It’s great that Tony Flaig of BigNewsMargate fame was invited to appear on the BBC Politics Show today. It gives credibility to the blogging community who care and give so much, it illustrates the importance of the voice that bloggers have, and it acknowledges their contribution.  I’m delighted it wasn’t ECR, who can’t see beyond his enormous ego on the subject, and would never appear on camera despite all his ‘media chums’.

Tony, you did really well. Live TV is very scary and you made your points superbly. I did think you went on too much about Northdown House etc (a bit too local for the viewership maybe?) but I understand why you did it, as the Turner Contemporary is part of a bigger picture which needs to be addressed. I thought that your piece was very well aligned with Derek Harding’s message who also talked about the importance of Dreamland and the town in general. Well done, and keep up the good blog!

…is the day Sir Bob comes to town. He’s switching on the Christmas lights at 5pm. I think it takes some balls to come back to Margate after his unpopular summary of the place earlier in the year, and I hope he gets a good reception.  I gather there are various things going on that evening, hopefully fireworks. One definite event is a pre-Christmas market (in the Market Place, surprisingly enough) so I hope the cynics amongst you will take the time to come, with an open mind, and see what the Old Town looks like now.

It’s not exactly a complete destination yet but the Old Town/Harbour Arm area should be a place to visit if you are looking for interesting Christmas gifts. Here’s what you’ll find:

Qing (pronounced Ching) – a great range of gifts from China and Japan (open Thurs – Sun).
Jofi (opening on the Harbour Arm in the next couple of weeks) – ‘Gorgeous Gifts for Girls’, and it really is!
Sci Fi and Comic World – great gift ideas for small and big kids.
Flower Lab – dramatically different floristry.
Old Town Gallery – fabulous diverse selection of handmade jewellery, ceramics and interesting things.
Cutting’s Jewellers – beautiful collection of new and quality second-hand jewellery.
gallery IOTA on the Harbour Arm - free to wander around and some original art to buy.
Another new gallery in the Pie Factory building I think – sorry no details yet but opening soon and apparently nice stuff.

For those ladies (or gentlemen) who lunch, try The Harbour Cafe, Cafe G, Rokka (opening soon), No 6 Market Place, The Indian Princess (yummy dosas), or You Smoothie on the High Street. Revitalize on the Market Place also does lovely treatments and massages.

Please note: Margate Old Town/Harbour Arm area is the first in Thanet to be designated a SSCI (Site of Special Chav-free Interest). Chavs are a declining species in this area and are usually shot on sight on the assumption that they have either just committed a crime or are just about to. It’s good for the environment.

I thought I would join the ‘favourite places’ bandwagon and tell you about a favourite shop of mine. Thanet Quality Foods is opposite Nat West on Northdown Road and has a red and white-striped canopy. For a regular-sized shop it sells the most amazing array of goodies. It reminds me of shops in various parts of London and it’s great to have it in Thanet. If you are thinking of cooking Indian, Caribbean, Thai, or any other interesting food, this place is a must.

They sell pretty much everything you need to inspire you to cook - randomly: paneer, okra, egusi, rose water, gram flour, local halal meat, nuts, noodles, ready-made tarka dal, loads of spices and maybe some things you have never heard of. The large bottles of fish sauce and handfuls of fresh coriander are far cheaper than the microlitres/sprigs you get in a supermarket. If you can’t find something the guy who runs it is really knowledgeable and helpful. The only problem is you might leave having bought far more than you went in there for, but I’m sure you will be pleased with yourself when you unload your booty at home.

I’ve been trying to put my finger on why so many of the people of Thanet behave the way they do. Why is it so rare to be let into line of traffic here? Why are people so determined to get ahead of you in a queue? Why do people think it’s OK to break promises? Why is too much to expect someone to tell you/apologise when they are going to let you down? Why is it OK to pollute other people’s environment with music/litter/behaviour/dog shit? Why is it normal to blatantly rip each other off? Why is it OK to slag people off in blogs when you don’t understand what you’re talking about?

I’m sure these behaviours must have been learned over time and the guilty wouldn’t even know that it isn’t normal. I’m not religious, I’m not a snob, I don’t believe in respecting your elders automatically, and I’m not an old-school git, but I think it comes down to a concept which I haven’t thought about for many years. Something which I never understood the point of when I was growing up. Manners. Manners are not just about saying silly pleases and thank yous when you don’t mean it. As an adult I now realise how important manners are. I only noticed when I moved to Thanet and discovered they didn’t exist here.  

How do manners disappear from an entire area? Is it symptomatic of selfishness or lack of respect for each other? I don’t blame poverty/deprivation – there are plenty of examples of places where people would give you the shirt off their backs. What is it about Thanet that made people so rude?

Margate got a bit of good press for a change yesterday. See this FT article.

Packed meeting tonight. Some weak arguments and misinformation but progress overall I believe.

Last week this ludicrous article hit the headlines in the Thanet Extra with Jim Davidson’s ill-informed views on Margate. This week, good ol’, stupid ol’ Chas ‘n’ Dave jumped on the bandwagon in the Gazette slagging off the Turner gallery. I can’t help thinking they should bear some responsibility for fuelling the graffiti that appeared in at least four shop windows in the Old Town last night. Apparently the man with the can thinks that ‘Art is Crap’, and scrawled ‘NO’ across a picture of the Turner Contemporary. 

I can’t even begin to imagine how anyone could generate enough strength of feeling about this to actually go out, buy some spray paint and systematically walk around daubing the offending buildings. However, given the fact that this level of f**kwittedness exists in the town, I do think the newspapers have been disgracefully irresponsible in encouraging these sentiments.

The arrival of the Turner Contemporary, and its associated visitors and spending power, is probably the best thing to happen to the town for decades. Whether the content of the gallery is everyone’s cup of tea is completely irrelevant! It could be a swimming pool for all I care, and I don’t like swimming, but if it brings visitors, what is the problem? For anyone to really hate it all so much they must be incredibly short-sighted. I actually find it quite scary that anyone can be quite that thick.

I hope this will be a wake-up for the local press. Listen and learn. Some of your readers are very, very stupid. You have a responsibility not to generate hate. Why are you actively seeking to bring Margate down when the best news here is regeneration? Please stop s*****g on your own doorstep (and mine).

The word on the street is that four new places will be open in Margate Old Town soon – a deli, a gift shop, a gallery, and the new Rokka bar. Thank goodness people are finally seeing the potential of this lovely area. There are already some great places - Flower Lab, Qing, No 6, Indian Princess, Harbour Cafe, Cafe G. Full marks to all of those people who have had the vision to establish themselves now. I’m looking forward to more quality retailers spotting the opportunity and joining in. Turner visitors will have spending power!

I know we need the tourists to survive around here but it was lovely to see Margate beach empty today. I walked across the beach this morning and I was alone. It was great. The Old Town was pleasant but quiet, and it made me think how great it will be when the Turner Gallery is open, to have the cafes buzzing on an autumnal morning. Shame we don’t have any non-beach tourists here yet. I’m looking forward to the Turner being built. It will change everything.

I have been to a few music festivals in my time, and I can safely say that yesterday’s UB40 gig at Quex Park goes down as THE most badly organised one I have ever seen. In fact, after waiting for TWO AND A HALF HOURS, and still not getting to the bar, I gave up and went home in disgust and never even saw a band.

We arrived thirsty, and my friend’s bottle of mineral water was confiscated at the entrance. Not a good start but I suppose it could have been vodka, and it might have done the organisers out of a few quid spent on site. We grumbled but understood. Inside the gates it became clear that there was a ’system’ for getting drinks. This invoved joining a long queue to buy drinks tokens from one small kiosk. We duly waited in the queue, missed the first support band, and finally got our chance to spend £21 each on tokens, after waiting for AN HOUR. Only then did we realise the sheer size of the real drinks queue! It wrapped itself round the whole field! Having already parted with our hard-earned cash though, what did we do? We joined the queue. AN HOUR AND A HALF later, parched and pissed off, we had missed two more bands.

It would probably have taken another 20 minutes to get a drink but total resentment had set in and we gave up. We weren’t the only ones. Lots of people were trying to sell/give away their tokens because they wanted to go and see the bands or just leave. We gave ours away, probably never to be spent. Apparently there had been 2-hour queues to leave at the end of the event the day before, so we took our chance to escape the fiasco and left without seeing UB40.

I resent this on lots of levels. I spent £32.50 on a ticket to see 4 bands and saw none. The organisers got another £21 from me for tokens I didn’t spend. I wasted several hours of my life, and it raised my blood pressure on my weekend when I should have been chilling out. And I’m still angry this morning.

Clearly the organisers had little experience of organising events like this. Why didn’t they get some advice? Maybe UB40 were great in the end, but if anyone had a good time at the event, it would be nothing to do with the organisation. A lot of people’s memory of one of the biggest music events for Thanet in a while will be fundamentally a frustrating one. Thanet doesn’t need this. Who is going to be rushing back in the future to be ripped off and have their time wasted?

Apparently it was organised by Archie or Alfie somebody. If anyone can put me in touch with him I would be very grateful. I WANT MY MONEY BACK!