I admit that I have, in the past, given my readers the impression that the more genteel half of Brighton & Hove is a sleepy, geriatric, upper-middle-class, conservative place. Indeed, one resident commented here:

After all the effort I’ve put into making Hove sound like the hipper and more cosmopolitan sista of Brighton, you’re making us sound like coffin-dodging, powder-wearing Eastbourne.

In the interests of balance I have been collecting stories revealing the gritty, urban underside of the home of the Alan Titchmarsh fan club, and share them with you today. For example:

In the face of such criminal activity, some Hove residents have gone to extraordinary lengths to protect their disabled identification:

But there’s no limit to the desperation of the town’s crack-crazed gang-bangers:

You’d think there’d be some peace to be found in an English garden, but, such is the growing global warming eco-threat, no refuge is untouched:

And today’s tale from the scarred centre of the post-apocalyptic, Bladerunner-like sprawl that is the south coast of England adds sex to the mix:

With the interests of the thoughtful public uppermost in my mind, I somehow managed to isolate a safe-for-work still from the opening of the perpetrator’s latest erotic video, Horlicks II: Rest Home Nights:

[UPDATE: The last story is, as you would expect, written up in the newspaper in a way that combines tabloid cliché, hypocritical lip-smacking salaciousness, and deep sexism—quite possibly by a female journalist.]