Updated information on the nature of dentistry in Thanet.

Finding a dentist in Thanet is hard. It's harder still if you have no car and little money. Just currently there are, according to PALS, exactly no dentists taking on NHS patients in Thanet.

NHS - Second Class Dental Service

For those of us dependant on the NHS for dental services it is likely to be apparent that we are very much the recipients of a second class standard of service.

You cannot get checkups for you or your children. You can only get dental treatment once you are in pain and then you have to phone at 8am and keep trying until you get through - after that you will be told when the appointment is and you had better be able to get there early to fill out the paper work.

The number to call appears to have changed several times. The current number is 01233 667997 and you will need to call after 8am but before 9am. Any time after nine in the morning and you would need to be very lucky to get an appointment at the Ramsgate dental access clinic.

Keep reading to find out about New NHS friendly dentists opening in Thanet this year

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» Continue Reading: Thanet Dental Update

I have just discoverd that the phone system will make you wait 30 seconds before giving you the option of recording an entry for the Thanet Star podcasts when I'm redirecting calls to my home. This did not seem like a good plan so I have set up a new number that is always in "out of hours" mode.

08443 511 485 will allow you to leave messages for the podcast without the 30 second wait.

The next podcast is all about Twitter.

After the lessons learned from PodCast #1 I'm back with better equipment and a new topic.

Twitter!

To take part in the show all you need to do is call 0844 884 9342 and select option to leave a message. Don't forget to tell us who you are and feel free to name drop your twitter account name.

So what are we going to be talking about?

1. What is twitter. What do you make of it? What's the big deal?

2. Who is using twitter?

3. What can twitter be used for?

4. How can you be the most popular twitter user in Thanet?

5. Anything else you want to talk about that is Twitter related.

You don't have to be from Thanet to have something to say about Twitter (and local communities) even though I love to hear from people that are from Thanet. If you are from outside the UK for some reason you're going to need to add +44 to the number (but you knew that right).

Quite aside from writing software to cope with the future of blogging and completing a few redesigns on older blogs one still must find things to write about on each and every blog.

Is it me or are there very few subjects not yet done to death for the Thanet niche?

Fortunately we have the Thanet Star Twitter Page and the Thanet News Twitter Page to keep us going.

Not to mention much of Thanet's twitterings on one page Thanet's Twitter Overview.

Thanet MP Roger Gale has spoken strongly against what he perceives as an unjust divide between those from other parts of the UK who have never paid taxes in the UK and yet claim benefits and those that have paid taxes their entire lives but now live outside of the UK and do not get such simple help.

Do we look after our own? asks Gale It appears that we do not. In spite of the best efforts of Members on both sides of the House of Commons to secure, for our constituents, the help that they need the government has to date sought to wriggle free of the European Court finding that the relevant benefits are exportable and should be paid to UK citizens living elsewhere within the European Union or in Switzerland.

Mentioning the upcoming elections of MEPs Gale says I think that it is therefore not unreasonable ask why it is that while those who have paid their dues in England are being denied benefits because they are living in France or Spain or Greece, it is perfectly in order for EU citizens from the "new Europe" outside the United Kingdom, who have not paid a lifetimes taxes in Britain, to come to work here, claim family tax benefits and send that money back to support families that are not living in the UK but in another EU state. It is an equation that the ex-pat community, which has the right to vote in June and will most assuredly be casting those votes to elect UK MEPs, does not comprehend. And neither do I !

What are your feelings on the subject?

Thanet District Council member and "IT Expert" Dr Simon Moores may be connected to promoting casual sex, gambling and hacking as well as other "Black Hat" online practices we can exclusively reveal.

Before we get to the nitty-gritty of the details I should be pointed out (if only for legal purposes) that Black Hat SEO activities might not, necessarily, be illegal. Black Hat SEO is an attempt to "game the system" in a number of different ways some of which are ethically questionable. Often this focuses on moving "page rank" from one location to a high yield secondary location to increase search ranking. Sometimes that law is broken to do this - consider the Computer Miss-use Act and comment spamming, for example - but this is not always the case.

Prepare now to enter the morally gray world of the dark side of the Internet as we follow Dr Moores public activities online. What we see, may shock you and may shock Dr Moores if he was not aware of it.

Dr Simon Moores is often one to point out his technical abilities and knowledge. He is the author of "March of the Spiders" and has a blog called "Netcrime Report". Simon also claims to have advised Microsoft, the UK Government and others on the subject of online crime (ecrime, as he puts it) and has connections to the "ecrime congress". With such a background you'd think he should know a thing or two. This, one would think, is a fine upstanding net citizen not to be trifled with.

Keep reading to find out the extent of Thanet Star's discoveries. I've kept it off the front page as some of the screen captures contain content that somepeople may find offensive. I will present the evidence in the form of screen shots along with my reactions and a little technical insight. I will leave the final conclusions to you.

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» Continue Reading: Exclusive: Is Cllr Simon Moores Involved with Shady Internet Activities?

Thanet District Council does not have Officers with the skill, time or insight to do the job according to a source inside the council.

Thanet District Council has spent nearly £1 million on consultants in just three years, Finance boss Martin Wise has told thisiskent.co.uk because the council does not know how to deal with the tasks set before it.

According to ... Finance boss Martin Wise said that Thanet's council needs consultants to help it understand new legislation being introduced by the central Government and the authority not having officers with the skills to deal with it.

Let's stop and recap in case we missed that. Mr Wise says that the current officers of Thanet District Council lack the skills to do the job.

Is it me or did that come dangerously close for political speak for "not fit for office"?

Ignoring, for a moment that we have a Conservative council saying its all the fault of the Labour Government as normal (log, eye, own), let's think about that.

If the 50 plus councillors that stood at the last election have insufficient skills to do the job then what, in all fairness, did they think they were doing standing in the first place?

Mr Wise is also quoted as saying of the consultants hired: We use these people to unravel the legislation and how to proceed with it. They do the donkey work. These are huge pieces of work that take a lot of time and all our officers have a day job to do and we don’t have the people to do the work.

Is it really that the entire council is made up of people lacking the skills to get the job done or is it that it lacks in-favour-conservatives to get the job done? It seems to me that our council, according to Mr Wise, is controlled by people unqualified for the power and responsibility that they hold.

According to the article Council "leader" Sandy Ezekiel argues that central government should let local authorities get on with the job rather than bogging them down with unnecessary spending. (Such as overpaying for property in Margate, Sandy?)

It's no good blaming the government, blaming the press, blaming everyone involved when it long ago became clear to everyone that the problem was a lack of responsibility. Rather than spending every ounce of energy fighting the other party maybe someone would like to actually get something done for once? Then we'd not need to try and kick up dust to cover the fact that no one is doing their job and they are getting paid very nicely for it too.

If Sandy and co are unable to complete the work the council must undertake they should step down today and call for a new election to find someone who can do the job.

Maybe it's time that Sandy's gang put pride aside and looked to the whole of the council to find the skills and time that they need. I happen to know that at least one Labour Councillor is currently unemployed and would probably jump at the chance to show his Tory counter-parts how it all works.

Alternatively maybe Mr Wise and Cllr Ezekiel might consider the inaugural Kent Poker Cup a poker tournament at Thanet's G Casino as this holds as much hope of a good return on investment as any other we seem to have been shown by Thanet District Council of late.

If I have to become a councillor to see that this lack of skill and ability is sorted out I shall be very cross indeed.

113-year-old Margate Football Club is once more in danger.

That's the message from Jeremy Jacobs. In his blog post Margate Super hero he looks back at the glory days of Margate FC and left-half, Bryan Clifton, the man with the hardest shot in non-league football.

As I understand it, Margate Football Club will be wound up in the High Court on April 29th, unless it pays a figure rumoured to be in the region £100,000, to HMRC before or on that date. I’m sure the Club’s Chairman, Keith Piper, will do everything he can to save the Club from extinction and with it 113 years of footballing history.

The club is hoping to raise the £100,000 it needs by issuing shares but this has left supporters with a number of unanswered questions. Not least of which is what happens if this does not work?

Margate are playing Ramsgate at home tomorrow, the kick off is at 1pm

Unacceptable. It is the only way I can describe the behaviour of police during the G20 protests.



From what I can see this was an ugly and aggressively policed protest of the kind I am more accustomed to seeing in less stable countries. additional video footage here

Another eyewitness, Ashley Parsons, said: "The violence perpetrated against so many around me over that hour was sickening and terrifying.

"Without warning, from around midnight, the police repeatedly and violently surged forwards in full riot gear, occasionally rampaging through the protest line and deliberately destroying protesters' property, some officers openly screaming in pumped-up rage."

Outside the Bank of England, thousands were held for up to eight hours behind a police cordon, in a practice known as "kettling". Parents with children and passers-by were told by officers on the cordon that "no one could leave".

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» Continue Reading: Unacceptable.

Thanet District Council may be able to crow about the quality of sea water for swimming in but Thanet might not be able to boast the same thing about our drinking water.

Only recently I saw a headline in the local advertising supported (free) newspaper that more or less said that most of the contaminants in our drinking water came from us.

Each of us flushing a bit of this and a bit of that down the sink has added up, it seems, to more toxic rubbish in our drinking water than the efforts of a number of well known industrial groups.

The truth is we are all on thin ice and so perhaps it is time to widen our sights a little and address the entire picture. For example no one locally has commented on the fact that the industrial complex of "Thanet Earth" not only uses more water than it can source from local reserves but will need to drain local marshland for further water too. read more.

Yes those big complexes sat on our water supply could dump a heavy load into our water and ruin it for generations to come - that worries me. However, what also worries me is that we might slowly ruin it for generations to come anyway.

What I'd like to know from the Save Thanet Water Supply supporters is what about the marsh, what about us sticking our own household crap into the water what about the unsustainable "Thanet Earth" supply demands?

It only takes one failure to hurt our water and one big enough failure to take it away. We can therefore afford no failures to protect our water.

We each need to protect our water from our own actions. Keep reading to find out why this might never happen.

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» Continue Reading: Who cares for our water?

As far as I know this podcast is another first for Thanet found at Thanet Star.

With a little luck and some tinkering tomorrow (perhaps) you should be able to enjoy a seven and a bit test "broadcast" that you can take away and enjoy on your MP3 player.



Download this episode (right click and save)

Credits

Thanks to:

Tony Flaig of Big News Margate and Thanet Observer for writing blog posts worthy of commenting on,

Steve from Stop Manston Expansion Group for getting in there early with his opinion

This show used:

Epic Climax by Neurowaxx, windish by William Berry and Original compositions by Matt B

We've raised a lot of questions in this show: The validity of the standards board, The telling off that Sandy Ezekiel got from said standards board, Lorry parking in car spaces in Ramsgate, The expansion of Manstone airport, and the very tense nature of Thanet politics.

We've only just started to touch on these subjects and I'd love to hear what you have to say. The number to call is 0844 884 9342 - select the option to leave a message and share your views.

I'm currently recording a podcast (audio/MP3 blog) on the subject of politics in and around Thanet.

If you want to hear your voice having a say then phone my office on 0844 884 9342 day or night and choose to leave a message. That last bit is very important. If you choose to queue for a chat I'm happy to talk to you (if I can get tot he phone) but it will not nd up in the podcast.

Answer phone message are saved as sound files and can, therefore, easily use your contribution. Remember to say your name. (Hi I'm Bob from bob's blog and I'd like to say ... )

It will be published quite soon so you'll need to be fairly quick. I've never hit the theoretical maximum of people on the line at once so you can record your message at any time. Do it - you know you want to.

Call 0844 884 9342 and leave a message to get on the podcast.

Have you had a great or a shocking encounter with solicitors, statuary services (social services, for example) or any organisation about whom little is often written?

If you have then I want to hear from you.

Would you recommend the last solicitor you spoke to?

Could you honestly say that you have had a good encounter with social services?

Have you got a story about help above and beyond with a sure start centre?

Perhaps it's the other way round and you are deeply unhappy with the level of service you have received. Let's put a human face on these things and share our stories. I can keep you name out of it if you want or make it public - it's up to you.

Let's talk