The official name for the place where I live is “Brighton & Hove”. A friend of mine was recently asked at interview to characterize the difference between Brighton and her non-identical Siamese twin town and came up with something along the lines of Hove being a respectable older aunt and Brighton a wayward younger sister.
The Argus, the local newspaper, neatly summed it up yesterday by displaying the following headlines on opposite sides of the same street display:
Hove:
Brighton:
I’m told by a friend who lives there that its full name is ‘Hove, actually.’
I’ve lived both sides of the B/H green line (more years ago than I’d like to admit). Hove used to be distinguished from Brighton by the absence of coloured lights along the seafront and by the presence of toilets for dogs (usually morbidly obese Pekineses that their owners were forced to carry after the mutts had managed to stagger a few paces).
I also vaguely recall publication of a letter in the Argus, allegedly written by one slightly unhinged ‘Colonel R. Slick’ of Hove, complaining about the (then) new nudist beach at Brighton; never found out if it was an Argus joke or whether the letters Ed really was that dim.
Swiss F, oh yes the Argus editor really was that dim. S/He still is. Worst local rag in the Universe. (But immensely amusing.)
[…] admit that I have, in the past, given my readers the impression that the more genteel half of Brighton & Hove is a sleepy, geriatric, […]