The reopening of the Leas Lift has been delayed until spring of 2027...
🚧 Leas Lift reopening pushed back by a year
Plus: Pub set to close next month, and families flock to reopened play area
folkestonedispatch.substack.com
Rhys Griffiths
@rhysdgriffiths.bsky.social
Journalist, doing the hyperlocal newsletter thing @folkestonedispatch.substack.com. On the terraces at Folkestone Invicta. Love football, food, drink, travel (by train, ideally), history, podcasts and naps
There's a new Viz in the shops (issue 358). Sorry no refunds.
This week we go inside the town's former Debenhams to hear from the developers seeking to bring it back to life...
🚧 No ‘quick buck’ for Folca developers
Plus: Tontine Street closed for sewer repairs, and popular play area set to reopen after refurbishment
folkestonedispatch.substack.com
Please try this on a coke-and-vodka fuelled Ryanair flight from a provincial UK airport to Ibiza, please
Hemant Mehta@friendlyatheist.com · last wk.Evangelist Whitney Lynn says she preaches on planes because she loves “a captive audience.” She's not alone. It's becoming a trend. If spreading your message requires listeners who can't escape, maybe it's not as compelling as you think. www.friendlyatheist.com/p/christian-...
Might pivot to just releasing unedited recordings of my interviews as a podcast, would save me an awful lot of time just sitting here finding anything else possible to distract me from the business of actually writing the damn piece
...a few years ago we did some Zippy content and were contacted by Tom Hayes, regular listener of the pod and son of Geoffrey. He informed us that Zippy and George were happily living out their retirement with Tom's mum following the passing of his dad in 2018... 2/3
For all the incredible work through the years, I'll always primarily associate him with this Reading chant, to the tune of Madonna's Erotica: 'Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie, rub your beard all over my body'
Important to object to and correct every single use of "remigration." The word is a euphemism designed to make respectable its users' project, which is ethnic cleansing.
A scene from a future 'historically accurate' cinematic portrayal of the founding myth of Elon Musk's colony on Mars
I became a county cricket member for the first time this year, it's like being 18 again when I sit down for a championship match...
Julianna 💎@batariangal.eurosky.social · 2w agoGod, I’m so tired of every third post on here being people in their 30s and 40s acting like being in your 30s or 40s is basically having one foot in the grave
Folkestone is to be merged into a new Mid Kent unitary council as part of the biggest shake-up of local government in Kent for more than half a century. Fair to say not everyone is impressed...
🗳️ Folkestone to be merged into ‘insane’ new Mid Kent council
Plus: Parks awarded Green Flag status, and ‘Cold War bunker’ up for sale
folkestonedispatch.substack.com
lmao if your reaction to the prime minister committing to abolishing rough sleeping is "this won't play with the median voter" then you really have drowned in the cult of savviness
Luke Tryl@luketryl.bsky.social · 2w agoSeen a few people saying rough sleeping policy isn’t aimed at median public concern. Quite apart from any policy/moral imperative it really is - rough sleeping comes up time again in focus groups as one of the most visible signs of Broken Britain and community decline!
‘Sorry to see you go, Sir Keir, I know you always particularly appreciated my vase-on-head trick’
Asked a cllr where they think the HQ of the amazing new Mid Kent Unitary Authority should be located. Ashford, maybe? Sittingbourne, perhaps? "It really should have good transport links from all parts of the authority, and on that basis, I guess we have to look at St Pancras."
One fun thing about the new Mid Kent Unitary Authority Area is that, much like Wales, to get from many major population centres to another by public transport you have to cross the border and then come back again. It is not. A. Joined. Up. Area
Thought I might be less upset about Kent LGR today, having slept on it. But no, more I read the more raging I am about the mess that's been inflicted on Folkestone. As one prominent cllr described it to me today: 'insane'
Guess next week's @folkestonedispatch.substack.com is going to be an explainer/massive rant about LGR then?
I've just seen about 40 kids sneak into watch 'The Odyssey' without paying by hiding in a giant wooden coat.
Absolutely stunned by this. How on earth has Folkestone been severed from east Kent? Dungeness and Sheppey? Wild, indeed
Ed Jennings@edjennings.bsky.social · 3w agoBreaking: Kent and Medway will be carved up into four unitary authorities, including a wild MidKent Council that spans from Sheppey to Romney Marsh.
One thousand times this. No, one million times. I am a believer that the podcast is close to a perfect medium because it fits in around so much else. Stop telling me I should be watching them!
Tamara Bumpdeeay@moiness.bsky.social · 3w agoI cannot be doing with video podcasts. I listen to pods when I am multitasking. Walking. Travelling. Shopping. Having a bath. Working. Housework. Cooking. I watch TV when I am not doing anything else. Video podcasts are just telly but visually boring and on a crappy platform.
This evening we launched our new weekly what's on email: On The Town. This week, news of the line-up for this year's Folkestone Book Festival and plenty more...
📚 Book festival programme revealed
Your weekly guide to what's on in Folkestone
folkestonedispatch.substack.com
"Verify your age" I saved my dissertation on a floppy disk...
Angry People in Local Newspapers@apiln.bsky.social · 3w ago"Verify your age" My first website was on Geocities.
Of all the people to try to quibble with on a point of media law, crikey...
Michael Savage@michaelsavage.bsky.social · 3w agoOuch...
"I'm just going to interrupt you there Chris, because we're hearing there's a result in from Tunbridge Wells, and... as expected, that's a Lib Dem Hold."
One of the very few positives of the Empire was that a lot of people who looked like this died of malaria, or while cavalry-charging a volcano.
Sam Woodcock@samwoodcock.eurosky.social · 4w agoThe British Democrats have announced they are standing
How right-wing populists see themselves vs how the world sees them
Tom Roberts@tpgroberts.bsky.social · 4w agoThe genuine shift in the last decade has been how fundamentally unserious our politicians have become, none moreso than the right, and yet they are so angry no one is taking them seriously.
