The picture above is of a “joke, shop;” these are all too prevalent now in Margate, by a “joke, shop” as opposed to a joke shop, what I mean is the thing looks like a shop from the distance, but as you get closer you realise that the window display is just painted on and the shop itself is just an empty and abandoned building.Don’t misunderstand me this isn’t a chance to get at Margate, we have a similar problem in Ramsgate, the only difference being that nothing has been done to make the empty shops a bit more cheerful in Ramsgate, so on the whole I think Margate scores better on this.
The rest of today’s pictures of Margate are here http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/netbook111/id4.htm it was bitterly cold with a biting wind off the sea and I had left my gloves behind, Peacock’s didn’t have any nor did Edinburgh Woollen Mill, so I gave up and nipped in and out of the other shops.
The art galleries are very difficult to comprehend from a commercial shop point of view, by this I mean; they are shops and they evidently have goods to sell, but how they could be commercially viable defeats me, perhaps it is something to do with grant funding.
I really am not very good at assessing modern art, so this is more a general assessment related to my understanding of the retail world and most of it is about scale.
The problem really is that the galleries and arts related shops are just far too small, which to my mind means too much staffing relative to goods for sale, this is about having enough space, to have enough stock, to keep the staff occupied selling it.
It’s a similar problem with the Turner Contemporary, which just isn’t big enough to provide enough art works for people to look at for long enough, the problem is a simple one and relates to someone getting a worthwhile day out.
Take, for example someone in the middle of Kent, wanting to go somewhere to look at art, they have the option of taking the train to Margate or to London, the cost will be about the same, the choice though is spending the day doing, The Tate, The National, The National Portrait, The RA, Somerset House, The Wallace collection, Hayward Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery, Guildhall Gallery, Serpentine Gallery, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Saatchi Galleries, Barbican Gallery……….I could go on but I expect you get the picture, incidently many of the London galleries have free entrance. Or you could go to Margate and Look at the Turner Contemporary.
After going to Margate I came back to Ramsgate to visit the drop in session about Kent International Airport, I found this very beneficial and learnt a lot about environmental issues relating to the airport.
The sad and embarrassing thing was the way the publicity surrounding the meeting just failed, the EA press releases were too late for the local papers and although the EA informed TDC, TDC didn’t publicise the event on their website or issue a press release, so hardly any members of the public turned up.
I suppose combined days wages for the EA officers and the airport operator’s representatives and their travel costs must have been well in excess of £1,000 and for the three hours I was there, there was at least one and often more of these people available to discuss the issues exclusively with me.
It’s a similar problem with the Turner Contemporary, which just isn’t big enough to provide enough art works for people to look at for long enough, the problem is a simple one and relates to someone getting a worthwhile day out.
Take, for example someone in the middle of Kent, wanting to go somewhere to look at art, they have the option of taking the train to Margate or to London, the cost will be about the same, the choice though is spending the day doing, The Tate, The National, The National Portrait, The RA, Somerset House, The Wallace collection, Hayward Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery, Guildhall Gallery, Serpentine Gallery, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Saatchi Galleries, Barbican Gallery……….I could go on but I expect you get the picture, incidently many of the London galleries have free entrance. Or you could go to Margate and Look at the Turner Contemporary.
After going to Margate I came back to Ramsgate to visit the drop in session about Kent International Airport, I found this very beneficial and learnt a lot about environmental issues relating to the airport.
The sad and embarrassing thing was the way the publicity surrounding the meeting just failed, the EA press releases were too late for the local papers and although the EA informed TDC, TDC didn’t publicise the event on their website or issue a press release, so hardly any members of the public turned up.
I suppose combined days wages for the EA officers and the airport operator’s representatives and their travel costs must have been well in excess of £1,000 and for the three hours I was there, there was at least one and often more of these people available to discuss the issues exclusively with me.
The situation with the airport drainage system is one of work underway, the main interceptor hole is dug out and most of the pipework around the hard standing at the airport has been inspected and repaired where necessary.
The airport’s engineers and the EA have come up with a reasonably effective system to drain the hard standing, runway, aprons and car parking into the sea at Pegwell Bay, that when it is completed should prevent spillages on the hard standing from contaminating Pegwell Bay.
The airport’s engineers and the EA have come up with a reasonably effective system to drain the hard standing, runway, aprons and car parking into the sea at Pegwell Bay, that when it is completed should prevent spillages on the hard standing from contaminating Pegwell Bay.
I spent much of the time chatting to the airport’s engineer, as we both had information of interest to each other to exchange and I feel I have a much better picture of the weaknesses in the antipollution strategy and the ongoing viability of the airport.
I also had a series of discussions with the senior EA officers there and while I am convinced that their ongoing efforts to improve the state of the Thanet aquifer are going in the right direction, my motive was to get them to consider the medium to long term water replenishment issue.
By this I mean getting the EA to consider how much more of Thanet can be concreted over, so that industry and developers can plan ahead.
Anyway while I assimilate what I have learnt, here are a couple interesting engineering anecdotes about recent environmental investigation at Manston, as they say you couldn’t make it up.
The main noise monitor was first located next to a school playground, when the children came out to play the noise they made sent the monitor right up to the jumbo jet end of the scale, so it had to moved.
The water drainage pipe between the airport and Pegwell Bay is a huge thing, nearly big enough to stand up inside, it runs through porous chalk and is made out of joined concrete sections. I would say there is about as much chance of making it water tight as there is of getting a pig to fly.
It runs through public and private land and some of the inspection covers are in private gardens and is known to have been illegally tapped into in numerous places, it has also been legally tapped by KCC for road drainage, due to a loophole in environmental law that has now been closed.
There is normally a steady trickle coming out of the Pegwell end, to which poring thousands of litres of water in at the Manston end makes no appreciable difference to, however while monitoring Pegwell end it was noticed that apart from the water coming out of the pipe, there was also an appreciable amount of garden waste coming out a well.
The main noise monitor was first located next to a school playground, when the children came out to play the noise they made sent the monitor right up to the jumbo jet end of the scale, so it had to moved.
The water drainage pipe between the airport and Pegwell Bay is a huge thing, nearly big enough to stand up inside, it runs through porous chalk and is made out of joined concrete sections. I would say there is about as much chance of making it water tight as there is of getting a pig to fly.
It runs through public and private land and some of the inspection covers are in private gardens and is known to have been illegally tapped into in numerous places, it has also been legally tapped by KCC for road drainage, due to a loophole in environmental law that has now been closed.
There is normally a steady trickle coming out of the Pegwell end, to which poring thousands of litres of water in at the Manston end makes no appreciable difference to, however while monitoring Pegwell end it was noticed that apart from the water coming out of the pipe, there was also an appreciable amount of garden waste coming out a well.
I will probably ramble on about what I learnt at the session, later on.
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