Tales of Embassy Court's heydey before the war, replete with a martini bar and lifts reserved for servants, did make me wonder. The cost of keeping these flats was extraordinary. It was all about exclusive luxury. I can't imagine it was as respectable as our lovely tour guide suggested. I'm sure it was a hotbed of adultery, kept women, well respected men in the closet and enviable, disreputable, high jinks. I must know more!

I took a few snaps on my iPhone. The views from the top are wondeful, but I'm not sure my pics do the vista justice. So go and see for yourself.

It obviously has a railway connection. LB&SCR (London, Brighton and South Coast Railway) is our clue there. But otherwise, I'm not sure at all what it means.

“It is absolutely clear that Raoul Moat was a callous murderer, full stop, end of story. I cannot understand any wave, however small, of public sympathy for this man. There should be sympathy for his victims and the havoc he wreaked in that community. There should be no sympathy for him.”

More interestingly, the British government also subsequently contacted Facebook and asked for the content to be removed. Facebook has declined to remove the comments. That’s right. A Prime Minister isn’t a community manager. Here’s why:

- A community manager doesn’t enforce a view. Disagreement is allowed in every online forum. Actually, it’s encouraged. More than that, dissent and plurality is the point. All comers are welcome. A community manager should encourage diverse views, not damn them. Unsavoury opinions are cool. There's something wrong when a community manager censors an opinion simply because he or she disagrees.

- A community manager doesn’t silence conversations. We marshal them. We sometimes moderate them but we always enable debate. But it’s usually the style and the words that we deal with, rather than the content. Threats of violence are right out. Swear words, in most communities, aren’t permissible. Freedom of speech is, generally, golden. Silence isn’t.

- A community manager isn’t a CEO. A Prime Minister is. He or she has more important things to do than meddle with the online discussions. A CEO should leave the moderation of an online community to people who are experienced. It’s hard for a CEO to see that sometimes, but they do need to learn.

- A community manager is accountable but not elected. They should seek approval by being good at what they do and not for currying favour by what they say.

It's such a shame that it has a spray can squiggle on it. Not least because such artlessness seems totally at odds with Beardley's own work.

How to be a Retronaut is a superb compendium of old snaps and views. It's required reading in my personal blogosphere. Last week The Retronaut people published some really rather wonderful pics from Brighton Beach in 1906 that live here. Take a look.

On the topic of Brighton past, I must also commend you to Brighton Bits. It's a lovely little local blog with a yen for local history.

Back to the present, Brighton's a hub for new music and up and coming bands. And local band, the Muel, released an album last week. They've posted some tracks on MySpace. I particularly like the second track, Roller. Incidentally, yes. That is the steel drum you hear.

Why not Brighton, I thought? But then, I am merely 50 miles from London and have hardly any cause for complaint. I took a look at all the hustings announced on LabourList. Welsh members can go to Cardiff. Scots members have missed the Glasgow opportunity. It's not just about about location though. Many of these hustings are by invitation only. But the vast majority are in London.

I've made a wordle of announced hustings locations to illustrate the point. I worry that our Labour leadership election is predominantly for journos, insiders and wonks only. That's even more depressing than it being focussed on London.

Kerry McCarthy MP, Labour's Twitteratrix, has said that the London-centric geographic bias is because the candidates have "day jobs" in London. I think that's a weak argument.

Frankly, if any candidate wants to win this race they should make a point of visiting 90% of CLPs over the next 3 months. It is possible.

“It’s like being dumped. I’m tired. I’ve cried a couple of times. I’m emotionally drained. I have nothing to do. My routine is broken. I have time on my hands and no desire to do any of the things that need doing. Dazed. A friend said I was making no sense in the pub last night and I hadn’t even started my pint.”

Does it all sound a bit Dusty?:

I remember walking back home at about nine in the morning on May 7 after a glass of wine or two at a fellow activist’s house close to the count at the Brighton Centre. I remember being jeered (yes, we were) by victorious Green supporters awaiting their conquering heroine. But not much else is vivid about the weekend after the General Election.

I wasn’t angry though. And I’m not bitter. Over the course of polling day, I confessed to several friends that I though the Greens would win Brighton Pavilion and I can appreciate the historic significance of Britain’s first Green MP (although I thought the way Caroline Lucas MP compared herself to Keir Hardie in her maiden speech displayed breathtaking audacity).

I also take some heart from the results. What did the Conservatives want from Labour to win an outright national majority? They had Iraq, recession, Gordon Brown and a lack-lustre national campaign from Labour. And yet they still couldn’t win! Cameron couldn’t even match John Major’s 1992 result.

Also, the Greens and the Tories argued that Labour would come third in Brighton Pavilion and we came a very creditable and quite close second. The Green majority of 1200 or so isn’t gargantuan. We were not “rinsed”, as one Green Councillor crowed on Twitter.

The Green victory was well won. They spent a great deal of energy and money on getting this seat. The results across the three Brighton and Hove parliamentary constituencies were good for Labour. Of course, we didn’t win a seat but we did come second to the Tories, with a narrow 500 votes between us, and the Greens overall were fourth after the Liberals. That augurs well for the City Council Elections and also shows we aren’t a spent force.

But what has cheered me most of all has been the determination and energy of activists and party folk. Labour in Brighton has lots to do. And there’s much discussion to be had. And we’re doing it. May 6th changed everything and we’re already responding with ideas and actions. We need radical ideas and action and it was good to get out and about in Portslade yesterday to try some of our new ideas out. Tom French is doing well in the council by-election in St Peter’s and North Laine.

For me, I think one of the most important things that we need to get better at is working with the Green Party. We share many common values and we have common enemies to oppose. Brighton and Hove City Council is a bad council and the small ‘c’ conservative government is starting to show its real colours. In this brave new world of coalitions, I think there is a thirst from voters to see more cooperation and less conflict. I also don’t think the “you had 13 years to sort it out” attack line cuts much mustard when your kids’ school is having its funding slashed.

Everything changed on May 6th. That’s the thing about defeat, I think. You are forced to learn from it. Victory is affirming.

Royal Mail (as long as there isn’t a strike on) is good for the small stuff. But when you start sending parcels over 2kg or more bulk items a courier, of some kind, is vital.

Getting a courier sorted and priced up is actually a sales tool. When you say “Buyer Collects” you are immediately excluding a huge number of buyers all over the country who can’t get to you. By quoting carriage, at least with the UK, you immediately attract buyers further from afield and greatly increase chances of a sale.

For instance, I recently sent a box of books. It was a very heavy cardboard box full of books that the Royal Mail couldn’t have handled at a reasonable price. Sending that box via MyHermes, however, only cost me £8.21 inc. VAT to send a box weighing close to 15kg. I factored that cost into my listing and offered Free P&P.

The other thing I’ve liked about using MyHermes has been their prompt collection. It isn’t guaranteed as part of the service, but typically the chaps come and collect my dispatches first thing in the morning on the day of collection. I haven’t had to wait in yet. In fact, one day they came early, before 9am!

Of course, 30 items is a miniscule number of listings compared to many eBay sellers. People who make a living from eBay, and businesses who trade full time, often manage inventories of hundreds of lines and thousands of items. I’m in the nursery by comparison.

It’s a useful excuse for me though and a good impetus for me to make some eBay related posts over the next few days.

Here are some top line observations:

I remain astonished by the vibrancy of eBay. It has so much traffic. I’ve been selling stuff and getting good prices. I get loads of visits and have no complaints about what eBay claims when it calls itself the world’s biggest online marketplace. It is, it really is, a remarkable marketplace to plug in to.

Blimey, the fees have gone up. eBay is expensive. And it’s not just eBay’s fees. It’s PayPal too. More of which in a future post.

Most people on eBay are lovely. But I feel buyers have become more expectant and demanding. That’s fine. But I’m a bloke fitting my eBay selling around other things.

How crap is Turbo Lister? It was never really up to scratch: it’s always been an acceptable utility but it’s not classy, clever or comprehensive. It’s a 20th century app in an iPhone age. The integration, for instance, with eBay’s pre-filled items descriptions is arduous.

PayPal needs a massive shake up. It’s a good service. They handle money impeccably but it’s not a friendly and easy service to use. The help and advice sections are not good at all.

I guess my overall impression is a bit insubstantial. Why does using eBay and PayPal feel a bit like going back in time? I’m no tech snob, I’m not an early adopter. I’ll always value substance over style. But selling on eBay feels unpolished and unexciting.

It’s 2010. Sites like Twitter, software like WordPress and devices like the iPhone make eBay look and feel old. The only really important question is “does that matter?” The more I’ve been using eBay of late leaves me thinking that it really does. They’re at risk of being left behind in what is increasingly a shiny web world.