unduly pessimistic .

Some Random Ramblings.

I read with some incredulity the Real Madrid have just paid Manchester United £80 million for Ronaldo, add to that the £56 million they paid for Kaka a couple of days ago all adds up to a staggering £136 million quid and they are still on the lookout for more players.

(For Ken Gregory’s benefit Ronaldo and Kaka are football players and Real Madrid and Manchester United are football clubs, football is probably the biggest spectator sport in the UK, although fishing is the biggest participation sport!)

In addition to the transfer fees these players and others in the squad will command something like £100,000 quid a WEEK in wages you can see that when you compare these mind numbing sums of money to the mere pittance plus expenses that our MP’s are expected to survive on it puts it into perspective.
For those of us on a rather more modest income we read about these things with a sense of disbelief, the sums being bandied about frequently exceed our total income for eight or nine years and I am sure that a lot of the people who I represent would be glad of my yearly income never mind the weekly income of some people. Although I fully accept that MP’s who have constituencies in Cornwall or Leeds, Manchester etc cant go home after a day at the office it seems to me that there are thousands of folks who live in the South East of England who commute daily to and from London and most of these manage to get into their office’s by 9 am so I don’t accept that MP’s who live within the same distance of London as their commuting constituents should have a second home. Parliament no longer sits through the night so even with a late night most of them should be able to catch the late train home if not bed and breakfast would be a perfectly acceptable and legitimate expense. The added bonus of this would be that they would have to suffer the same trials and tribulations as the normal passenger and maybe then something would be done about the state of our railways and possibly even get the trains to run on time more frequently than now.
Just as an aside to this post what most of you wont know is that for some strange reason any MP who is also a Minister HAS TO HAVE a London address, again I can understand that for senior Ministers but quite why the Minister for Broom Cupboards and Loft Ladders is required to live in London I don’t know.
Now the expenses furore has died down and the Government have said they will change the system although only time will tell Journalists (spit) are moving their attention onto the outbreak of Swine Flu. As usual they are all becoming excited at the prospect of a pandemic and the reporting of it is becoming more and more hysterical bulletin by bulletin. If you believe what they are saying more and more people are becoming infected and we will all be dead in our beds by the Autumn. The figures quoted are of course the total number of people who have caught the disease since the outbreak began not the number currently suffering from it, and in any case 750 cases out of a population of 55million is hardly cause for hysteria. If you stuck a nought or two on the end of that figure I could understand the concern. All this assumes of course that in the meantime Mars doesn’t collide with Earth sending us all into oblivion !!



I am off this evening to a briefing on something called The Working Neighbourhood Fund, this is a fund that among other things is supposed to help people find work or give them the skills to help them find work.
I shall find whether this is true or if it is just another excuse to line the pockets of the Consultants and Middle Class Groupies and Luvvies who seem to be employed by these schemes in great numbers and who spend their time telling the proletariat what they should or shouldn’t be doing but not actually achieving any positive results.

Well it’s been a busy week for me after a week doing nothing but lazing about.
A few meetings and lots of running around in the lead up to my Stepdaughters wedding on Friday. This was held at The Blazing Donkey near Sandwich and we were treated to an overnight stay at the hotel. Apart from the fact that Stepdaughter and new Son-in-Law were very happy and it all went well I will gloss over the value for money or the lack of it at a venue that is supposed to be one of the best.
Saturday saw me at a celebration of ten years of Richard Nicholson’s leadership of the Labour Group on TDC. Members of the Group past and present were in attendance to celebrate the past ten years. We reminded ourselves of some of our achievements, who for example remembers York Street in Ramsgate as it was? We were told that it was not possible to do anything about it but we did under Richards’s leadership, Christchurch University was another thing that was achieved under him, we started the process that led to Westwood Cross including a new road layout that was promptly abandoned by the Tories in 2003, then when the Sally line left it was Labour under Richard Nicholson who had the replacement ferry company in place the next day these and many other things have been forgotten in the furore over MP’s expenses that have resulted in the bad showing and awful results for Labour in the Elections.
Meanwhile over on Michael Child’s blog he accuses Labour Bloggers of not talking politics so I will say that sadly the real issues have been overshadowed by this scandal and the very real achievements of the Labour Government have been forgotten.

Consider the following real issues.

* David Cameron's Conservatives do nothing but talk Britain down and would cut support for families during these tough economic times.
Labour is investing now so we are best placed to take advantage of the upturn when it comes. Labour believe that we should grow our way out of recession not cut our way out of recession.

* David Cameron and George Osborne are alone in believing that we should not grow our way out of recession but cut our way out of recession. Their approach is isolated, incoherent and unfair - they would cut help for families.

* At a time of recession the Conservatives have said they would:

* Cut Labour's guarantee that all people under the age of 25 who are unemployed for a year will receive either a job or training.

* Cut this year's £60 cash boost for pensioners while threatening to do away with free TV licenses and free bus passes for the elderly.

* Cut support for families under real pressure who need to defer interest payments so they don't lose their homes.
* Scrap the right for every patient to see a cancer specialist within two weeks if they are suspected of having cancer.

* Cut £160m from crime-fighting budgets - the equivalent of losing three and half thousand police officers.

I wont even mention the Ramsgate Town Council election results other than to say that already the maneuvering and skullduggery to be appointed Mayor has started.

Well I am back,,,,

Well, back from my holiday renewed and refreshed and ready for whatever the world can throw at me for another year.
Of course holiday’s are a time for relaxing and generally slobbing about, none of this activity holiday lark for me, dossing about by the swimming pool suits me just fine. This of course involves wearing a swimming costume, having dutifully packed my trusty knitted woollen swimming trunks (older readers will remember those go swimming, get out of pool, trunks fall down due to weight of water retained in trunks!) I was smartly told no way was I going to wear those so a trip to a well known sportswear retailer was duly convened. Now call me old fashioned but for swimming I like swimming trunks but apparently you cant buy those anymore unless you want to spend a months wages on a pair of what Olympic swimmers wear, you have to have bathing shorts. Shorts of course is a misnomer, shorts as the name implies should finish somewhere between your groin and knees but today it seems to refer to anything that finishes short of your ankles, or something that looks like Eric Morecombe’s boy scout shorts in that memorable sketch. “Its fashionable” I am told, well I couldn’t care less, I flatly refuse to walk about wearing something that looks like a normal pair of trouser that have shrunk in the wash. I am old enough to remember the way that younger brothers and sisters had to wear hand me down clothes and how they never fitted properly now young people pay small fortunes for ill fitting ridiculous looking clothes. Why do kids who go skateboarding have to wear trousers with the crutch flapping round their knees? Not only do they look silly they must be bloody uncomfortable.
Of course being on holiday also involves eating out, on arriving at a restaurant you are presented with a menu, most dishes nowadays are given fancy names and equally fancy prices but when you enquire of the waiter what exactly is this dish you are given some arty farty fancy dandy explanation but when you reduce it to basics is it one of two things, stew or grilled meat, after finishing your stew or grilled meat that has been stewed or grilled with some unmentionable, unpronounceable and virtually inedible sauce laced with god knows what strange herbs you come to the coffee. Now this in itself is a journey into the unknown, when you ask for “coffee please” you are given a choice, just from memory there is a choice of, Espresso, Cappuccino, Espresso Lungo, Espresso Americano, Ristretto, Latte, Macchiato, Doppio, Mocha.
“ Err, no thanks, I JUST WANT A CUP OF COFFEE,,,”
“ Well Sir we have Espr,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,”

“ Look forget the coffee, bring me a cup of tea please”

“ Would Sir like Assam, Darjeeling, Ceylon, Formosa Oolong, Souchong, Lapsong, Bing Bong, Sing Song or Ying Tong”

“ look, forget it, just bring me the bill.”

Which brings me to the point of this post and that is the interpretation of modern language ie,
Latte, Espresso etc means you have just paid to much for that cup of coffee,
Lapsong, Suchong, Ding Dong etc means a bloody expensive cup of tea,
Fashionable means you are about to be ripped off for a piece of tat that makes you look like a complete and total wally.

A little bit of politics

A bit of politics today with the upcoming set of elections looming but first a nod in the direction of Simon Moores who has been elevated to TDC’s Cabinet to replace the sacked Jo Gideon. I suppose that many people especially in Westgate had high hopes of our Simes when he was first elected the TDC. He was perceived to be one of a new breed of Tory who would stand up to the Leadership and tell it like it is but he seems to have been sucked in and now sits within a Cabinet that has overseen a series of disasters and non actions and will have to sit by as the Council continues to lurch from crisis to crisis unable to stand up and be critical. This of course assumes that the notion of Collective Responsibility has been explained to him!
A bit closer to home is the small matter of elections to Kent County Council and particularly Ramsgate Parish Council.

I am told that the BNP are putting up a candidate in Ramsgate, what they seem to have overlooked is the fact that many of Ramsgate’s residents fought to defeat a fascist party in Germany and will have no truck with people who dress themselves up as patriots but are no better than the Nazi party in Germany during the 1930’s.

On a rather more serious side there are some well known ‘names’ appearing on the statement of persons nominated posted outside TDC’s offices.
Pat Doyle and Peter Landi who have asserted their independence and disinterest in party politics on many occasions have appeared as official Tory candidates. To those of us who are veterans of Ramsgate political scene this comes as no surprise whatsoever.
Also poking his head above the wall is one Eric Easton, during the time he was a District Councillor several rumours were circulating about him and his business dealings, as with all these things they turned out to be nothing more than rumours, what is an undoubted fact is his reluctance or inability to actually come to a decision, I can remember that whenever a difficult or controversial decision had to be made it was always Eric who was the first to propose that we had yet another report to add to the several we already had.

Rather more amusing is the fact that G.O.D. aka Gerry O’Donnell has put his name forward as a candidate in the Ramsgate Parish election. Despite assertions about candidates in every ward, a strong group of people, blah, blah, blah it seems that Ramsgate First can only muster one candidate and that is, err their Chairman, Deputy Chairman, Secretary, Treasure, Committee and total membership of err, erm, err ONE !!!
Of course non of the other usual suspects have put their heads above the parapet to test their somewhat bizarre policies and theories on the voters. As usual these people are very quick to criticise Councils and Councillors and tell everyone and anyone how much better, cleverer, wiser and more knowledgable they are but when push comes to shove they dont have the courage of their convictions, or maybe they are all so clever they have managed to get their nomination papers in late !!

I don’t feel quite so grumpy now.

Grump, Grumpy and Grumpier

My grumpiness has been particularly active for the last couple of weeks due to several factors.
I had to attend an interview at the Job Centre because after 11 weeks out of work I havn’t found a job. Clearly the real world hasn’t caught up with these folks yet, they obviously havn’t noticed that unemployment is rising and the Job Centre have had to open up another two signing points to cope with the increase locally. Anyway the guy I saw was rather more in touch and a fairly realistic interview followed, up until the point that is that he asked me if I had thought of using some thing called a Work Trial. The way this works is that if you see a job you fancy you apply for it and enclosed one of the cards they give you for the prospective employer. You then get to work at a job for two weeks to see if you like the job and the employer likes you, great, smashing, super you might think, well yes but the only snag is that you don’t get paid any wages !!! So to summarise an employer gets two weeks free labour, says you are not suited, please send me someone else. Shades of the discredited YTS Scheme methinks.

‘Er Indoors has been hassling me to try and repair the leak in the pond for some time now so I decided to make the effort, now its not that hard to find a leak is it ? fill pond up, watch edges for bubbles coming in through leak in liner, drain some water from pond, repair leak, refill pond. After several hours on my hands and knees crawling round the edge of the pond I couldn’t find any evidence of a leak despite the fact that the water was going down. To cut a long story short and after trying several coats of pond paint to no avail The Domestic Authorities decided that a new pond was the solution. Apparently ‘we’ wouldn’t have much of a problem doing it!!
So I got dragged round various pond selling places to choose a new preformed liner that was roughly the size and shape of our existing pond, we eventually found one that was near enough and got it home. It was at this point it became obvious that the one we had bought was considerably deeper than our existing pond. So not a problem….’we’ could dig it out. < bigger sigh> so in the interests of marital harmony I set to work with my shovel, due to the necessity of moving the pond around to accommodate the shape I had to dig out some of the existing rockery that bordered the old pond. This in turn now looked ‘funny’, back to work with my shovel to completely dig out the rockery, this of course now leads us to something to replace it,,,result is that we have a big bag of pea shingle delivered 900kg worth that has to be carried from the front of the house to the back and spread out. It was then decided that as we have several bamboo bushes along the fence we should have a sort of Chinese Feng Shui garden shape, this means that we now have to buy some bamboo rolls similar to log rolls to create a border around the shingle. Nearly two weeks later what started out as a simple job for a couple of hours is finally finished. It is Sods Law that these things always take on complications and take a lot longer than originally planned.

I also got dragged around the supermarket the other day and was surprised to see on sale breakfast bacon, breakfast orange, breakfast eggs, breakfast tea and something called salad leaves, what ever happened to bacon, eggs, tea, orange juice and lettuce? Is this yet another example of the creeping Americanisation of our society.

TV Chefs have also been taxing my patience lately, they all seem to have taken to messing around with classic regional dishes and ‘improving’ them, the Spikey Haired one who apparently went to Broadstairs College has taken some Caribbean dishes and 'improved' them, the dozy Canadian has been messing with classic Italian food and others have been busy interfering with various foods that have stood the test of time. In my opinion these people are no better than the arty farty pretentious types who tell us that the Turner Centre will improve our intellect and social outlook as well as curing all Thanets problems at a stroke.

On a brighter note I managed to escape for a weekends fishing with a couple of friends of mine at a place near Ashford, the weather was really decent and we caught fish as well. The positive side of this is that these guys have no interest in politics at all and we spend most of the weekend talking about anything and everything except politics, they are also merciless in taking the mickey out of me if the occasion demands it.

As you will have read elsewhere Richard Nicholson has stood down as Labour Group Leader after ten years of service to the Labour Group. I count Richard among my closest friends, indeed he was best man at my wedding and he shared with me in confidence his intention to stand down several months ago. So any talk of a coup is misplaced, misdirected and should be discounted. Ten years is a long time to carry the responsibility of leadership and Richard can now take a well earned rest and spend more time in his garden that he loves so much.

Another Grumpy Day !!

I have just got in from being dispatched tout de suite and with much alacrity to the shops to avoid an Easter disaster, (no Yorkshire pud with the beef) as we had no eggs. Apart from the roads being virtually deserted I had completely forgotten that it was Easter Sunday and therefore nowhere would be open. The newsagents was open but that is run by a lovely Indian couple Soo and Ram for whom Easter has no meaning apart from profit from selling Easter Eggs. All the other multinational running dog capitalist conglomerates were shut apart from that is the Co-Op.

What a sad reflection on how much our standards and principles have declined since the founding of the Co-operative Societies by the Trade Union and Labour movement many of whose beliefs were founded on religious principles, indeed it is often said the Jesus was the first Socialist, that the only shop open for business is the one whose roots are to be found in those beliefs and principles.

I can remember when I was a child the only shop to be found open on Good Friday morning was the village baker who opened for an hour to sell hot cross buns (proper ones of course, not the rubbish you buy today) apart from that nowhere else was open. There were no papers as printers had the religious holidays off, butchers, bakers and others all closed over Easter, Christmas, Whitsun and other Bank Holidays. These holidays were a time for rest and relaxation and spending time with your family but sadly now with the advent of 24/7, 365 days a year trading and power advertising any time off work is seen as an opportunity to sell you something and get you out in the garden building a patio that you don’t really want but have been convinced by one of the TV gardeners (usually sponsored by one of the large DIY stores) that you simply must have or poisoning yourself with a barbecue (suggested by a TV chef usually sponsored by a supermarket) by cooking frozen food from the freezer that you bought on the last Bank Holiday.

I could go on all day about the much vaunted good old days ( I remember them well, Typhoid, Ricketts, Diphtheria, Polio, mass unemployment and poverty etc, etc.)
But I wont, suffice to say that now I have time on my hands and I have the chance to become more sullen and morose by the day and even more grumpy than usual I find that I am more and more hankering for a return to a society with basic decent values, simple good manners, proper table manners (a particular bugbear of mine) and a lot less of the ‘in your face’ attitude of advertisers, newspapers, teenagers, prime time television programmes, (and that’s another appalling American expression) and a lot less of the me first materialistic attitude that Thatcher spawned.
**********************************************************************************
Quite how I got from a trip to buy some eggs to a rant about the Thatcher Generation is beyond me, but then I am a Grumpy Old Man so I absolutely reserve the right to be grumpy as and when I feel like it!

The democratic Process, Part One.

I went to a meeting last night of the Councils new General Purposes Committee. I had booked Myself in to speak on one of the items, well the only agenda item actually, under Council Procedure Rule 24.1 that allows other Members to attend and speak at Committee’s.
I set off all fired up because I had received a phone call just as I was leaving telling me that I would not be allowed to speak as this Committee was exempt. This came as a complete surprise to me as Members have always been allowed to speak, the only exception as far as I know is Licensing as that is a Quasi Judicial Committee.
Without wanting to sound too grand and full of my own importance I am a democratically elected Councillor and as such should have the absolute right to have my say on behalf of those who I am elected to represent wherever and whenever and about whatever I feel that I should.
So I arrived all fired up and full of adrenalin ready for a massive argument and quite prepared to be physically removed from the building by security if necessary only to have the wind taken from My sails when it was agreed that I would be allowed to speak. I can only assume that it was felt the subject matter on the agenda was potentially embarrassing and no-one should be allowed to criticise the proposals.
At this point I suppose I should congratulate Simon Moores for making a decent fist of his first meeting as Chair and allowing a free and true democratic debate to take place, I hope that he continues to run his meetings in the same vein in the future.
I don’t always agree with him but credit where it is due.
Basically the Committee were discussing the Council’s senior management restructuring and the resulting increase in Senior Officers salaries. I wont go into details here as the report is confidential, suffice to say that it was agreed that the proposals would be made public shortly and Cllr Moores undertook to ensure that this happened.
The only sour note is that Cabinet had already agreed last November that the Council would be bound by the Consultants report before they even knew the content or consequences of it!.
Now call me a Silly Billy but how can you agree to something in advance that you have no idea about or any idea what or where it will lead to.

Angry Old Man

As I enter my dotage and have more time on my hands I sometimes worry that I am turning into an angry old man. Not a grumpy old man as portrayed in the tv series but a genuine angry person as I find I am getting more and more angry at the simplest things.
I am currently finding the Americanisation of our society particularly irksome, while I have nothing against America or Americans per se I find that some things really annoy me. I suppose it all started with chewing gum and bubble gum as bought into this country by American Servicemen during the war and it has been a downhill journey since then. Chewing gum is a filthy habit especially if done with the mouth open as seems to be the fashion now amongst the hoodie clad young of today, hoodies are another American import as well.
Spelling is a good example of how creeping Americanisation is affecting our society, as someone who dabbles in HTML having to remember to spell centre as center or colour as color or programme as program irks my ire beyond belief. And why oh why do supermarkets (another American idea) only sell large packs of everything. At one time you could buy a pound of sugar, three eggs, a quarter of butter and a whole plethora of other things in quantities suitable for single people now you can only buy in packs suitable for families of five or six, of course in America you can only buy large packs so rather than waste it they eat it, that and the dreaded fast food outlets that have now arrived in the UK probably explains why Americans are the most overweight people in the world it also goes to explain why we ( the Brits ) are fast catching them up in the obesity stakes. Yet another example is found in this Daily Mail story, The Daily Mail is not a paper I read normally but saw this from a link on a website I use. Ignoring the debate about whether it right for young girls to be dressed up in small versions of 20 somethings clubbing clothes apparently it is normal in America to have child pageants where your kids are dressed up as mini adults and paraded around as some sort of trophy or show horse, also ignoring the fact that this is clearly some sort of posh dysfunctional family, I mean who would call their children Bronte, Merrily, and Bridie, the whole piece is littered with Americanisms, Mom, chores, sleepovers, Play-Doh (I always thought dough was spelt dough and Doh was the expression Homer Simpson makes)
My Grandchildren now tell me that they no longer wear trainers but sneakers, they don’t go to the pictures but catch a movie, go to the drive through or thru to get burger and fries.

They will be telling me next we are going on vacation!

Gee, thanks Gerry,

By now most of you will have heard the dull thud as your Council Tax bill drops through your letterbox. I daresay that the booklet that comes with it is along with Adscene one of the quickest items sent to the recycling bin but time should be taken to read it as it reveals a very interesting fact.
As a direct result of Gerry O'Donnells half arsed, half baked, cock eyed scheme when he conned a lot of old people into thinking they were going to get the old Ramsgate Council back. A quick look at page four reveals that the increase in the precept for Ramsgate is a massive 43% although not a lot in cash terms, £3.87 increase for a band D property, in terms of a percentage increase it is huge. The ONLY reason for this is that money has to be in place for all sorts of things before the Parish Council is formed. So we have a 43% increase before they have even been elected and held a meeting !! As there is no cap on how much a Parish Council can increase its precept this is I fear a precursor to some obscene increases in the Ramsgate Tax if the barking mad party wins control.

Talking of barking mad and Council Tax I see that Tim nice but dim Garbutt is
advocating a Council Tax strike. I can only assume that he enjoyed his sojourn at one of Her Majesties Hotels that he wants to go back for a second stay!