Pleasurama, Royal Sands, The Maritime Museum, the Cliff, The Great Wall of Ramsgate Art Gallery, a Midweek Ramble, Some Pictures.

One thing about the safety considerations that all of the experts are agreed about is that the cliff wall – the concrete cliff façade – doesn’t hold up the cliff, if anything it is the cliff that holds the cliff wall up.

We do have cliffs in Ramsgate with man made structures that are designed to support the cliff behind them, the red brick arches by the harbour are an example of this, but the wall leaning against the cliff on the Pleasurama site is only there to stop the chalk cliff from weathering away. For those of you with an historical interest this cliff wall was built upside-down, the top bit that supports the cliff railings was built first and later on as the cliff weathered away concerns that eventually the concrete apron would fall off lead to the chalk underneath it being cut away and the cliff wall being built underneath it, to prevent this.

Anyone who happens to read the engineers report http://thanetonline.com/cliff/id2.htm on the cliff façade structure will note that the engineer who prepared it was very concerned that nothing heavy went too near to the edge of this unsupported chalk cliff. In fact I believe if the cliff wall wasn’t there no one would dare to drive a heavy vehicle next to the edge of the cliff.

For some time now – years rather then weeks – I have been trying to get the council to impose a weight limit near to the edge of the cliff, I have also been trying to get them to repair various part of the cliff top surface so as to stop water getting in and damaging the cliff structure. This is particularly important during the winter months as the water tends to freeze in the cracks in the chalk and when it does so it expands and forces the cracks apart.

Anyway it looks as though the council has engaged someone to do some repairs at the top of the cliff, although the don’t seem to have passed on the information to them about this being an unsupported chalk cliff.

This leaves me in a bit of a predicament, as there are safety aspects here that concern me, so I have just sent the following to the council’s engineer.

“*** while it looks as though some work is about to happen on cliff top where the surface is damaged which I think is a very good thing, I am reminding you that this is an unsupported chalk cliff and unless you have discovered anything to the contrary I don’t think the brick balustrade underneath this bit has any foundations.

As the vehicle at the top of the cliff looks fairly heavy, you may wish to take some sort of action.

As you know I have both read the various cliff reports and discussed this issue with ***** ***** the engineer who wrote them, he stressed to me the importance of keeping anything heavy away form the top of the cliff edge.

My normal course of action when I see something like this would be to report it to the HSE, do you consider this an appropriate course of action or will you be taking some sort of action yourself.”

The predicament is that I don’t want to be seen as crying wolf over this issue and of course it is fairly likely that the cliff won’t collapse because a few extra tons of construction vehicle are parked up there near the edge.

In fact I would imagine that various anonymous pundits will be only too glad to point out to me just how wrong I was, that is assuming it doesn’t collapse.

This bit of cliff is part of the cliff structure that was built in the 1860s as part of the railway extension from Herne Bay, several of the structures that formed part of this expansion were condemned at that time and had to be rebuilt.

This particular part of this 1860s structure, the supporting work around the old tunnel entrance and Augusta Steps partially collapsed about fifty years ago, was surveyed, made safe and then collapsed again in the middle of the reconstruction works.

The bit immediately under the construction vehicle didn’t collapse then and wasn’t rebuilt.

Of course if it does collapse it will be a different matter altogether, especially if there is loss of life, I could well wind up being prosecuted for not reporting it. To me it looks like a 150 year old brick structure without foundations sitting on top of a pile of muddy chalk behind which is a 70 foot high unsupported chalk cliff with a surface on top of it that has been damaged for several years and on top of this is sitting several tons of construction vehicle.      

Update I also informed Cardy’s the contractors of the situation and have received this answer:

Dear Michael,

Thank you for passing on the information with regards to the telehandler

that had parked by others on the cliff promenade. Our site team were

indeed already aware of the situation and as a precaution had avoided

access to the area directly below on site.

We have subsequently been informed that the telehandler has now been

removed by its owner.

Regards Michael”

Which is something of a relief to me.  

On to the Maritime Museum, information on this one is a bit sketchy, I think this is another case, like The Royal Sands development, where the delays and differences between what we were lead to expect and what is actually happening really justify some proper and detailed information about what is going on.

My own feelings are that it is the council that have a prime duty to explain their custodianship of publicly owned assets that they are supposed manage on our behalf.

So this is mostly based on rumour and guesswork, please don’t see it as a reason for recriminations, if any of you want to do anything please put your efforts into trying to persuade the council to get their act together.

Last week I went down there at lunchtime and noticed that some of the ground floor windows were broken, my main concern here is for the safety of the museum’s collection, anyway I alerted Simon Moores who is the councillor in charge of asset management and the windows have now been boarded up.

My feelings are that the museum and the collection in it are at considerable risk and that some action needs to be taken now.

This goes back to 2007 when the council decided to pull the funding for our museums, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2007/12/cost-of-everything-and-value-of-nothing.html 

There is a charitable trust ready to take over the running of the museum, the Preston Steam Trust, however they need the council to rent them the building so that they can do this.

In fact The Preston Steam Trust can’t legally receive the collection without security of tenure of the council owned building.   

This is a ramble and I will add to it as the day progresses.

On to the Great Wall of Ramsgate, some new pictures have gone up, see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/811/id3.htm the big one, picture above, by the graffiti artist Garff is to replace his existing one that is due to be covered with other pictures, mostly submitted by local schools.  

More pictures here http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/811/id4.htm

As you can see from the pictures here there are some more new shops open in Ramsgate http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/811/id5.htm

Art and Photography in Ramsgate

A few picture from this morning’s walk including all the pictures on The Great Wall of Ramsgate.

My new camera has just arrived and I am getting used to it, so as I always find it difficult to chose things like cameras nowadays I will write a bit about this and photography in general.

I have had a slr camera since I was a teenager, this is the type of camera that you can change the lenses on and when you look through the viewfinder you see out through the camera lens.

This means that you tend to stick with the same make of camera because all of the lenses you bought in the past need to fit your new camera.

Any of you who follow this blog will know that I take a lot of photos so any camera I have takes a fair old beating, my previous camera was a Pentax istD it still works fairly OK but is beginning to show signs of the pounding I have given it.

The new camera I have replaced it with is Pentax K-r digital cameras have come on since I bought the istD and the K-r is I think the best camera I have ever owned, I am still getting used to it and I would say that the results I get from it won’t really become apparent for a while.

Here are The Great Wall of Ramsgate pictures, taken this morning http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/611/ and the ones I took after those http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/611/id3.htm

The new camera is faster than the old one, about as fast as I am, meaning that the picture you see is the one I intended to take, if that makes any sense.

I really can’t tell you how good it is relative to other cameras as you can’t really tell how good a camera is until you have used it for a while, only that for my purposes it is a very good camera.

I have tried the photos in a more conventional album here http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/imagegallery/main.php?cmd=album&var1=040611/ and the ones I took later on here http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/imagegallery/main.php?cmd=album&var1=Ramsgate_Harbour_040611+/

I don’t know what any of the people who normally look at the pictures I publish think??

Ramsgate art installation protest at Albion Gardens

The deforestation of Albion Square Gardens has lead to an art installation protest there.

More pictures at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/411/id11.htm initial investigations suggest that this one wasn’t funded by the Turner Contemporary, in fact who paid for the Christmas Trees in a bit of a mystery.  

Not sure if this is a Great Wall of Ramsgate art project either.  

Great Wall Art Expedition Opens in Ramsgate Today, The Turner Contemporary’s Mistake Revealed, Tug Open Museum Shut.

Easter Saturday and a great art exhibition in Ramsgate opens officially, click on the link to their website http://www.spanglefish.com/greatwalloframsgate/

I was down there early this morning having a preview, there is a marked contrast between this exhibition and the one in the new Turner Contemporary, which is ordinary people talking to each other about the paintings.

You don’t need to have anyone paid to tell people what is art and why, people just seem to be able to work it all out for themselves, anyone doing a silly walk, is just someone doing a silly walk. 

Here are the pictures of the pictures taken this morning http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/shop411/id7.htm I think the exhibition is pretty much complete now.

I am also experimenting with pages of pictures small enough to open on a mobile internet phone, same images here smaller http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/shop411/id8.htm

Here are some pictures taken later on when the official opening was underway

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/gwro/

there is some contrast between an art exhibition in Ramsgate and some others elsewhere, I will try to get around to deleting the worst of the pictures, at the moment you will have to edit them yourself, here are some more http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/gwro/id3.htm

they are uploading to the internet while I write this, I haven’t seen them either at this point, the rest should appear here soon http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/gwro/id4.htm

I belong to the slash and burn school of internet publishing, which essentially means having reduced the image size a bit, I just copy a whole batch at once and paste them onto the internet.

There may be some video footage later on. update here one is   

and another one

Update KOS has reported this event as The Great War of Ramsgate, either it’s typo of the week or thy know something that we don’t about the Royal Sands http://www.kentnews.co.uk/p_12/Article/a_13226/Great_War_of_Ramsgate_art_project_unveiled_at_Ramsgate_seafont_today

A note of interest here is that one of the directors of KOS is related to one of the directors of Cardy’s. 

Next the Turner Contemporary Revealed gaff , during an inconvenient moment today I retired into the smallest room and there was this mag about Revealed, free poster on page 14, all about JWMT on page 6, our Trace on page 11, in fact the cat’s pyjamas not the dog’s sphericals you understand.

As a fan I rushed to page? OMG no page numbers, anyone know if I have a special rare edition, or do all the other copies of the mag lack navigation.     

The Ocean Going Steam Tug Cervia moored in Ramsgate Harbour, is also open to the public over this weekend. Considerable work has been done on this restoration project, I took a few pictures of it right at the start of the restoration, see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/cervia/ four pages of pictures links to the other pages at the top of the first page. Oh an a video of this too.

Ramsgate Maritime Museum however hasn’t opened for Easter, as we hoped it would. 

I will continue this post as I get time between customers in the bookshop

New Pictures on The Great Wall of Ramsgate

There were several new pictures on the Great Wall when I went for my walk this morning, I took photographs of the whole lot, click on the link to look at the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/411/id7.htm


And by way of contrast here is Ed Vaizey, Minister of Culture, on the Turner Contemporary's opening

Ed Vaizey, Minister of Culture, looks forward to Turner Contemporary's opening from Turner Contemporary on Vimeo.

An Expensive Silly Walk, New pictures on The Great Wall of Ramsgate and The Turner Contemporary Gets a New Website.

I noticed several more pictures have gone up on the Great Wall of Ramsgate when I went for my walk after taking the children to school this morning.

I got a bit confused about what was new and what wasn’t so took a picture of each of the pictures. It was a bit gloomy this morning so they may not be that good.

Click on the link for the pictures of the pictures http://www.thanetonline.com/laptop111/id4.htm

I have just been told to publish the picture of the monochrome fabric on the great wall in higher definition, here it is http://www.thanetonline.com/laptop111/id6.htm

The Turner Contemporary has a new website at http://www.turnercontemporary.org/ and you will be interested to know that you will be able to hire the events space there to hold an event.

The events space holds 120 people theatre style or up to 80 cabaret style, it’s a bit pricey though at £950 a day not including the evening which will cost you an extra £750 see http://www.turnercontemporary.org/hire

They have also added another video of one of the art works they have been sponsoring, another in their series, The Ministry of Silly Walks, it appers on their website in rather a small size, see the bottom og this page http://www.turnercontemporary.org/exhibitions/hamish-fulton-kent-walk-series so here it is in all its glory.




Découvrez L'art en marche selon Hamish Fulton sur Culturebox !

Great Wall of Ramsgate, more pictures added.

A fifth lot of new pictures have gone up on the great wall of Ramsgate.Here’s the link to the pictures of the new pictures

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/1110

Here is the link to the first lot that went up

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Julylaptop3/id9.htm

And here is the link to the second lot

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop810b/id11.htm

Here is the link to the third lot

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/910/id6.htm

Here is the link to fourth lot

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/1010

The Great Wall of Ramsgate New Pictures and Graffiti Artists at Work.

A fourth lot of new pictures have gone up on the great wall of Ramsgate.

Here is the link to the pictures of themhttp://www.michaelsbookshop.com/1010

Here is the link to the first lot that went uphttp://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Julylaptop3/id9.htm

And here is the link to the second lothttp://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop810b/id11.htm

Here is the link to the third lot

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/910/id6.htm

The work in progress was exactly what modern art should be, it obviously required considerable skill, I was uncertain if it was supposed to be happening or not, I said nothing to the artists and they said nothing to me, I was taking the pictures and they were painting one.

I am afraid to say that the elitist, highly subsidised lot who have put on various exhibitions under the umbrella of The Turner Contemporary recently have a great deal to learn from the whole great wall concept.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Turner would have recognised what is going on here as art, would like everyone else, stopped to watch it happening and gained something from the experience.

The silly walk and some of the other stuff that I have seen in Margate recently I genuinely don’t think he would have recognised as art, this may beg the unanswerable question, what is art?

Perhaps we should approach this in the tradition of the mother of all sciences and ask the question what isn’t art?

Great Wall of Ramsgate the pictures of more pictures

A third lot of new pictures have gone up on the great wall of Ramsgate.

Here is the link to the pictures of them

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/910/id6.htm

Here is the link to the first lot that went uphttp://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Julylaptop3/id9.htm

And here is the link to the second lot

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop810b/id11.htm

The Great Wall of Ramsgate More Pictures of More Pictures

Here are the next lot of pictures I think they went up at the end of yesterday click on the link for the pictures of the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop810b/id11.htm

Oh and here are the rest of them if you missed them http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Julylaptop3/id9.htm

Pictures go up on The Great Wall of Ramsgate

Click on the link for the pictures of the pictures taken this morning http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Julylaptop3/id9.htm I think they must have gone up late yesterday.

I suppose the thing that stands out here is that with all of the evident local talent, why are the exhibitions that are being put on in the Droit House not better.

My understanding is that the Marks and Spencer building in Margate is still council owned and empty too, so surely something better could be done to kindle some sort of interest in the arts there.

Perhaps the problem is that conventional painted pictures are not elitist enough.

Oh well who knows what their remit can be, anyway here are the rest of the pictures from this mornings walk, and some thoughts on them http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Julylaptop3/id11.htm

I don’t like the look of the blocked drain on the cliff top above the Pleasurama site, this is just the sort of thing that has caused cliff collapses in the past.

The boule park behind Harbour Street looks to be too weedy for play, suggesting that the thing was a bit of a white elephant.

The old police station seems to be vacant, I wonder if it is council owned.

The new bit of the Granville has been scaffolded so I wonder if anything has gone wrong with the construction, it’s probably the roof again.

The stone wall at the top of Augusta Stairs is sinking again and more cracks are appearing in it.

Work is well underway on the restoration work to the Granville Marina, pity about losing the parking spaces there.

I am a bit worried about the new pictures, looking at the situation under the pavilion shelter and wonder if there is any sort of graffiti proof coating that can be applied to them.