As I am still a child at heart and live quite close to Manston Airport, in Kent, I often go and watch the Red Arrows take off and land.

This interest was first fuelled when I was schooled next to the two RAF bases of Lossiemouth and Kinloss in Northern Scotland. Plus, had I not gone to work in TV in Australia straight after my ‘A’ Levels, I would have joined the RAF. I was probably not good enough to be a fast jet pilot but as an air cadet at school I just wanted to join up.

I have seen the Red Arrows three or four times already this year and taken many weekend house guests to the edge of the runway to observe their skills. They always land and take off exactly and annoyingly on time on each occasion.

It was probably without a doubt, until last weekend, seen as one of the best jobs in the world and as each pilot only has a three-year secondment it must rank as one of the highlights of their service.

The Red Arrows safety record has been excellent - in 42 years there has been six fatalities, albeit four at once in the early Seventies.

Last week in Bournemouth, Red 4 Flight Lieutenant Jon Egging, who was just 33, lost his life doing what he loved best when his Hawk T1 aircraft came down and he was killed in the crash. The only positive note is that there were no civilian casualties, a testament to his flying skills and bravery. My thoughts are with his family and the Red Arrows team.

Let us hope we see the Red Arrows up in the sky again soon.

Does a right minded person just walk out of a well paid and secure job? Well, not unless they are either bored out of their minds or possibly a little insane. Or, as in my case, seduced by an attractive offer meticulously and deliciously mapped out by a reassuring and skilful TV production company.

For me, it is hard to believe that 11 years have elapsed since I left the relatively safe environment of a so called normal professional life to find myself attracted by the alluring bright light of TV and a then completely unknown ‘reality’ game show called Big Brother - and I am not entirely sure if this was indeed the right decision. 

Let me explain. 

As a then complete outsider to the television industry, I believed that this glorious and captivating sector was the stuff of dreams. One where those who possessed depth, communication skills and a modicum of imaginative talent would be nurtured, encouraged, developed and cajoled by all those movers and shakers who make the important decisions.

Big Brother seemed to suggest a significant opportunity for anyone to develop a career in broadcasting. But as those who have been persuaded to appear in reality TV series’ have subsequently discovered, they now inhabit a confusing hinterland, where a fabricated caricature of themselves runs around, trying to live up or live down to a reputation that they never had before - it would seem irretrievable.  Fame of course is very seductive for reality contestants, but fame can also be very destructive.

Worse still, participants discover they are now intrinsically shackled to a type of TV that even the TV industry itself doesn’t take seriously beyond the closing credits. This is despite its enormous success and profitability.

But is this how it should be? Isn’t reality TV here for some time to come as an evolving format in its infancy? Shouldn’t the TV industry revere those creatures of its own creation and bring those demonstrably into the professional family?

After all, it is they who have undergone the real reality experience, felt the emotions, dealt with aspects and risen to the challenge. It is they who were carefully selected from thousands of candidates, they who spent weeks and months capturing the viewers imaginations and who sat out from the pack in their own right. 

Yet I know of not one reality TV producer who has recruited a former participant onto the team as part of the development process, or even a TV company that recognise the value in what they have created. I do not mean that reality contestants should be presenters, but I do think they are shooting the geese that laid their golden eggs. Good luck to Channel 5.

I had not been on a personal holiday with my wife for 15 months, partly because my job as a travel writer takes me to holiday destinations at least once a month. But last week we flew to Dubai.

Dubai may be a strange choice for a travel writer, almost like a food critic going to McDonalds for a meal. But what Dubai lacks in cultural diversity it more than makes up for in what it has to offer for every member of the family. Everyone speaks English and the time difference is just three hours so there is no jet lag. It has guaranteed sunshine, which practically no other tourist destination in the world can offer. The sea is calm and warm and there are enough shops to spend a lifetime in, and all of them are tax free. There is virtually no crime, so you are unlikely to be mugged, carjacked or attacked and all the hotels cater for children and have crèches. Also there are several water parks so children will not be bored.

I doubt Dubai will be ever be affected by terrorism either, as if I were one, I would be laundering my cash there instead.

My wife and I in recent years have both turned down jobs in Dubai in order to continue to live in Kent. Whilst at the time we hoped to never regret the choice it seems we made the right decision’s as Dubai is the city that never was. Just before the recession half of Dubai was still a huge sandpit of development. I first went there in 2002. So even in the five years up to the start of the world recession, there were more construction workers than tourists. Property prices trebled, and people were still buying Dubai apartments right up to the recession. It took a bit longer for the shocks to reach Dubai, but when it did people suffered. We had friends who lost their jobs, left their expensive cars at the airport and fled back to England (You are not allowed debt in Dubai as you can be jailed).

Whilst most of the construction is now completed, there are now many empty apartments and people are looking for work rather than the work looking for them. Oil and tourism though will always be there and the opportunity for a sun-kissed tax-free salary in any occupation awaits. But if you say or do the wrong thing, you are in trouble.

You do not want to scratch the surface here, and whilst Dubai is not a democracy there is subtle censorship, from small things like TV stations reporting the weather as cooler than it really is (over a certain temperature construction workers do not have to work) to more obvious censorship. This does not make it a bad place, but the old adage “All that Glitters is not Gold” could not be more appropriate for Dubai.

Many years ago in fact as far back as 1264 there was a town called Meregate, which later became known as Margate. Steeped in maritime history it also became a very popular holiday resort for both rich and poor.

Inventions such as the bathing machine a contraption that was wheeled out to sea for both men and women to change into their costumes, made the experience of swimming ‘proper’ and drew more and more holidaymakers.

Margate was on the rise and both the famous and not so famous made a beeline for the stunning beaches, warm sunshine and good old Kentish beer. Songs and poems and films were made about Margate and families enjoyed each other’s company. Life was good for Margate. Well, if we ignore the mods and rockers having a pop at each other in the 1960s…

But in a cruel twist of fate Margate fell out of vogue. Gone were the wealthy tourists, and instead, Margate became home to desperadoes’, and many economic migrants, as well as many disenchanted Londoners sent to Margate by the various councils of London to enjoy the town and live free. Well almost.

The Victorian pier was largely decimated by a storm in 1978, mysterious fires destroyed buildings, unemployment started to climb and property prices headed south.  The UK was in financial turmoil in the 1980s, and Margate began to suffer more than most.  One newspaper called Margate ‘Britain’s Top Ghost Town’ and they didn’t mean of the spooky kind.

But hey presto, a glimmer of hope was there in the Noughties. But some evil landowners, it was said, decided to offer ‘incentives’ or might have been ‘bribes’ to some land and estate agents and not to pass on offers from buyers to sellers.  It was so they could buy them on the cheap! Boo I hear you say, and you would be right. Allegedly.

Huge government grants became available and suddenly the money was gone and some evil people might have trousered the lot. Allegedly.

Humble shopkeepers were asked for more rent and when they could not pay, they were chased to the end of the globe for the funds. Allegedly.

A huge gallery then appeared in 2011 with much acclaim, and with the gallery came the crowds. Many coming down to Margate yet again in mechanically propelled vehicles, as well as something called HS1. 

With the crowds came the sunshine, but beneath Margate’s rebirth, a few of those who felt wronged and a few with morals decided to start to expose those people, which they thought were responsible. Their aim is to make Margate the great place it deserves to be, without the alleged corruption. Like all good stories, there is bound to be a happy ending…

Everyone seemingly knows exactly who has what Super Injunctions out and if you bother to search the Internet, all will be revealed anyway.

At the end of last week (April 2011) former Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas ran to PR guru Max Clifford and complained that she had been ‘outed’  The famous and married footballer with whom she had being having an affair with took out a Super Injunction and therefore was not named. Firstly, she has received the publicity she seems to so desperately and sadly needed, secondly I feel she should not be being having an affair with someone who is so obviously famous and married, knowing full well in this day and age, secrets are impossible to keep. I question her motivation in the first place. She and other ex Brother females are often found hiding away in nightclubs, looking for a way to be in the newspapers and that seems to be their job, all well and good, however, It shows what a vacuous bubble she and others may live in. I think Super Injunctions are wrong and in this instance so is she.

With regard to another relationship: as the Royal Wedding is almost upon us, I will not be celebrating, nor do I care. There are only four members of the Royal Family that do anything useful and the rest are just huge cost centres to the public purse.

The Royal Wedding gives us another needless holiday and rather than having it for something better, like St George’s Day.  Who cares what dress she is going to wear? There are far more important things happening in the world and this blogger for one is going down the pub…

The most exciting news (allegedly) in Thanet, since the opening of Dreamland in the 1950’s, is the opening of Turner Contemporary in Margate. I was lucky enough to go the press opening on Wednesday 13^th April ahead of the official opening.

Whilst what is on exhibited is quite beautiful, although sparse, the most dramatic scene is the view of the sea from the various galleries which is rather special especially when the sun sets.  

I cannot but feel that this is the wrong location for the right project. This should have been in Whitstable, where it would have been more at home with the population, rather than the still down-at-heel Margate.

Building Turner Contemporary in Margate, is akin to deciding to re-build the iconic Indian Taj Mahal mausoleum in Leytonstone, East London.

I do love Thanet, and in particular Margate, as I have fond childhood memories from the 1970s. But the memories of what Margate was then and is now and what it could be is so contrasting that it could be fiction.

I make an exception though for the following: the outstanding boutique B&B The Reading Rooms, (www.thereadingroomsmargate.co.uk) the Harbour Café Bar, restaurant, The Ambrette (www.theambrette.co.uk), The Lifeboat Ale & Cider House (www.thelifeboat-margate.com), the boutiques and galleries in the Old Town and of course the mildly eccentric  Walpole Bay Hotel, (www.walpolebayhotel.co.uk). I worry that apart from these places, Margate has little to offer the 400 people a day expected to visit Turner Contemporary.

If the not-great attitude I encountered on the telephone with the receptionist, at Turner, is mixed with the ineptitude of the Visit Kent staff (who I feel have ignored Thanet for years) then Margate’s school report should be downgraded from ‘could do better’ to ‘there is little or no improvement here, just yet’.

Margate needs as huge facelift: for starters why not knock that hideous high rise on the seafront down or at least paint it. In fact, why not give grants to paint the entire seafront.  Remove the tacky arcades, and replace them with Victorian-style shopping fronts and make Margate, Margate again.

Then inform certain London local authorities that Thanet will no longer tolerate housing their addicts or delinquents and push hard for a high-speed link to Canterbury - and only then might Margate rise from the ashes and I hope it does, as I love the place.

But as I write this blog, it appears that the Margate’s Big Event, the one with the Red Arrows, might not happen as the money has gone on the Turner, but then again it might have gone on a dozen street football coordinators…

I have been with the same bank, at the same branch, for over 30 years.  In that time, despite being a ‘premier’ customer, I have never been invited to one of the sporting events that they sponsor, nor have they sent me a Christmas card or even a birthday card. Their products are generally poor, queues in branch far too long and when they once could have helped with a serious issue, they did not.

Why I am still with them? I am with them for the same reason as I have continued to use British Gas and EDF for my energy supplies for the last twenty years, the same reason as I will only fly Virgin Atlantic and buy BP petrol using a Nectar card. Loyalty.

What I am left with is a crap-ish bank, two of the most expensive energy suppliers and quarter of a million Virgin airmiles that are only useful if I want to fly to some godforsaken place at midnight on a Sunday in April - and not forgetting the most expensive petrol in the UK and enough Nectar points to have £120 off my weekly shop and I think I have a free weekend at the Azerbaijan Hilton this Easter…

Loyalty might buy you a few points, but customer service, help, privilege, is often at odds with company literature. Rather like your local pub, where occasionally your landlord, will say, “This one is on me,” I want the same. Imagine: “Hello it is British Gas here, we note you have been customer for twenty years and we are going to give you a month of free gas.” It is not going to happen, but why should it not?

Rather like culling people on your phone that you have not heard from in years, I started with culling the insurance company I have used for ten years. I have also recently changed energy suppliers and bought some cuddly toys with my Nectar card donating them to a hospital. I threatened to leave my mobile phone provider (16 years) until they dropped the tariff by 40% and rather than going out my way and find a BP petrol station now I will find the closest.

I have destroyed all but one hotel loyalty card and one airline card. Now I can change suppliers by the click of a mouse and get a better quote online in seconds only laziness will prevent me from doing this every year. This year I have saved £893.50 by making these changes.

What price loyalty? It is entirely up to you, but think about it and I will leave you with this thought from Mark Twain: “Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.”

I hate January, not just because it is after Christmas and is generally a cold and a bleak month – but because it is so expensive. Car and house insurances have to be renewed, plus annual servicing and MOT on both cars, my club membership and the credit card bills add up to the debt of a small African country. I do know how lucky I am though to at least be able to pay my bills.

Luckily an escape to Cowley Manor, http://www.cowleymanor.com/ was on the cards. It was someone’s huge country house until it was turned into a luxury hotel; with bathrooms bigger than most one-bedroom flats and a truly great breakfast. Dinner was average but the cutting-edge spa and ample grounds with great walks gave some relief from this awful month.

Sitting in the bar one night, were some Ford motor car people. I had noticed this silver, quite cool looking, car outside the hotel. Had it not had the Ford logo on the front, it could have easily passed as a high-end luxury car from  any of the top brands. The boys and girls from Ford said it could park itself -  I reckoned it could not. Large bet ensued.

Cue following morning, I am sitting behind the wheel of the new Ford C-MAX, their latest car. I liked the voice-activated controls for audio, the heating controls and the roominess in the cockpit (yes, it is like being on the bridge of a spaceship).  The boys-own stuff included i-Pod docking stations as well as a rear-end camera. As my Jeep Grand Cherokee produces the C02 equivalent to the output of a gold mine, it is refreshing to see that the C02 emissions are very low on the Ford which means a lower road tax and fuel economy.

It manages 0-60 in a little over nine seconds and it does park itself with its park assist programme! The car passes a vacant spot and identifies if it can fit into the spot. You take your hands off the steering wheel and it reverses into the spot. I tried this several times and pushed the boundaries so the space between cars was so small it was bound to fail. It did not. I lost the bet and had I not had such an expensive month I would have probably bought one, at around £17k; it’s almost a car for life. http://www.ford.co.uk/Cars/C-MAX

On the subject of cars for life I have had my Jeep for a very long time. It was starting to make very unusual noises. I took it into a Jeep dealership; the mechanic looked at it, started the engine, and gave me a repair bill that would have sent the Jeep straight to Jeep heaven.

Luckily again in a bar (there is not an underlying theme here) a man said: “I know a bloke that fixes Jeeps and he did it at a tenth of the price of the main dealer.” I went to see said bloke and I am now happy and the Jeep is happy and it made the end part of January quite good all things considered.

The Christmas chocolates that no one likes are by now left at the bottom of the tin (you could freeze them and bring them back out again on Halloween for trick or treat) and those presents we cringed at have either found themselves on eBay or have been re-gifted for another time so we know that Christmas has come to an end along with the snow (hopefully).

I still have a roof over my head and food in the fridge, but some are not so lucky. Closures of day centers for the mentally ill and elderly are due to be axed across the country making these groups of people prisoners of circumstance. Easy targets perhaps? Right targets?  No.

When I worked in a London City office in the nineties, the company bought in some troubleshooters with the result being that many staff were quite rightly fired (not me, before you ask). After all there is no such thing in this century as a right to a job for life.

Perhaps, each local council up and down the country should do the same and any pointless jobs should be terminated rather than services for vulnerable members of society. We all know that councils have jobs under banners such as anti-smoking/obesity/diversity/street football/recycling coordinators smoking awareness officers etc all of whom can probably be sacked with no impact on vital services. These ridiculously inane job titles and jobs should go and councils should run themselves without the need to please everyone all of the time and without the need to have to pander to the minority that is the PC brigade. Now that I dismounted my horse, I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year.

Travelling on the high speed train from London to Kent this week with the fields covered in thick snow I could have been in Switzerland or even Narnia. Even North Kent looks beautiful in the snow…

I was reading in the Kent Gazette that our MP Julian Brazier has gone from the lowest claimer of expenses to the highest in the county. Here lies my issue: I had great respect for this man before the election as he was allegedly slaving away in a room above a pub in south London, which was not expensive. However, with the advent of the high speed train there is no excuse to now claim for a second home on the off chance that on a handful of occasions Parliament might end that night after the trains have stopped. Tough. If that is going to happen then drive up and park the car. I am sorry but Whitstable to London is easily commutable and I think there is little need to claim for a second home on the few off chances of a late finish.

My wife (www.lynnettepeck.com) has always wanted to open a vintage fashion shop after being a fashion and beauty magazine journalist for many years. By chance we were in Margate Old Town (an oasis in the middle of the Margate desert) and we noticed in the window of an estate agent a shop for rent in the Old Town. To cut a long story short the agent was not great and had little idea of the underlying property rental values for retail in the area. To cap it all, the landlord wanted to raise the current rent by 20% for the first year, only for it be raised a further 10% the following year. The landlords reason being that the Turner Contemporary Gallery is opening in April 2011 near by. You would not need an abacus to work out that this kind of rent is priced too high and that start up businesses could then fail. If the previous business failed on the current lower rent, then what is the point? Needless to say we passed on this terrible deal and are now looking in Sandwich instead.

I hear that BBC South East did a special TV report on how Margate has one of the highest amounts of vacant retail units in the country and The Sun newspaper did a piece on Margate’s ‘dole culture’ and the fact that next year is going to be just as tough financially. The landlord in Margate Old Town should check these investigations out and have a re-think! He is banking on the fact the Turner Contemporary Gallery is going to metaphorically turn one of the Ugly Sisters into Cinderella (and that is not the version of the story I remember) and that all the bars in Margate will suddenly be filled with people drinking Chardonnay. This will not happen overnight. I love Margate, I have a few flats there I rent out, but I also know parts of it are currently still a dump and having a new gallery and the high speed train is not going to transform this town overnight into something that its not. I am not saying it will not happen, because it will eventually,and the huge white elephant might become Margate’s saving grace - but do not hold your breath.