back to article Kent council plans giant 'Hollywood' erection

Medway Council has devised a cunning plan to raise the profile of its prime Kent riverside location - by erecting a giant Hollywood-style MEDWAY sign on a local hillside. In preparation for the £12,000 Californication scheme, the council recently spunked £2k sticking up a big "E", which was subsequently dismantled because it " …

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  1. Vortigern
    Go

    bargain

    12grand is nout - schemes like this will normally cost 12million once the consultancy is done and backhanders, tax and tax management and reviews and tax accountancy and health and saftey and tax on the health and saftey and managers to manage the tax on the health and safety and tax on the managers.... paid, don't they?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If they want to put up anything...

    ...it should be a large "Steer Clear" sign visible from outer space.

    The only people to miss the Medway Towns were the Luftwaffe.

  3. Wize

    Not heard of the others either

    Guess they want to be top of the obscurity list.

  4. peter garner

    I'm also looking forward to..

    ..a similar erection in Pen1stone, Yorkshire. By 'eck!

    http://www.penistone.uk.com/

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Title

    "very few outside the south-east know where Medway is"

    And don't really care...

    Then again how many in the South Easy know where The Wrekin is? Maybe each area should have a giant sign.

    I'd have one.

    We're "Not Fucking Birmingham" (despite what Royal mail think)

  6. NoOnions
    Happy

    What about Thong?

    It's just down the A2 from Medway and is equally as good as Snodland!

    NoOnions (Rainham)

    p.s. I don't mind the idea of the Medway sign.

  7. BoldMan
    IT Angle

    Kent Names

    Being an original native of Swanscombe, I always found Fawkham an entertaining name.

  8. Steven Raith
    Thumb Up

    Chatham is hidden away for a reason

    It's a public service performed by the road planners for the safety and sanity of the rest of the South East.

    Although I quite like Rochester.

    Steven R

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    @Peter Garner

    I am given to understand that the head of Pen1stone council is named D1ck.

    Can find the exit on my own, don't need any assistance from your bouncers, thank you.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Hollywoodland

    "We'll be the laughing stock of the rest of the country. Anyone who has ever been here will know it's nothing like the glitz and glamour of Hollywood."

    That's right. In Hollywood the police will stop you if you have the nerve to walk anywhere.

    Tramps can be shot if they try to loot someone's bin for food.

    The underclass in Hollywood are left out to dry.

    That's about as glitzy as it gets for most people.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    If Kent is the garden of England....

    ...then the Medway towns are the compost heap.

    Incidentally, there is a drink called a 'Medway', named for the river. Mix Orange Juice, Coke and 4 shots. Same colour and consistency as the river. Also guaranteed to make you as sick if you drink it, just like the river Medway.

    What about the concrete sheep?

  12. Juan Inamillion
    Dead Vulture

    Ah the memories!

    I was born and raised in Gravesend (that's why I'm using a pseudonym), just up the A2. Fortunately I managed to escape when I was 17...

    During the mods and rockers days it was always us against the Medway towns. Chatham in particular - it had the dockyard - so baiting hairy-arsed matelots was always a good game.

    As you say Snodland isn't strictly Medway but close enough and with a name like that it deserved a good kicking.

    And of course there's Thong. There used to be a secluded part down there called Lovers Lane where cars and their occupants collected. We called it 'bogging', an early form of - you guessed it - dogging, where miscreants and n'erdowells like us lads would creep up to see what they were doing. Oh how we laughed.

    Medway <tch> Mind Those prize pillocks in Gravesend council renaming the district as 'Gravesham' takes some fucking beating.

    /Tombstone - cos that's literally what it is. (Sorry, slightly off-topic - got carried away)

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Sandy Peters from Borstal

    Borstal... hilarious!

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    a giant erection?

    Always appears when presented with a nice Hollywood ;)

  15. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: a giant erection?

    Ewww. Peado.

  16. Vincent Ballard
    IT Angle

    Delicious?

    Surely the most deliciously named town in Kent is Ham, with Sandwich running a close second?

  17. Oninoshiko

    the glitz

    Hate to break it to you, but the not even hollywood is anything like the glitz of hollywood.

    (someone needs to watch a few less movies/TV)

  18. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Thumb Up

    Medway Boys!

    Those who enjoyed knocking off Atari ST games back in the day, know all about the Medway Boys! ( Not they are not a camp, burlesque, dance troupe, before you all ask! )

  19. CT

    Borstal

    Borstal was the site of the first young offenders' institution (or something like that), so the institutions are named after the place, just like... err ... can't think of any others.

    As for Kentish place names, Pratt's Bottom would look good in 40-foot letters just to the rear of that big horse they're putting up at Northfleet.

  20. Daniel
    Paris Hilton

    Hilarious!!!!!!!!!!

    Possibly the most amusing thing ever to be on here. I'm from a not so great part of Kent not far from Medway, although this is where i grew up. Luckily i am now far far away from that, and the news that a giant "Hollywood" style sign spelling out MEDWAY in giant letters certainly made me laugh!

    It doesn't matter how much this costs, this is Medway, do they really think the letters are still going to be there after a few days? Tell somebody there's a giant E on the hill and the streets will be empty of people!

    Paris adding a touch of "Hollywood" to Medway before the council!

  21. Christian Berger

    Not so uncommon

    German town Cham got some letters for such a project some years ago. Back then another town, having a gardening show had the word MACHT (power) written in large concrete letters. After the show they gave that word to Cham, so they could use it for such a project. I think the main problem was that nobody knew what to do with the T, so the project was never realized.

  22. David
    Unhappy

    Election............sorry...........ERECTION

    Are we allowed to say that "E" word? Sounds like Medway council have been taking lessons from Maidstone council on how to waste money. They seem to favour odd erections, such as a "totem pole", a gigantic floral sheep and the latest monstrosity is an obelisk with lights on it that are supposed to vary according to the wind speed. Not sure about wind but there must have been plenty of hot air in the council chamber when THAT was approved. Complete waste of money.

  23. Arnold Layne

    Damn, beat me to it

    "...it should be a large "Steer Clear" sign visible from outer space."

    That and a large wall with razor wire on top around Chatham should do it.

    Mudway council's so inept they managed to forget to renew Rochester's royal charter; after many hundreds of years it's no longer a city.

  24. Mark Aggleton

    @ Vincent Ballard

    and the sign is here:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/southerncounties/in_pictures/gallery/sign_language/ham_pop.shtml

  25. TeeCee Gold badge
    Joke

    Re: If they want to put up anything...

    I believe that the Luftwaffe were going to run a raid there, but by that time RAF Fighter Command had become dominant. The German pilots refused to go on the grounds that there was too high a risk of being seen dead in the Medway towns.....

  26. Peter Ford

    Should be MUDWAY...

    ... as those of us who live on the more picture-skew parts of the river further up call that grotty tidal bit below Maidstone.

    The "Medway Towns" drag down the reputation of the whole river (although Maidstone's a bit grim too...)

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Cheapskates

    That's a cheapskate trick to fool the punters. If you want to see a complete waste of mony have a look at the 'Dream' that has been foisted on the folks of St |Helens and passers-by on the M62,

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/canon65/sets/72157616571285037/

    http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/the-ticket/2009/04/art-st-helens-dream-sculpture.html

    It cost £2M of 'Public' money and didn't cost the local population a penny, so they say.

    Rumour has it that in order for it to be seen from part of the M62, they will have to remove some hundreds of new trees planted over the last five years as part of the Mersey Forest project.

    I dispair,

  28. Serious Cynic
    Happy

    Less dangerous than it might be

    This would be the same clear thinking local authority that painted a big M'WAY on one of the lanes of a major roundabout so that drivers would know how to get to the Medway Towns (for clarity, the roundabout is on the A2 midway between Rainham and Gillingham - so already within the Medway Towns).

    Unfortunately, the previous exit led to the M2. Guess how many last minute panic turns were made by drivers heading for the motorway . And how many accidents they caused.

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