Category Archives: Canterbury

I am not a Tory.

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The Tories are wrong. On a number of levels they are wrong. They are wrong on so many things it would be quicker to write a list of what it is they are right about. That list would be short.

One of the things they are wrong about is that people who vote UKIP are Tory disaffectees.

I will be voting UKIP, I am not a Tory. I never have been a Tory.

One of the things they are wrong about is that UKIP are stealing or splitting Tory votes.

I will be voting UKIP. I am not a Tory. My vote does not belong to you. It belongs to me. In an article over at the Torygraph, Vicki Woods launches an attack against UKIP and Farage that is so personal it made me cringe. Vicki, love, when you use the phrase ‘the sort who you know would or should be voting Tory because they always have’ you represent the exact problem your party has. Who the hell do you think you are to demand, suppose, believe, expect that because someone voted Tory at some point in the past that they are now duty bound to do so for the rest of their lives?

This is the attitude from all the big 3 parties; ‘you belong to us’. Uh-huh, this is why UKIP are spiking at present, you treat people like chattels, like vassals, you insult them, you dictate to them, and then you expect them to support you. It is like an abusive relationship, perhaps now the abused are starting to hit back.

I suspect that Vicki Woods has been got at, because it appears that the Tories have been spending a good deal of money on trying to dig up dirt on UKIP candidates in next week’s council elections. It’s pretty strong stuff, one candidate owns a bar where adults can go and see another adult take their clothes off. The leader once went into a place that was similar.

I don’t much care. I suspect most other people won’t. Those that do care will say something along the lines of ‘I knew that bloke Farage was no good.’ It is intelligence that will reinforce, not change, opinion.

Over in the comments on the Telegraph someone has listed the convictions and arrests regarding Tories. Lots of them. Lots of kiddie fiddling stuff. I have no comment to make on that.

The thing is this, the Conservatives must be running scared to do this. By doing it, and by being so slapdash as to be caught out doing it, they’ve just reinforced the line that they are a bunch of unscrupulous arses who would do anything to anyone to hold onto power. Nice.

The other thing is that they still believe that UKIP voters belong to them. I don’t. We don’t. We belong to ourselves. Why is this concept so difficult for you to grasp? Why do you think I owe your party any loyalty? I owe them nothing. I’m loyal to UKIP, I’m a member. If the party’s views change and I end up disagreeing with more than I agree, then I’ll leave. My loyalty is to my views. There is talk of no pact whilst Cameron is leader of the Tories. This is good. There is talk of a pact if Gove became Tory leader. This is bad. If such a merger or pact came about, I’d be off. Why? Because I’m not a Tory. I’m not using UKIP as some kind of regent until the Tories come to their senses. I don’t view UKIP as a safe harbour as a storm blows on the Tory seas. I’m not a Tory.

The Tories seem to think all UKIP could, would, should and did vote Tory. I don’t. This is not some Tory second XI.

I had an interesting discussion with the Tory candidate for my county council ward the other day as he called round doing the doorstep thing. I actually quite like him, he’s a good bloke, and he’s done a lot of good work. He was the driving force in the county council to get the city council’s support of the aforementioned and disastrous Westgate Towers traffic scheme overturned. He is hoping to get the aforementioned Kingsmead field designated as a village green to scupper the city council’s plans to develop it for housing; a plan that is widely hated in the community, and widely supported in the city council.

The city council has 49 councillors, only 15 of them are not Tories. They are detested, in Canterbury. You couldn’t hope to find a place more blue. The county councillor for this ward is hated by the city Tories as he keeps frustrating them at county hall.

My appreciation for his work aside, a couple of the things he said to me in trying to get me to vote for him really pissed me off. When I pointed out the lunacy of a Tory councillor constantly trying to undo the work of the other Tory councillors, when I pointed out that they hate him, when I pointed out to him that he was in the wrong party, he laughed. ‘But if I joined UKIP, I wouldn’t get elected.’

BAM! There we have it. He’d rather be in office than address the obvious issues within his party. Big black mark from Wolfers there.

Second, he trotted out the line than really gets my goat; if you vote UKIP you’ll get Labour.

Even now that makes me bristle. I will always, always vote FOR what I want, and never against that which I do not. If there is nothing I want, I will spoil my paper. If what I want doesn’t get in, it doesn’t matter to me what does. Don’t threaten me with the Labour bogeyman, they are the minority on the city council, perhaps if they’d been the majority, the traffic trial and field sale wouldn’t have been on the agenda. Maybe if they returned a county councillor he would also oppose what the Tories had done on the city council, I mean, it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that a Labour person would try to generate capital for their party by opposing the other side, is it? And, just in case I haven’t expressed this enough, because I am not a Tory, the thought of Labour does not give me an attack of the vapours.

Then today we receive a letter where he states, quite incorrectly, that he is the only candidate who lives in the ward. I know this is not true as I know the UKIP candidate and he most definitely lives in the ward.

So, I will not be voting Tory. I will not be voting Tory because:

  1. I do not trust or believe their leader.
  2. I do not trust or support their policies.
  3. I do not like their negative campaigning techniques.
  4. I do not support, in the slightest, their local policies.
  5. I do not like their obvious in-fighting locally.
  6. I do not like their candidate’s attempt to scare me into voting for him.
  7. I do not like their inaccurate and misleading communications.

Most importantly, I will not be voting Conservative mainly because I am not a Tory.

Ripe, yet unpicked.

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And so my gaze returns to the city of Canterbury. In a very quiet understated way, people in the city are not happy. And as far as I can see, most of the blame lies with the Tories.

There are a number of irksome items on the agenda.

Firstly, there is the question of the Westgate traffic trial, a subject which I have touched upon before. The problem is that we have a rather lovely 13th Century ragstone gate house, part of the remaining city defences, that still stands guard over the western entrance to the city. It is beautiful, look:

Now, traditionally traffic has flowed under it to get to the city from the north west, and also to get round the city to get to the channel coast and/or Ashford in the south west. Unfortunately because the ‘new’ A2 when it was built years and years ago was so ill thought out, anyone wanting to get to Ashford from the direction of Whitstabubble and Hernia Bay have little option but to drive through Canterbury because there is no way to get onto the A28 otherwise. Now, a car or a van can fit very easily under the archway in the tower, but a bus/coach or an HGV finds it a bit of a challenge. The end result was that bits kept getting gouged out of the masonry, drivers of foreign tourist coaches turning left into the tower have always found it a huge problem, to be frank it caused chaos and damaged the building.

The traffic heading in the opposite direction, out of the city, passed round the outside of the tower. The solution that Canterbury City Council came up with was to close the inbound direction of traffic to everything but buses and taxis, allowing them to go round the outside of the tower with the aid of traffic lights, and re-routing the rest of the traffic down another route. The whole scheme has been controversial, it has caused significant congestion down residential streets, and in my opinion, has increased the levels of pollution in the western area of the city.

The real controversy comes from the fact that the whole thing was imposed without any public consultation at all, and when consultation came, well into the trial period, it was granted with very bad grace indeed. Finally, Kent County Council stepped in, as the ultimate arbiters of all things highway, and declared that the road configuration would return to its original layout from the end of this month. Several people on the council did not accept this decision very well and there were fairly strong words thrown from city to county hall. There were also some shockingly arrogant displays of petulance from some of the councillors both in the local rag and at public meetings when people raised an objection.

It should be noted that most of the councillors, as far as I can make out, who sit on the committee responsible for this farce live in, or represent, either the rural wards or wards in Whitstabubble and Hernia Bay.

Then we come to the question of the Kingsmead playing field, on the north east of the city. This open space has effectively been common land for, well, centuries. However, the city council has declared that the land is to be sold for housing. This in an area which is only a spit from the zone where the traffic trial has caused such carnage, for Canterbury is a very small city. Whereas opinion has been divided (more in favour of dropping) regarding the traffic trial, opposition to the sale of this patch of open land, used for a whole host of purposes, is almost unanimous. But, the council have made their minds up, and that as they say, is that. Well, perhaps not, there is now an application with the county council to have the land designated as village green, thus protecting it.

Finally, there is the new bin system due in April. Oh, God, the bins. We’re one of those fortnightly collection jobbies. I’ll be fair and point out that the system we have at the moment is actually very good indeed. Once a fortnight, general household waste is collected, and once a fortnight on a week stagger from the general waste, recycling is collected. Every now and then a roll of large transparent sacks drops through the letterbox, into these transparent sacks goes pretty much everything recyclable, with the exception of glass which still needs to be taken to the bottle banks. These sacks are collected, and here comes the bit which I think the council finds objectionable, and the contents sorted. The results make Canterbury one of the best recyclers in the country.

The council has now decided that this won’t do, and we are now due to get six (six!) new bins for each dwelling in the city so that we can sort our own recycling. The problem is space. Canterbury is very densely populated, with narrow streets that really haven’t changed since the middle ages. The houses are small, big gardens uncommon and access difficult. I myself live in a little group of twelve little houses. My house is one of four on the development that has anything that can be considered as a garden. It is inaccessible except through the front door. We have a bin store that is just big enough to store our general bins. There simply isn’t room for twelve general bins and 12×6 recycling containers. This is a situation that is repeated again and again over the city. The response from the council is that collection will be weekly. This spectacularly fails to address the fact that it isn’t volume of rubbish that is the problem, it is surface area of bins. This has been imposed with no apparent consultation.

All this has been done with a very high handed and arrogant attitude by the vast majority Conservative council. And here we come to the nub of the matter. Labour down here are a joke. I’ve received their local propaganda sheet today, and piss poor quality aside, it focuses entirely on national issues, barring one paragraph on the Westgate. The Lib Dems, are the Lib Dems, ineffective and self-important, kinda like a collective Chris Huhne. At the last local elections I had a choice of Blue, Red or Yellow. I spoiled my paper.

The reason the Tories in Canterbury are like they are is because they are, so they think, untouchable. People here will vote Labour as soon as Sheffield returns a Tory run council. Never. The Lib Dems will pick up a ward or two, but as far as it goes it is blue, blue, blue.

I received a UKIP Kent letter the other day, inviting me a) to a UKIP Canterbury meeting on March 16th, which I won’t be able to attend as I’m a terrible romantic and am taking Mrs. Wolfers to Paris on the Eurostar for a weekend of snorting absinthe and cheering on dancing girls with their thrupennies out, and b) to stand as a paper candidate in this year’s locals. Which I’d love to do, unfortunately my employment as a public servant precludes me from doing so.

Now, a paper candidate don’t sound too hot, but I understand the thinking behind it. The more candidates UKIP put up, the more visible they become, the bigger share of the party political broadcast pie they get, the more votes they pick up simply by dint of being an option, the rosier things look. However I think fielding paper candidates in Canterbury would be going off at half-cock, because we have a population here who are far from happy with the Tories, but just won’t vote Lab and will vote Lib in small number only.

I believe that by getting a strong localist UKIP message out, providing a real alternative, never mind the EU and all that guff, an alternative which is palatable to the dis-affected Tories, stay at homers and paper spoilers, they could set a real foundation. It is that foundation that is absolutely vital, it is that which meant that UKIP came second in Eastleigh, so strong was the Lib Dem foundation there. By building this foundation, the dreaming spires of Westminster can follow. But more than that, the people of Canterbury deserve a choice and deserve the chance to put some of these arrogant comfortable Tory councillors to the electoral sword.

Local trouble.

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And from the EU to issues right on my doorstep.

I’ve been amazed by recent turns of event in the fair city of Canterbury and surrounding area, the city council, which is overwhelmingly Tory, has not covered itself glory. Indeed, in my opinion it has been boneheaded, arrogant and has spectacularly failed to listen to or consider the interests of the residents of the city.

As I’ve stated before, Canterbury is a wonderful place. Really. I find it impossible to think of myself living anywhere else in the UK. Despite the best efforts of the Luftwaffe, which were bad enough, and the crass insensitivity of the 50′s and 60′s town planners it is still a very pretty place, especially when you compare it to other towns in Kent. It is not Chester or Stratford-upon-Avon, but it is still aesthetically pleasing.

The shopping is excellent, it has some fantastic bars and restaurants, some gorgeous gardens, it has two cracking theatres. The town has a buzz about it, due in no small part to the two universities in the city. Yes, students may present their own particular problems, but their presence and the way they make the city feel alive far outweighs any problems they bring. Serious trouble in the city of a night is rare, even when you account for groups of squaddies on the beer from the local barracks meeting up with squiffy students. We really are very lucky.

But politicians are politicians, and just like their national brethren, they cannot help interfering with things, with the usual result that any perceived problem is made much worse.

A case in point is probably the most divisive, the question of the Westgate Towers:

Stolen from grouchy-traveller.blogspot.co.uk

Built in the 14th Century, it is one of the best surviving examples of fortified gatehouse left in England. The problem, it formed one of the main arterial routes into the city centre from Whitstable and the villages between. Whilst cars and vans could pass under the towers with no problems, HGV’s and buses/coaches (especially foreign tourist coaches) would often gouge chunks out of the ragstone building and/or get stuck, causing chaotic gridlock. Canterbury, built in Roman times and occasionally updated, most recently in the 60′s, was just not designed for cars.

As you’ll see from the picture above, traffic entering the city would travel through the gatehouse, vehicles leaving the city would come around the outside. The solution, temporarily at least, was for all traffic to pass around the outside with the aid of traffic lights, but traffic going city bound was re-routed, with only buses and taxis allowed to pass round the exterior of the towers. This has resulted in huge congestion, as about 150m over the shoulder of the photographer is a level crossing for the mainline service to London, including the high speed ‘Javelin’ trains. The barriers come down a lot and this leads to huge tailbacks which then have a knock on effect in other pinch-points in the city.

It has made the lives of the local residents (me included) a misery as stationary vehicles pump out their exhaust fumes and journey times have increased markedly for commuters and visitors. Not exactly a great outcome for a city which is so reliant on tourists and shoppers who come to visit a place that has one of the best in town shopping centres in the country.

It has been suggested, by most people, that all that had to be done to safeguard the fabric of the towers was to limit the traffic passing through the towers to nothing bigger than a transit van, and to re-route anything bigger. The glib response is that that particular suggestion does not match the council’s traffic strategy. It has been settled.

There was consultation, of course. This took place months after the plan was put into place, and after a long and passionate debate in the council chambers (ironically, the ancient building to the immediate right of the towers in the picture) which called for the plan to be abandoned forthwith. The consultation results will be ready ‘sometime before March 2013′ and apparently, surprise, surprise, the company responsible for collating the data have proven to be ‘unsatisfactory’.

Even though the ‘trial’ pleases nobody, it is suspected that the results of the consultation will be ignored and the current configuration put in place permanently. I must admit I’m in that school of thought, because this council will just not listen to what the electorate wants.

An example of this is the Kingsmead playing field.

visit http://kingsmeadfield.blogspot.co.uk

This is an open space, directly opposite the leisure centre, which has been used by dog walkers and kids playing football since, well forever. I don’t profess to be a historical expert, but its position just outside the (now disappeared in that area) city walls suggests to me that it has been common land for some considerable time, it is mentioned in the Domesday Book where Edward the Confessor’s messengers would water their horses, and in the time of Henry VII was described as ‘pertayning to the men of Canterbury’.

The executive, in the face of extreme opposition from city residents, have decided that this land should be sold for development of houses. Not one of the executive who took the decision lives in Canterbury. Just behind the scene above is a new development of houses, only a year or so old. I think there is good reason why houses have not been built there; it sits on the banks of the Stour and there are many buildings, ancient and modern along the banks. Just across the road, next to the aforementioned leisure centre, is a branch of Sainsburys, the car park and coach park next door flood regularly. Given the weather forecast for tonight and the weekend, I would expect them to be flooded in the next few hours.

But like old Henry Ford said, history is bunk. It has been settled. This will have houses on it, after a thousand years of being a civic open space. William I, Edward III, Cromwell, Victoria, they all pale into insignificance against the wisdom and magnificence of the executive of Canterbury City Council.

Now we learn, after a consultation that appears to have been carried out via telepathy, that from April 1st (yes, I know) we are to go to a six bin system. At the moment we have a successful fortnightly staggered system; general rubbish one week, and these rather good recycling bags the next. The only recycling that can’t go in these bags is glass. It makes us one of the best boroughs for recycling in the country. But it isn’t good enough, apparently.

Even the LibDems are complaining about the six bin system. I don’t have a clue how we’re going to do it, we have a small enclosed yard of a garden, with a communal bin store. There are thirteen houses on our site. Quite where we are supposed to put 78 bins is beyond me. And we’ve got gardens. Student houses and flats? It’s nuts. It simply won’t work. But, it’s been decided.

Canterbury is as blue as it gets (37 of the 50 councillors are Tory), but this Tory council is attracting a lot of heat at the moment, heat that could well have a bearing on the genial old duffer of a time server that represents us in Westminster.

At the last local election I spoiled my paper, because I had a choice of LibLabCon. If I were a UKIP strategist, I’d be looking very closely at Canterbury, this council is rotten to the core.

Big business; good for the community.

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I’ve commented a number of times in the lifespan of this blog about the wonderful place in which I live. Despite the best efforts of the Luftwaffe, and even more dangerously, the 50′s and 60′s town planners, Canterbury remains a beautiful, engaging and pleasant place to live.

Yes we have our problems, rough sleepers begging are a bigger problem than in most places in Kent, traffic is a bitch (especially since the introduction of the Westgate Towers trial, which hopefully will have the plug pulled tonight), we have more than our fair share of chuggers on the High Street, but all of these are a by-product of a vibrant, profitable shopping scene which is based in the centre of the town and has a high number of independent stores along with the ubiquitous national chains. The city is very much alive, and very pleasant it is too.

The area of the city I live in is just at the bottom of the main drag, outside the city walls, if that portion was still standing. As an aside we have a good portion of our old city wall still standing, and a walk along it where it overlooks one of the very pleasant gardens we have in the city is a real treat. Anyhow, my area of the city is like a little village, mainly because it was originally a little village. I’ve commented before on our valiant greengrocer, but we’ve also got a butcher, farmers’ market, chemist, four pubs, two newsagents, a pet shop, a printers, some restaurants/takeaways/chip shop, a barber and two hairdressers, a dentist, an off-licence, a bookies, a bank, dry cleaner, soft furnishing shop, hotel, a riverside garden, a baker, a mechanic, everything you could want. Indeed the high speed train to that there London also stops in our little village in the city. As it stands at the moment it would be possible to live and work in St. Dunstan’s and only have to leave to visit a doctor.

I may be guilty of painting a picture of Utopia, projecting my own deep affection for the place onto this, and I make no apologies for it. Like all bloggers I moan a great deal, but when I stop and consider how lucky I am to live where I do, it gives me a nice warm glow.

So, to the point. A few years ago a venerable old petrol station that was sat on one corner closed down. This was a bit of a pain in the arse, it was open 24 hours a day and the shop, whilst a little expensive, was useful. When it went, it was replaced by one of the payday loan/pawnbroker shops and an oriental grocery. They didn’t last too long and the site sat empty for a while, becoming a bit of an ugly derelict. Then the big wooden boards went up around it and they demolition crews moved in, pulling it down along with the old coach works that sat behind it.

Canterbury is a city with two universities, and it was announced that the building going up in its place would be student accommodation, except for the ground floor, which would be given over to retail. Locals looked nervously, wondering what would come into the premises, and then it was announced that it was going to be Sainsbury’s, a Sainsbury’s Local. Some people were up in arms about it. We didn’t need it, and it wasn’t desirable. There is a Sainsbury’s supermarket just over half a mile away down the road in Kingsmead, why did we want another one here? Of course this isn’t a supermarket, there’s no trolleys, it is little bigger than a convenience store, and it is slightly more expensive than the big one down the road, but why would they come and muscle in on our little village?

You see, there is a conditioned response that big business is evil, ruthless and greedy, the big supermarkets will not rest until the indies have been ground into the dirt. But it ain’t so.

It’s now been two months since the little Sainsbury’s opened. They’ve got a cash point, which saves walking up to the NatWest part time branch at the top of St. Dunstan’s, they’ve managed to get six parking bays in the station car park which are free for 20 minutes. The effect it has had on me is startling. You see, whilst I could go to get most of my stuff in the little shops on my doorstep if I wanted farty about stuff, bin bags, washing powder and washing up liquid, a multi-pack bag of crisps and the like, I’d have to go to the big Sainsbury’s, and whilst I was there I’d pick up the stuff I could get from the small shops. This morning I’ve walked out of my front door and gone to the greengrocers and bought some fags, milk, cornflakes and apples (my wonderful greengrocer has diversified, you can’t move in there now but it’s wonderful), I’ve been to the pet shop to get some dog biscuits, the baker for some bread rolls, the butcher for some sliced ham to put in them and some of his criminally good minted lamb burgers, and to Sainsbury’s for some washing up sponges and some ironing water (our water here is so hard it’ll break windows, filling the iron from the tap will leave it a furry mess in a week).

Previously I’d have had to go the big Sainsburys for the ironing water and washing up sponges, and my bread rolls, lunch, dinner, dog food, milk, fags, fruit and cereal would have all be bought there. So not only have I now got it yards from my front door, from local shops selling local produce at cheaper prices and better quality than the supermarket, but also saved money on petrol, saved the planet (give me strength), and, more importantly in my book, had the opportunity to catch up with the people who run these businesses, people with whom I now find myself on first name terms, who will ask after Mrs. Snowolf and the Snowolf herself. We discuss the council meeting about the traffic trial which is being held tonight, we discuss the fortunes of Kent County Cricket Club, if I’m 50p short they’ll let me off it, or at least let me bring it in next time, they ask what I think of this product, that line and so forth. It is so much nicer than ‘unexpected item in the bagging area’. I actually find myself smiling as I do my shopping, it is nice. It is pleasant, it isn’t a chore. I don’t do a weekly shop, I go out every day and do this. It’s saving me a bloody fortune because I’m not hoovering up the junk that is banged out as special offers. I’m losing weight, because I don’t see the two for one chocolate fingers.

I know I’m not the only one who has found this, because I find myself having conversations with the shop owners and other customers they have in there. There’s no rush, it brings it all back down to a personal level, and the independents I mention are all delighted, because they’ve found their takings increase as more people just stroll out rather than going down to the supermarket.

Ruining our little village? The arrival of Sainsbury’s Local has made it stronger, it’s pulled our our community together, and it is really quite wonderful.

Good service, again.

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Warning: This may get a little ‘Pooterish’ for some.

I wrote a while ago about the good service I received from an online white goods retailer. I make no apologies for blogging about another example (well, two actually) I’ve received this week. We’re all very quick to complain, especially we bloggers, so it is nice to write something positive when the opportunity presents itself.

We’re very lucky down here in Canterbury, despite the best efforts of the Luftwaffe and the 1950′s town planners we still have a beautiful city, and a very vibrant high street, although we have the usual chain store and eatery suspects, there is also a healthy dose of indie retailers and dining establishments. Even on a weekday in school term time the high street is usually busy, and whilst the tourism from the cathedral obviously helps I think the excellent shopping and eating choices attract just as many visitors as the cathedral does religious pilgrims.

Your favourite lupine blogger has been feeling a bit off recently, I’ve been tired, a little crotchety, a long standing knee injury has been playing up and I’ve had a kidney infection. Nothing dramatic, just enough to make one feel a bit bleurrrgh. Having had a few days off work to recharge the batteries I woke up this morning to an unbearably itchy chin bought about by around a week of leaving the razor sat unmolested in the pot in the bathroom.

I am a man of simple pleasures, and recently espied a old fashioned barbers which opened up at the bottom of the high street, no more than a five minute walk from my door, they advertise old fashioned cut throat razor shaves. So I strode out this morning with the intention of getting some manly pampering.

As I sit here now, I have a chin which hasn’t been as smooth since I was at primary school and all is well with the world. I got the full treatment, a sea of hot shaving soap applied with a brush that in earlier times would probably have been made from badger hair, with a little tidy up around the extremities of the barnet. A deft, swift and incredibly close shave with the old Sweeney Todd job was followed up with the hot towel treatment and, surprisingly, a neck and shoulder massage as I sat back in hot and humid bliss. Then came the moisturiser and aftershave. There are few things as viscerally pleasing as an old fashioned shave. The best bit? A princely £6.50 for the experience, and a loyalty card where your sixth haircut and/or shave is gratis.

There used to be places like this in every town in the country, and I’ve noticed them starting to creep back of late. The big difference between now and then? Today the establishments seem to be exclusively run by Turks. That is no criticism of the Turks at all, far from it. These guys are the embodiment of what I support in people, see a gap in the market, open a shop, exploit that gap and provide a killer service at a great price. I’ll certainly be back, they even gave me a little chupa-chup lolly on exiting, we seem to have lost something in our service ethos. The appearance of this shop was basic, no avant garde designs with staff dressed in black sporting ridiculous hair cuts where you pay over the odds, just a bunch of chaps doing what they do very well, and given that I was fourth in line on a weekday morning, it suggests that they are very successful at it. I wish them well.

If you find yourself in Canterbury with twenty minutes to kill, I can heartily recommend Kent Barbers at the bottom of the high street opposite the Jaguar dealership.

Which brings me to my next point. The Jaguar dealership is run by a local firm called Barretts. They opened on the Jaguar site around the turn of the last century as a bicycle dealership, which seems a little odd to us now, but I suppose a hundred years ago when cars were the preserve of the rich it was a shrewd move. Obviously. Now they represent not only Jaguar, but also Honda, Mini, Land Rover, BMW, Seat and Citroen, all at different sites around the city.

My car needed some work doing, a minor job, so I scheduled this for yesterday and dropped my car off at the relevant dealership which sits about two miles from my gaff. However they run a free shuttle bus back into town which I gratefully took advantage of. I received a call not long after I’d dropped the old girl off diagnosing the problem and giving me a reasonable and accurate price for the job, and an estimated time for when it would be finished. About half an hour before the appointed time I received another call telling me they’d finished, so made my way round to pick the shuttle bus back up. I was greeted in a friendly fashion when I picked up the car and found that it had also been cleaned inside and out. All this led to a very pleasant experience. I probably paid more than I would have done elsewhere, but I wouldn’t have got my ride home and accurate and concise communication. I certainly wouldn’t have found the vehicle looking like it had just left the forecourt.

Well done Barretts.

In an era when service is so often lacking, I do think it is important to tell as many people as possible, and the businesses themselves, when they get it right.

Or, alternatively.

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Sometimes I just get hit by inspiration. Moments of absolute clarity are very few and far between, yet this evening I have experienced such a revelation. Let’s see if you can have the same experience.

As you may well be aware, I’m lucky enough to call Canterbury home, it is a very nice city indeed. Rough Guide, or someone recently stated that it was the finest cathedral city in England, I’d find it hard to disagree. But it isn’t without its problems, oh no, and we’ve got a very serious one. You see it would appear that the Mayoral robes are in a bit of a state.

But what’s this? Those wonderful people at Canterbury City Council have hit upon a common sense solution to the problem.

Canterbury City Council is recommending that the Lord Mayor’s robes be replaced at a cost of £17,000.

Oh, is that all? Just the seventeen thousand? Well why stop there? We could have a set for every day of the week.

Other options being considered are to clean and repair the current robe, or replace the the current robe body.

I’m trying desperately to think of another option.

Hmmmm.

Carry on reading, it’ll come to me in a moment.

Cleaning and repairing the robe would cost £3,575, and £11,795 would pay for a a new robe body which is expected to last for 10 years. 

Hang on, there’s an idea forming. . .

Taken over the 20-year lifespan of the new robes, full replacement would be the cheapest option, the council said.

Ah-ha! That’s it! There’s the other option, and it is much, much cheaper.

Brace yourself. . .

(You know where this is going, don’t you, you clever little blogreader, you?)

How about, not replacing them at all?

Do we really need to pay good money for an unelected mayor (OK, he’s an elected councillor, but heaven forbid we should be able to directly elect him or her) to have some robes so they can ponce around like a cross between Dick Turpin and Liberace? (Apologies for the low-res picture which I’ve lifted from the Al-Jabeeba report.)

Really, in the 21st Century do we need people walking around in such a ridiculous get up at such cost to the public purse? Really?

Yes, I know everyone else has got one, but everyone else used to have an outside toilet and rickets, doesn’t mean we had to do the same.

In these straightened times I’m wondering how much change you’d get out of seventeen grand once you’ve paid the wages of one of the guys who so lovingly tends the city’s beautiful Westgate Gardens (pictured at the top), a public possession which benefits everyone? I’m betting there isn’t a great deal of price difference between the two, and I’m betting I know which facility more people enjoy.

Really? Seventeen grand to play dress up? Give me strength.

The One That Is ‘Gay Enough’. . .

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A while ago, Leg-Iron posted a commentary on this article about Canterbury City Council being referred to the ombudsman as the city wasn’t ‘gay enough.’

Thankfully, the ombudsman has decided the city is gay enough. I’m not sure how they do this. Perhaps from above with a gaydar mounted on a plane taking off from near-by Manston airport?

There was another to-do a little while ago when wine-bar ‘Scribes’ opened up a lap dancing club. You’d have though the world had come to an end, the bar has a view of the Cathedral (Canterbury is a small city, everywhere has a view of the Cathedral) and the professional complainers were of the opinion that it would have been a handy stop off for Satan en route to him doing whatever it is the anti-Christ choses to do with his evenings.

Scribes was the only lap dancing club in Kent, apparently. Not any more it isn’t. It’s closed. No doubt the professional complainers will be pleased.

Or not.

It is now CO2, a bar dedicated not to men paying for young women to thrust their bouncy bits in their faces, but it is now a gay bar. So there’ll be men kissing each other, for free.

Given the bar’s proximity to the Cathedral, I should imagine it will get more trade from the clergy in this guise than in its former incarnation. The report lists the activities on offer:


drag artists, tribute acts, DJs and camp bingo.

I thought all bingo was camp. No doubt this heralds another collapse of civilisation. Tribute acts? DJ’s? I think the comparisons between this sort of thing going on and the last days of Soddom are startling. I’ve seen a number of tribute acts in my time, perhaps I’ve been living a lie all these years?

Thing is, Canterbury is a fairly normal town. OK, we get far more of our fair share of tourists than other towns in Kent, but it isn’t Vegas, neither is it Riyadh.

It is amazing that a gay pressure group wants, well I don’t know what really, whilst others think everyone should live the lives of Benedictine monks. They’re all bloody mad. . .