Brighton

Sadly Straight

Thursday evening, last week: I’m standing at the bar buying my round in a not-gay pub in Brighton when a man I’ve never met before starts talking to me in a way I am reluctant to categorise as “forward” until he moves in close, starts rubbing his hand up and down my chest, and tells […]

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Another Positive Review

A month or so back I was in the farthest darkest reaches of Hove, Actually (practically in Portslade, for the locals reading) having a repair done to my car. While I waited I wandered into a new café called “Intenso”. It’s an unlikely outpost of another Intenso in Ibiza—though not so unlikely with the weather we’ve […]

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Advertisement I Saw In A Post Office Window Today

GOT A TINY SPARE ROOM? EARLY-RETIRED TEACHER (MUSIC AND ENGLISH) WOULD LIKE TO LIVE IN IT IN RETURN FOR ANY COMBINATION OF THE FOLLOWING: CLEANING, SHOPPING, DOG-WALKING, COMPANIONSHIP, LIFE COACHING, LIFE COACHING FOR VEGANS, LIFE COACHING FOR CRICKETERS, PIANO OR ORGAN TUITION, ENGLISH TEACHING, HELP WITH DYSLEXIA, ETC, ETC. [FOLLOWED BY CONTACT DETAILS]

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Go See This

I mentioned to a friend after I saw it that I would blog the amazing photo exhibition I experienced on Friday. It’s Lisa Creagh’s collaborative show with the residents of Tidy Street in Brighton. It’s on the “fringe” of the Brighton Photo Biennial. Rather than spoil it though, I would prefer everyone who lives near […]

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You Leave Something For Five Minutes

My car is parked just round the corner. Yesterday I went to it to get some stuff out of the boot and found that it had been picked up and moved two metres from where I had parked it. The city council had been painting new road markings and it had been in their way. […]

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In Paperwork Hell

Instead of being out-and-about taking photographs, I mostly spent the weekend sorting through heaps of receipts and card statements and other dead-tree crap. This explains my writing new posts on a Saturday and Sunday for a change and responding promptly and grumpily to visitors here until the small hours of this morning. The bleep of […]

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How To Make A Guardian Reader’s Head Explode

Be coloured. Approach a bearded white man who’s standing outside Waitrose supermarket brandishing a “BOYCOTT ISRAELI APARTHEID” poster. As he is handing out leaflets, tell him in a hurt voice with a posh-African accent*, “You people have no idea of what apartheid was like!” Brush fragments of his skull off your T-shirt. [Before I told […]

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Another PooterGeek Post That Will Never Be

Yesterday I went to my first (free) Enterprise Agency seminar on starting a business. I took my notepad along, not only to record any top tips that I received from the speaker, but also to catalogue any weirdness that went on for the later amusement of you lot. Reader, there was no weirdness. The material […]

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“Euston”? You Mean Like In The Manifesto?

Yes, I’m busy and I hope regular readers will be patient with me. As Norm pointed out to me earlier today, the fourth third hit on Google for the word “Euston” is the Euston Manifesto. Not Euston Station [click image to enlarge] Worryingly, this blog, which has thrived on stories of my loserhood, is being […]

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Young People Today, Eh? Shocking.

I’m in a Brighton musical instrument shop looking for a couple of brackets for my keyboard stand. There’s a teenager sitting slouched at one of the digital pianos in sweats and a baggy jacket. He’s wearing a mesh baseball cap and through it you can see that his buzz-cut hair is dyed a colour Eminem […]

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Holy Shit

How politically correct is Brighton? I’ll tell you. This local Gospel choir’s Website carries the following warning to those aspiring to join it: Although we are a non denominational [sic], some of the songs taught do include religious references i.e. Jesus/Lord. However we wish to emphasise our aim is merely to celebrate the style of […]

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Paranoia By Proxy?

This evening I’d like to talk shit with you all. It’s interesting that many of the people most eager to brand those they disapprove of as “racist” have never been victims of real racism in their lives. I am wary of using the word. Since I left the town I grew up in (and escaped […]

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In My Day We Made Our Own Entertainment

Brighton and Hove’s local newspaper is called The Argus. Its staff don’t have much to write about: the football team and its struggle for a stadium, resident micro-celebrity Zoe Ball and her slightly more famous husband Fat Boy Slim. I think I’ve only bought a copy twice. Yesterday was the second time. Why? Because of […]

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Explosives Experts

Brighton city centre, one block from the sea front: I am walking along the street on my way to deliver some film to a developing lab when I notice that two police have been called to deal with an abandoned suitcase. It has been left flat on its side in the middle of the pavement […]

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The Faintest Of Praise

Dave Simpson reviews Brighton bedwetters The Kooks in yesterday’s Guardian: “Ironically, they do white reggae much better than Babyshambles—if not yet as jaw-droppingly as The Clash.” Indeed. As rock’n’roll compliments go, that’s on a par with: Ironically, they do white rap much better than Ali G—if not yet as jaw-droppingly as Blondie.

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Anti-Social Behaviour: Theory And Fieldwork

Yesterday I had an excellent evening of argument. I spent it contending that, since our emergence, we human beings have been, for plausible biological reasons, fundamentally aggressive and suspicious of visibly different members of our own species. In reply it was argued that our behaviour towards others has been characterised by altruistic tendencies and trade. […]

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Back To The 70s

On Friday Saturday evening, I went out for a noisy drink with Mr and Mrs Wardytron, their livejournal friend Jim(?) and a posse of goths. Thank you, Wardy, for inviting me. It was fun. One of the few serious topics of conversation that came up was the new Conservative Party leader. It’s not been often […]

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Proud To Be British

I’ve been meaning to tell this heart-warming true story of national unity online for almost two weeks now and just haven’t had a chance to: I keep being troubled by the strange and topical outbursts of The Voices In My Head. I get on a Brighton bus at about eight, having had some delightful early-Friday-evening […]

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Soft Southern Pulses

Yesterday I treated myself to a lunch of cod and chips from an eat-in/takeaway fish and chip shop in Brighton. I ate in. Having taken my order, the guy serving asked me if I wanted anything else. Nervously I requested mushy peas—a delicacy that only those living north of the Irony Curtain* truly understand. Amazingly, […]

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Niggaz In Da Hood

Yesterday, the guy who runs the Internet caff where I have become a regular introduced me to Jay, The Only Black Man In Hove. The proprietor thought that I should meet him because Jay makes his living writing and remixing pop. Coming from Hove though, “Jay” turns out to be short for “Justin St Clair […]

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Senior Moment

In a way, I’m glad I don’t have proper Internet access. The BBC radio news yesterday evening was apocalyptically depressing. How much global death, disaster, and destruction is it possible to fit into one broadcast? Pakistan, Mexico, South-East Asia. The latest Economist—a journal not normally known for “quagmire” rhetoric—welcomes the Iraqi people’s recent vote on […]

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Unmarried Bliss

I bought a bed (well, two futon-sofas) yesterday. I haven’t put it together yet, but even sleeping on the mattress alone was a huge improvement on sleeping on the floor, where I developed a serious neckache and dreamt, amongst other strange things, about driving Santa’s sleigh—pulled by the usual reindeer, plus a fox. While I […]

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Blanket Apology

For anyone who’s waiting for an email reply from me or even evidence that I am still alive, please accept my apologies and this ‘Blog post. I was unloading my belongings until 2:00 am this morning and have been sleeping on the floor for the past couple of days. I’ll be back to something like […]

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