Is Sandy about to do some bird?

Thanet Star has never exactly shied away from the glaringly obvious fact that Sandy was never the right man to lead our council but now that he is back in the spotlight again we ask: Will the old bird do some bird?

Please ignore the fact that the charges would most likely lead to (at worst) some fines. After all it's not like he's been beating up old grannies, failing to act properly or being raciest or anything like that (). Ignoring the inconvenient facts of the story (that isn't news)



In short let's discuss some non news and tell the world if you think Sandy will be found guilty and sent down or found innocent and set free.


I've been calling the Thanet Conservatives bent for years so it's still not news Peter.

Sandy Ezekiel, Blue Flags, Independent Dominated Council and McFood are non-news.

Now, obviously I don't completely believe that but I'd like to take a leaf out of the book of certain local political types and justify why I have not had anything to say when the council's one time leader is being charged with corruption, Jimmy (I didn't start that fire) Godden's death, the change in local blue flags and the fact that the unaligned members are ruling the roost... and so on and so forth.

Peter C rightly accused me of running a boring blog. TDC being hijacked by independents, Sandy being charged with bribary, Theatre Royal in trouble (& rescued), blue flags returning to our beaches... & you're reviewing the service at McDonalds.

Peter is right but just admitting that would be boring. This has nothing to do with "other commitments" such as earning a living so let us see if I can do the political shuffle - here's an alternative argument why these things are phooy.

Sandy is not news

To some Sandy Ezekiel has been guilty since 2009 (or before). I reported this for Thanet News Network months ago. December of last year in fact.

The only real news is how much Chris Wells jumped up and down and threw his toys out of the pram. Chris, having less of a grasp of the role of media and news than say he has of the finer points of C++ Compiler Optimisations declared ...it must be asked with malicious intent when I asked facebook readers if they thought the old codger was guilty.

Over 66% of my straw poll pronounced him guilty.

No-one is, therefore, the least bit surprised that the slimy wat-not has been charged with something. To be honest most of us are supprised it did not happen sooner. (Standards board hearings in 2009 aside).

Sandy is not news.

Keep reading to find out what else is not the news

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» Continue Reading: Five things that are not the news (but we think are)

I recently lowered my standards and had a McDonalds. This is my experience of the McDonald's (drive through) in thanet near Westwood Cross.

For reasons I'd rather not go into I found myself at Westwood Cross in an entirely unsuccessful quest to find a solution to a household requirement. Having had a light breakfast and it being well into the afternoon I caved into temptation and had a quaterpounder.

The drive though was supprisingly full and despite the dirty nature of the carpark that surrounded it was reasonably clean. The staff were about all you could expect from people that are paid basic minimum and I personally witnessed a large number of freshly cooked fries encounter the floor. This was swept inefficiently and slowly away but to their credit this was done almost right away.

The staff member that sureved me had all the freildiness and warmth of an indifferent rattlesnake and it was clear that I was one more demanding irritation between her and knocking off time. My food was swiftly dumped upon a try and handed to me and it was made clear that I was no in the way and goin to get no more attention.

So bereft of a member of staff I was forced to that age old trick of using my eyes to find the source of straws. This took a small amount of time and left me standing there feeling like a twit.

A straws, ketchup and so forth located I retreated outside to eat.

...

» Continue Reading: Review: Westwood Cross MacDonalds.

Here's a story that perhaps you can help to round out.

I have just been chatting with a young lady who has had rather an unhappy experience with what appears to be borderline illegal actions of a shop when she tried to sell her phone.

Her story was that she took her phone to a Cliftonville shop in order to raise some cash. This is an increasingly common activity as cash is a touch hard to come by presently.

However when she did not agree to the price offered by the shop for her phone things became less than friendly. She tells me that the man in the shop refused to return her property and insisted it was too late for her to change her mind. Given the phone model in question and the offered amount I would have said no thanks too.

I have no reason to doubt the young lady in question.

What I would like to figure out is was her experience with this rogue traders a one off? Or have other people had similar experiences with cash-trade-in shops?

Did the man in the shop simply get over excited at the prospect of making what must have seemed like some easy money or does one or more shops have a policy of not giving people their good back if they say no?

Having only ever sold some scrap gold to a trader I know and trust I have no experience to bring to this story. Certainly if there is a shop owner being this rude and questionably lawful I would rather see something done. On the other hand if there is nothing in this I'd like to know that too. But as I said I have no reason to doubt the young lady (who was very cross).



Her story it seems is a topic of discussion on certain social networks as this screen clipping shows.

I also found a review of a trade inn station on Google maps which said the man took my phone, put it under the counter ... i had to get the police involved in order to retrieve my phone. I'm quite keen to chat to the shop owner in question if he would like to put his side of the story here in comments or by private email. (It's a bit late to try phoning right now).

I would like to ask if he remembers the exchange mentioned in the review and if he feels his actions were completely correct.

Obviously there will always be those in every walk of life that count on people being to embarrassed to go to the police over what they have experienced but it would be nice to think that we are largely safe.

If this or something like it should ever happen to you (I hope it does not) please do talk to the police as soon as it is safe to do so. If someone has your property refusing to give it back is not acceptable. You might also like to speak with trading standards (08454 04 05 06).

With such large demand for cash-for-goods services are there those that take advantage of the desperate and vulnerable operating in Thanet? If how can we identify such rogue traders? What can be done to bring the bad guy to justice and what can we do to protect ourselves from being taken advantage of?

Has the industry become this aggressive, always been this aggressive or... ? I'm not sure what to make of it all.

Is this rather poor treatment of customers a big problem? I don't know? Was the young lady I spoke to alone in what happened to her?

If you have been subject to highly aggressive tactics by cash-for-goods shops I'd like to hear from you.

Stay safe.

Excuse me for being just a bit sceptical about the Turner centre's latest announcement regarding it's success.

Should the statement be believed that the Turner Centre has added £13.8m and 130 jobs to the economy. That's £13,800,000 or an ecomic boost to the value of over 50 pretty good saleries.

The problem is that the gallery actually paid to have the study done so it was highly unlikely to find that no change has resulted. If you paid me a ton of cash to do a study I would be tempted to look for a positive too.

I think their assumptions used to turn 495,000 reported visitors into £13.8m bares some closer examination.

Or rather it probably doesn't. I suspect that on closer examination that rather grand sounding number might proove to be so much smoke and mirrors.

The gallery has to justify it's existance and funding a study that says "yes this is all good" is probably the cheapest option.

Just because a study says something is so no more makes it true than if a newspaper announces it.

Even if it was true that's stil a long way from value for invested money.

Do you trust the gallery's study?

The failed Broadstairs Community Centre was the right thing to build.

The problem with the Broadstairs Town Council's failed Community Centre is not that they tried to build it. Broadstairs could do with a more community focused space.

The problem was not that they tried to update thier plans to include Age Concern although some insightful planning could have braught them onboard to start with.

The problem was not the ammount they spent planning - although they did spend far too much getting the planning not so far.

The problem was not even that they tried to build it in the park even though this was the worst possible location that they could have chosen. Honestly it is harder to think of a worse place to locate the building. That was not the problem though.

The problem was not that Labour (and to an extent Liberal Demorcats) opposed and questioned the plans. When you have the balance of power across a number of councils this is not something to worry about.

The problem is that there was no community buy in.

At no point was it safe to say that the people of Broadstairs were saying "by jove, we need a community centre".

The building comittee (or whatever group was pushing the project) could have gotten a lot more milage by selling the community the idea that a community centre would be a good thing even if this meant spending less on consultations and meetings.

One simply has to look at Millmead Hall which is a different story. The community there were saying the equivilant of "look at this bally old scout hut! Something needs to be done here and quickly, by golly."

So when Thanet Council came along and started renivation works on the building everyone was really pleased. The result is a community focused building that is well used and popular.

This community buy-in is what was missing from the Broadstairs project and because it was missing Labour had a a free hand to bring a stop to the project without risking a single vote. After all the Conservative party members were unlikely to vote for Labour anyway.

More than £82,000 has been spent chasing the conservative dream of building in Broadstairs park.

The project, which has been strongly opposed by some residents while not enjoying any outspoken support, has spent the money while failing to actually achieve anything.

£82k is a lot of money to shell out with nothing to show for it. A level of spending easily described as wasteful is not what Thanet needs, now or ever. Whatever happened to good stewardship of resources?

Just to show how out of touch they are the Broadstairs town council members are talking about suing Thanet District Council for their losses.

I think it is about time Broadstairs voters seroousely considered a different flavour of councillor come the next ellections. Perhaps a councillor that is likely to oppose excessive parking chanrges and actually intends to look after the area.

It's time to fix this problem before it kills someone.

Residents of Dane Valley have started to speak up regarding a dangerous junction that has come close to claiming the lives of a number of people.

We are calling for a mirror so positioned that someone coming out of Tenterden Way can actually see what is coming up the road before making a right hand turn. Rather than, as at present, make the right hand turn blindly and guessing you are not crossing in front of oncoming traffic.

You can sign the petition on the Kent County Council Website.



While I say "started" it's more like have renewed calls for KCC to sort it out. Back in July 2010 Rosemary (that's my mum) put a request on Fix My Street to see change after she and my sisters almost met their end at a known problem junction.

This request was promptly ignored.

This time, owever, it will not be ignored. When 1000 people sign the petition it will be debated by a full meeting of the council. Hard to ignore then, eh.

Sign the petition on the KCC Website.

I have just spent the last three and a half minutes (an age, I know) setting up a TumblR account for Thanet Star.

There I will be taking a lighter look at Thanet Stuff. But also you will be able to post questions to me and, very important methinks, share links, photo's and articles that might end up here at Thanet Star HQ or at least on Thanet Star's Other Stuff.

Enjoy.

It's time to open an even bigger can of worms than last time.

Apparently (says the Telegraph) the government is to fight for the right to ban crosses at work. Your thoughts?