Two days later and its New Years Eve and I was working. I’ll admit that this was a night that I wasn’t looking forward to. I always feel this night of all nights is the biggest of disappointing nights of the year. There again, I think I can just be a misery sometimes, which was something I did well on this night. I did have some fun though, there were nine of us working upstairs around one till, a night of continual weaving but sooo busy that the evening flies. I like work to be busy 
. This bar dance was set to a soundtrack of the Sharpees who played better than the last time I saw them, though I have to admit they are still not one of my favourites. In all honesty though it would have to be one hell of a band for me to have a covers band as one of my favourites… and at least they didn’t play Mustang Sally! The shift finished at some ungodly hour, so we went on to a party in Margate in the home of **On The Rag zine**. It was a house gig but unfortunately we missed the bands, new boys ‘Cubs’ and one of my favourite locals ‘We Are Carnivores’, due to time. Shame really, I would have put up with the bleeding eardrums you get in house gigs for those two.
nye, newyearseve, work, sharpees, cubs, wearecarnivores, ontherag, ramsgate, margate
I recieved a letter from the court service… fear.. had they really found me?! I slowly opened the envolope and pulled out the pink paper… jury duty! Wuh?! How terribly exciting, though I have had to defer though due to school… erm, not sure I can talk about that, if not then I’ll just edit this post ^^
juryservice
Luckily I’m getting a good few shifts while I’m here, lots of last min calls but thats fine by me. One of my more recent shifts has been real relaxed but I’m starting to be aware of a necessity of a more appropriate part time job. Not sure exactly what that is at the moment but its certainly something I need to think about. Answers to ‘life, the universe and everything’ on a postcard to 42 Hitchikers Way…
work, career,
Well there is a summary of the past few weeks in an entry that probably takes as long to read. Hopefully once our interwebulation connection is rectified I can summarise my return to Thanet in more bitsize pieces.
I spent time in Ramsgate today (Saturday). You really can’t get much more bizarre than that town. My vision of the place had been blurred. I always thought of Ramsgate as a cool town on the coast but today I was reminded otherwise.
I was a lost puppy, a fish out of water, an old cat in an old town.. I drifted down Ramsgate highstreet today. Drawn as I was to Argos at the top of the street for some last minute Chrsitmas shoppping (I’m a boy). I headed on down the highstreet just to check out what Ramsgte had tuned into in the weeks that had passed.
To be honest, I didn’t expect much change. I had always thought of Ramsgate as a cool town but you know, I think I always saw it at the wrong time. At night the harbour is really something else, but during the day the town truly lacks something that other towns have. I think that its called jaw muscles… This really is a town of slack jaw locals who consider themselves observant when they spot JJB sport between the cheep watch and the phone unlocking market stalls. Don’t get me wrong, I do have faith in this town but there is something wrong at the moment / About the only shops that are opening are sports clothing. I see a Sports World has opened up where Courts was and very busy it was too. I can believe it must be good business to keep chavs clothed.
SO back to Argos Christmas shopping and while there I immediately turned into an old man. The poor man beside me was hassled buy our dear chav, his space personally invaded. They were cocks but they left. Here is where the old man thing comes in: “these kids think they own the high street”, “hanging round in their gangs”, “all I want to know is where the parents are”… I’m almost speechless… I take a quick mental note and see that we are only young men… medium age of thirty… I fill my slip out for the laminater (a Christmas present) and head away with those words ringing… “I blame the parents”.
This place is truly a village. I knew I could go out tonight. Get dropped at somewhere like Churchills, meet someone there and go on to an endless night of drinking and non stop meeting people I know… Tonight the highlight???… Alex Glinn. He is an aspiring sound man who’s dedication and ambition no-one can fault. He’s was working on that local Bob Hoskins film which has become Ruby Blue. I give noted respect out because he is really someone who is doing what he can to get out of the expected Thanet life, especially in such a demanding industry as media.
Ok, I’m back in Thanet for a month. I have six days of gallivanting round the country. I have degree of necessity to head down country to Dorset to spend much needed Christmas time with Family. After that, apart from a possible three days in Wales, I’m spending a time in Thanet and I will record a memoir of my time. As a little end of post bonus; I’m hoping to leave a treat for Thanet before I leave.
I was recently lucky enough to have a private invitation to the Gadds brewery. I knows the guys from my time at the pub (finished that today, whoop!) and after they heard me banging on about their stout they said I could come up and see their place at work. I learnt a lot about brewing while I was there and got a far better understanding of not only the methods for brewing ales but also the ale industry as a whole.
It wasn’t all work work work though. They were decent enough to give me and my accomplice Jay a taste of their latest batch of East Kent Pale Ale (EKPA) from their own private bar (The Rams Head) and I’m happy to say that it was delightful. We sat outside and chatted about all sorts. A thoroughly nice afternoon and my thanks to Eddie and Ian for being such good hosts.
A couple of posts back I stated that Eddie was a stout pusher… but I love him for it. The reason I said this was as simple as the statement. While I was at the jazz festival on Ramsgate seafront the other week I went to the Gadds tent to get myself another beer, but he had run out. What he did offer me though was two small unmarked bottles from some boxes he kept behind him. I asked how much to which he replied “on me”. Difficult to say no to that! I guessed this was a new product that he was testing the ground with. I poured it, tasted it and found it to be the divine nectar. This dark 7% wonder was the kind of drink you only dream of! At that point I concluded that what he was doing was getting us hooked before releasing it to the public. The method certainly worked on me, I was left dreaming on when I could next get my grubby mits on some more.
Tonight I saw Eddie and quickly asked him where I could get more of his magic juice. His reply was simple; I can’t. Stunned horror. Dear God, why? As it turned out, this was a test run they did to check the setup of their equipment in its new location a couple of months prior. They didn’t want to do a brew that they’d feel bad not being able to sell (eg No.3), so Ian came up with the idea of a stout. Brilliant, but not ‘commercially viable’.
So now I’m not sure what is worse. To have tasted it and know that I will never taste it again or, if things had been different, to never have tasted it at all. So, no longer do I love him for being a pusher, I now believe him to be a cruel cruel man!
The Wikipedia articles of Ramsgate and Margate have been recommended for the Wikipedia CD Selection. At the moment, the seclection only has just over 2000 atricles on it. So it’s pretty neat for our local towns to be chosen out of 1,291,557 english language articles (02/08/06).
The problem is that the articles need more work. I know Adem of the Big Blog has been doing some work on the Ramsgate page, posting a gallery, etc. But the two articles need alot more work. For example, the Ramsgate article states Gary Pallister as the most notable resident (he played for Middlesbrough once), yet totally neglects to mention Van Gough.
Please visit the pages and do what you can to help.
The Marxmen
My g/f came down from East Gringstead to visit me yesterday. It was great to see her and as a treat I took her on a Marxist tour of Ramsgate as run by Simon Mores(?) who is running the Magical Marxist exhibition up at IOTA. I really never knew how much time Marx spent in Ramsgate. About ten visits in all and a couple more than that by Engles. We did have a fun time… well, I did.. my poor girl puts up with all sorts for me. The tour itself was wittily called Land Marx and finished at the Churchills for a quiz called Top Marx. We even got Karl Marx masks to wear at the end. I’d hoped to pick up all the information for the quiz on the tour (plus a bit of skim reading before hand) but it didn’t actually have anything to do with Marxism. Shame really as I don’t know anything about Coronation Street. Still, he was a question writer for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, so I can’t really complain.
Don’t know how we finally did in the quiz. At half way we were third, but we left before the end to go to Balmoral in Broadstairs to try and catch some of the acoustic stuff that was going on there (a real jolly jaunt around Thanet). Shame really as I noticed a note behind the bar stating a £30 drinks tally for the winning team…. unused. Could that have been my £30 worth of drinks that I’ve missed out on by leaving?
Btw, I’m using a blogger plugin on my linux here that despite having a field for the ‘title’ of a post, doesn’t actually fill it in, but rather puts it as the first line of the post.
