Madness, JLS, bit of a carnival and plenty of pride.

Another fine week-end (even the weather) for Thanet to celebrate. The two gigs at Quex appear to have been a massive success, most of the feedback I received was about Madness but that may be due to my age. The traffic was horrendous along the Manston Road, but I cannot see any alternatives given the Quex venue. The only saving grace for me was that the out of towners hadn't realised that you could cut through Acol, thus giving us taxi drivers an opportunity to ferry about the natives.

The Ramsgate carnival was again a little bit disappointing in terms of the amount of floats and the content. My children mentioned too many queens (including Micheal, from Micheal's hairdressers) and not enough businesses having fun in big brightly decorated lorries. Saying that I hope the carnival raised loads of money for the good causes that it supports.

Although I did not see any of the entertainment provided for the Margate Pride event it was nice to see the beach and surrounding businesses looking extremely busy.

To top off the fine weekend, I received a generous tip from our pleasant whiskered council leader and his family returning from a fish and chip supper.

A proud Ramsgatonian.

Saturday night was a very busy night for the Taxi driver, it brought back memories of the good old days when we used to earn a living. Ramsgate was heaving with all types of people wanting to and having a good time. As a true Ramsgatonian I always enjoy seeing the harbour and surrounding areas packed with people enjoying their leisure time, and the businesses providing the entertainment, reaping their rewards. To be honest I wish I had more time to enjoy the view (especially the hen night girls dressed as Brownies outside Miles Bar), but a lot of these people also wanted to be ferried from A to B, so it was all work and no play for this Taxi driver.

The following day having been dragged out of bed early by the kids, it was decided (whilst I was still half asleep), that we would have a family day at Ramsgate beach. The weather was fantastic and the beach was packed with families, groups of friends and couples all making the most of their weekend. While all the children were building sand castles, swimming or playing games, the adults where relaxing (with half an eye on the kids) and recovering from the excesses of the previous night. I was happy to queue for the ice creams, I did not moan at the price of the drinks and the sand in the chips was only a minor irritation.

I can honestly say hand on heart it is times like this I am proud to be a Ramsgatonian.

Exclusive

I have an exclusive photograph of a police helicopter buzzing ECR's clifftop mansion.


A reliable source (she was only a 1/3 through her morning bottle) has informed me that ECR had positioned some anti-aircraft guns on the top of his 17 storey mansion, in an attempt to persuade Flybe to postpone their new Manchester route.

A group of nursery children were heard shouting 'bye bye, bye bye', however at the moment it is unclear if this was aimed at ECR or the helicopter (Budgie).

More on this story as it breaks.

Rearview or rearend?

I can't remember the last time I went out on a Saturday night, what with it being a taxi driver's busiest night. But needs must, it was my brothers stag night and as his best man I was tasked with; ensuring that he had a good time (got pissed) and getting him home safely. Anyway if I can say so, I believe that I succeeded on both counts.

What was interesting was getting into a taxi at approx 3am this morning. Instead of looking in horror at the thing (my brother) that was shovelled inside the cab, this time I was doing the shovelling. Does this give me a better insight into how I perceive my night-time customers? Unfortunately not. Why? Because I paid extra; took him home safely through the front door and then asked the driver take me home.

Anyway forgetting all that boring stuff......

Although I have not posted for a while, I have been following Thanet's blogs with interest during the last year and a half. I was disturbed about Micheal's comments http://http//thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/05/thanet-blogs-and-some-ramsgate-pictures.html regarding the lack of bloggers in Thanet, and I felt the need to dust of my blogger password.

As always though I will be hoping that Chinese planes will be skimming the roof of a new hotel on the old pleasurama site at Ramgate, that the Turner Centre and a re-vamped Dreamland kickstarts the regeneration of Margate. Also that Thanet will offer decent jobs for its working population and cease to become a Londoner's retirement village, where the only jobs available to the locals is wiping OAP's arses.

Bah Humbug

I can't believe that it has already been a month since my last post. I am not going to bore you with the sordid details, but it has been a pretty miserable month.

So I have decided to post this today as a sign of intent for the new year. I am not going to post negative thoughts over the Christmas period, instead I am going to post positive ones in the new year.

So to everyone in blogland, Happy (bah) Christmas!

Beware!

If you read Sods law you will know that I was a little bit poorly, as it turned out Mrs Taxi Driver was wrong (I nearly died). Sorry to disappoint you all, but I'm still here and normal service has resumed.

This weekend; 'broke UK' officially started celebrating Xmas, I picked up the first of the seasonal party animals. Although allegedly having no money, they still managed to find enough to get drunk, spew everywhere, throw insults and try to shag their best mate's partner.

Anyway, try and remember that when you get your cab this Xmas, the driver will be sober (hopefully). He will remember what you say, what you do and what you want to do, maybe just maybe it will end up on the WWW

Sods law!

After three weeks off work, I thought it would be a good idea to make an effort yesterday and show my face. In my defence all the drivers I spoke to have said business was slow, they have described the Thanet town centre's as ghost town's. Before anybody reads to much into this, October is traditionally slow for our trade, hence why I always take some time off.

A very busy day, with plenty of people out day and night. The opening of the new toy store Smyths added a new string to the Westwood Cross bow, trade looked brisk all day, good luck to them. I'm not sure Tesco and Sainsbury will have a similar view, the roundabout between the two was jammed all day. The problem is there is no right turn into Smyths for traffic heading towards Ramsgate, they have to go to the roundabout and do a U-turn.

Last night saw my taxi full of Witches, Zombies, Horny devil's and even a pumpkin. I have a neutral view on Halloween, as it is an American concept that wasn't particularly popular when I grew up. However adults and kids alike seem to spend a great deal of money on their costumes, the results were quite spectacular. One criticism would be parents letting very young children (u8's) roam the streets trick or treating, with no adult supervision. Dark evenings and black costumes on children running between parked cars, is enough to give this taxi driver a premonition of doom.

Sods law- I take three weeks off work and return yesterday. I wake up this morning with Flu. Luckily for me Mrs Taxi driver thinks its only Man Flu!