We braved ‘Plannit Fannit’ yesterday for the Thanet Air Show. An enjoyable day was had – it was surprisingly well organised, considering it was the first one they’d held there, with a Park & Ride scheme that actually worked, and a nice varied set of aircraft on display (Red Arrows, Sea King, Battle Of Britian Memorial Flight, Navy Lynx, to name a few). It was really refreshing to head back to the car on an open top bus, get into the car, and just drive home – no hassle, no diversions, no traffic jams. Roll on next year.

(Although, if I were to be picky, could we have more shaded areas to sit, please?)

More pictures are in the gallery.

Made me smile, anyway…

So, they want to introduce Pay As You Go Motoring. Hmm. It’s such an outlandish scheme (increasing most people’s road tax bill by a factor of 10, for instance), that I suspect it’s just a feint. Wait a couple of years and I bet we’ll hear about a new scheme which also infringes on our civil liberties, and also charges us way more than we’re paying now, but not quite as much as this PAYG malarkey.

“Well,” the politicians will say, “it’s cheaper and less invasive than our last idea, isn’t it?”

“Oooh,” the public will say, “where do I sign?”

Either that, or this scheme will be declared the last line of defense against terrorism, and it’ll be in by Christmas.

Sometimes you witness such stupidity that it makes you wonder how some people remember how to breathe.

I was just driving home from my brother’s house. On my way, I drove down a street that generally has children playing in it, so, anticipating some kind of obstacle in my way I slowed down. Usually, these obstacles are things like trikes, toys, small children, the odd thrown brick – you get the idea. Today was a bit different. Today, the natives had taken it upon themselves to string a line from one side of the road to the other. I saw it just about in time (it was quite thin), and stopped whilst a young boy ran across the road in front of me and unhooked his garotte from the fence. I parked. Thought about what I was letting myself in for, and wandered back for a word.

This was where my gast got flabbered.

I got back to where the line was hung, and ask to the gathered kids “do we know whose that line is?”, and in answer, the kids point to a house. Standing outside the house is what I assume to be the mother of the small boy. She confirms my assumption with a “Yeah, that’s my boy’s”. “That’s quite a silly game”, I say. “Oh, it’s ok, I was watching him,” she replies “and I told him to take it down as soon as you came down the road”.

We exchange another couple of words. I try to get across that it is quite likely that someone will get hurt, probably one of her kids. She maintains that it’s ok, because she can see the game from her cigarette-point. And she did tell him to take it down. So that’s alright, then… I was driving slowly and it wasn’t down in time for me. What happens when one of the kevs screams round the corner doing something near the speed limit?

I wouldn’t like to say, but I expect it would involve the emergency services. Lucky that the ambulance station is only round the corner, really…

I’m not bothered about the kids playing a silly game – that’s kind of in their job description. What bothers me is that they were doing it under the full supervision of a responsible adult.

*sigh

END OF RANT