Get Some In Dame Kelly Style!...

The Legend of Saint Kelly and her Olympic Torch

I see Dame Kelly Holmes is in the news today for wanting to bring back national service! In her guest editing slot on Radio Four's Woman's Hour she advocated that young people would benefit from doing National Service because it would "...instil a sense of responsibility and discipline in them..." and help them to "...find themselves." Whilst this might well be true Dame Kelly Tonbridge Blog can't help thinking that this would be a little bit of a step too far. The double gold medal winning middle distance athlete and local heroine recalled her own time in the army and feels it helped her enormously in her own life and sports career. Great for you Kelly but is it right for everyone? In any case, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that woman have EVER been required to do national service so why would many of them want to start now?...

Kelly sits up top during Tonbridge Carnival (ok it's quite an old picture but the only one I had!)

Arts Festival should be a winner this year....

Wow I like the look of the Tonbridge Arts Festival web site this year. Massive improvement on previous year's. I appears that they may well have put everything in place for a really decent event this year. It runs from July 1st to 6th across the town. I've made some negative comments about in the past, and I still think that the rehashed music nights on the Castle lawn are a bit cheesy and old hat, maybe that's just me, but let's hope all goes smoothly. So long as they support less popular events such as art exhibitions, local band night and poetry then I guess that's the best we can all expect. I really hope it all goes without a hitch and look out for Slade Primary School opening the whole thing at the unveiling of the Big Picture on the Castle wall with their mini re-enactment of the Guinness World Record for ocarina playing! They performed with over 3,000 other children at the Royal Albert Hall late last year for the actual record breaking so I'm sure they won't be at all daunted but the gentle folk of Tonbridge....

P Off at it again....

I know. It's been a while since my last post on here. But there we go. Not sure who's reading this anyway anymore since the rise and rise of Twitter etc why would anyone bother?! You see I've been busy, up to me neck in it actually. What with running the shop, attending book fairs, doing PR work, writing magazine articles, sorting out my new storage units, clearing out books from people's houses etc. etc. And that's just Monday mornings! So, bearing in mind how busy I've been, imagine my glee at having to wait over 20 minutes at the good old Angel Walk post office to have my passport renewal checked over. I filled out the form online so as to save time and hopefully avoid any problems. Simple process. Or so they make out. Having waited what seemed like an age in the new non-queue  space age system that they must have spent tens of thousands on, where only chaos seemed the order of the day, with a toddler squealing in my ear as the father got more and more agitated at his uncontrollable, inquisitive son (bless him he was probably excited at the prospect of meeting friendly Postman Pat) I finally get to the counter to be told by a very miserable looking Postwoman Patricia that, because said passport form had been filled out online, they couldn't check it even if I paid the £8 charge. Their system, it seems, would have completely broken down, exploded probably, if they had tried to process my application. I realise that this was partly me getting my wires crossed but the P Off really does have to sort out it's act otherwise it might be more than toddlers screaming at the tops of their voices....

What's the Plan B for Tonbridge Town Centre?....

Lots in the Courier today about the Sainsbury's bombshell dropped earlier in the week as they pulled out of the, so called, "Sainsbridge" regeneration store, leisure centre and cinema project at the advanced stages. It was an outrage according to council officials and many townsfolk. That said the reports also suggested that the views of quite a few shoppers, businesses and passers by up and down the town weren't all that in favour of the development to start with. Some seemed to be suggesting that the project would have caused years of disruption and much loss of trade as a result and that the high street might well stand to benefit from the shift in focus away from the Angel area. Either way the borough council has the headache now of finding a Plan B, and pretty damned sharpish....

RIP the Selfie?...

Selfies have taken the internet world by storm in recent months but, apparently, now they've become very boring.. They've always been for self important people who feel the constant desire to see themselves published on websites, blogs and social networking sites. The type of people who just need to have their views aired and cannot bear to be just anonymous and get on with their lives. You know, always seeking approval of their own self righteous views. (What do you mean I've just described myself? What nonsense!) One recent report suggests that selfies have become the digital equivalent of dad dancing! And this from something which only became an official word in the Oxford English Dictionary last November! So is it RIP the selfie?...

Beales to stay in Tonbridge....

As regular commenter Paul Bailey points out in one of his comments against the original post about the Sainsbury's pull out bombshell (scroll down) it looks like Beales department store is to stay in Tonbridge after all. They received a reported £1 million for surrendering their lease to allow for the Sainsbridge scheme so, unless they have to pay it all back, it'll be Freixenet cava all round at the next Beales board meeting. I dare say the staff in Tonbridge will be quite relieved as well. Where else would we all go for that essential Peter Rabbit money box christening present, or my Timberland boxer shorts?!..

A satisfied Mr. Books online customer....

This is a genuine email from a customer for a book sold on the internet from someone who is clearly a real book fanatic. It's always nice to get positive feedback from customers as, due to the nature of us humans, you only tend to hear when someone has a problem or hasn't received something. Or, as "Basil Fawlty would have put it: A satisfied customer, let's have her stuffed!"

" Dear Mr. Richardson,

Thanks so much for the book you sent me by V. Gordon Childe.  It arrived yesterday.  It was quite kind of you to send it airmail, even though I didn't upgrade from surface.  Anyway, I really like the book very much, and was interested to notice the small oval sticker from a bookshop in Cairo.  2nd hand books have such an aura, from the trees from which they are made, from the spirits of the writers which infuse the work, and from their previous owners and the past lives of the books.  Thank you for this beautiful book, which has been well cared for, and for your excellent service.

Sincerely,  Meaghen, USA."

Apologies from Sainsbury's for dropping bombshell on Tonbridge..

After much deliberation, procrastination and, frankly just not answering any phone calls a Sainsbury's spokesperson has finally given TonbridgeBlog a comment on their pulling out of the proposed new store, cinema and leisure development and this is what he had to say:

SOWWY! :-(

Sainsbury's drop a bombshell on Tonbridge....

Well, well well! Who'd have thunk it? Sainsbury's it seems have done the dirty on Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council (TMBC) and it ain't a cruel April Fools joke. Their, much trumpeted new store, combined with a cinema and leisure centre complex on Bradford Street has been canned. It seems to be in the face of "changing retail patterns" by which I think they mean that they've just noticed this new way of shopping called the internet. It took them long enough but they got there in the end! They have now worked out that, instead of a giant hyper market style store in Tonbridge town centre, all they actually need is a couple of nerds and a few computers in a building in a low rent, poor part of Wales and tiny little "Xpress" shops (or is that Tesco?!) on the High Street. So a bit like the Spa shops model of about 40 years ago except now you don't even have to bother to leave your house and order the food, you can just lay around at home in your underpants, watching Jeremy Kyle and Heir Hunters whilst ordering your fruit and veg and cheap baked beans, only bothering to drag on a pair of stained jogging bottoms when the delivery man arrives at your house. Pretty soon they too will be replaced by robots! Anyway, I digress. Sainsbury's have really dropped a bombshell here as Councillor Nicholas Hedgelop will testify. In fact he's jolly hopping mad at the amount of work he and the rest of the council have put in on this. Especially the scheme to build a new leisure centre and cinema on a flood prone street. He is said to have commented that it really wasn't cricket to stop the building of this site which they hoped would, in the next few years, be able to match the flooded swimming pool, football and rugby pitches so that fitness fanatics, and just casual visitors of all standards, plus the unemployed, who can enjoy services at a fraction of the cost of peak time users, who just want to give badminton or underwater table tennis a go without feeling committed, can play sports in a river water themed, relaxed, semi-aquatic environment. Sainsbury's were unavailable for comment except to say that they are really, really, really sorry. They were last seen examining the Iron Age Castle Hill fort site off the A21 which they reckon will be flood free for at least another 2 years and also very handy for that shopping trip to the North Farm estate.....