Last year, as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival, submissions for short stories were sought on the theme ‘Brighton: past, present and future.” Selected stories would be read to an audience by actors. Here’s my submission, and it was most gratifying to hear it read. Pier Review The West Pier spangled brand new in the …
I remember the great storm of 1987. The letter box rattled all night and my mum decided we had to go to school. Oh innocent days. No internet or text messages. We’d listened to the radio, listing all the schools that were shut, and St Luke’s wasn’t mentioned. So off we went. It was chaos …
Plenty has been written about the astonishing tale of the wounded Indian soldiers who were cared for in Brighton, often at the Pavilion, during the First World War. It was a gesture recognised by the Indians themselves and in this week 90 years ago (October 26th 1921), the Indian Gate at the Brighton Pavilion was …
Brighton’s Indian Gate at the Pavilion and the Wounded Soldiers Read More »
You can often hear me grumble in the saloon bar, or as I stroll past the place, that the Royal Alex hospital on Dyke Road in Brighton risks becoming “our next West Pier.” Despite the fact a plan is in place and development is supposed to start soonish, it’s still a discarded site with all the …
(A little guest post I did for someone else as a favour. Shameless recycling) The prize for the worst Royal Wedding ever could easily go to the man who would become George IV. He was Prince of Wales at the time and later Regent. George married his first cousin, Caroline of Brunswick, in 1795. It …
Worst Royal Wedding? George IV and Caroline of Brunswick Read More »
I love a nosey behind closed doors and I was interested to take a tour around Embassy Court on Saturday. It’s a fascinating and beautiful building from the 1930s. More Miami Beach than West Pier, and certainly a Brighton icon. Tales of Embassy Court’s heydey before the war, replete with a martini bar and lifts …
I don’t really know what this is, but I snapped it. It’s a stone in the central reservation of the barrier at the west end of the railway bridge at the junction where New England and Old Shoreham Roads meet. I guess, technically, that it’s on New England Road. It obviously has a railway connection. …
Brightoniana: London Brighton & South Coast Railway stone Read More »
What’s going on with Brighton’s post boxes? Here’s the double one one outside the Post Office on Melville Road. And the second was spotted at the Dyke Road end of Buckingham Road. I thought at first it might be incompetant priming for a new coat. But according to the nice lady in the Post Office …
The Argus has published a poll that puts Labour in the lead in Brighton Pavilion. Labour: 26% Conservative: 16% Green: 12% Link to the clipping. The Green’s Jason Kitcat has rubbished the poll and spent a great deal of bloggage slagging off the use of graphs by every party but the Green Party. Methinks the …
The Brighton Argus has embarked upon an interesting social media ‘crowdsourcing’ experiment. Voters in the hyper-marginal Brighton Pavilion parliamentary constituency are invited to report their encounters with party candidates via Google Maps. The idea sprang from the Brighton Future of News group. Spearheaded by the pioneering Online Editor of the Brighton Argus Jo Wadsworth, with …
Political ‘crowdsourcing’: must the ‘crowd’ always be the ‘usual suspects’? Read More »
Last week the Argus ran a front page piece about the number of places in town that sell alcohol: “Booze Brighton has one bar for every 84 households” I think The Argus missed the point. This is a resort city with two universities and that, combined with a native population that I venture likes a …
I suspect my growing interest in Brighton and Hove’s local politics will mean that this isn’t the first blog I write about bins, refuse collection and recycling. So here you go: two of the communal bins on my street. Pics taken half an hour ago. Why is this bad? This is the backlog of just …
Brighton’s Tory ‘Winter of Discontent’ starts here Read More »
We’re very lucky in Brighton because some sort of happening is usually happening somewhere. And last Saturday we saw the second annual White Night shindig. Basically, it’s an all night arty thing to coincide with the clocks going back. Centred on Jubilee Square, there was music, drama and all kinds of amusement. And a few …
There’s a great scene in season 6 of The West Wing when Josh Lyman introduces Matt Santos to the unglamorous reality of kicking off a presidential campaign from scratch with the New Hampshire primary. The candidate helps voters unload their trash at the town dump. The scene reinforces the importance of humility in politics. Personal …