Rising late, I saw that Hove was wreathed in sea mist yet the sun was doing it’s best to get through. Delayed by Marmite toast and strong tea I eventually hit the prom around mid day and found cool air, sunshine and mist. A perfect combination creating an odd sense that Brighton was a stage existing in a bubble out of step with the rest of England. Many would argue that, indeed it does. Tourists drifted in as the mist drifted out and by 2pm the weather was ready for sun bathing and ice cream…..and yes, the dog did get his share.
Archive for the 'brighton' Category
Brighton Festival
Perhaps prudery is the theme of this year’s Brighton Festival as the Jubilee Clock Tower on the corner of North Street and West Street has been clothed for the occasion. I always look forward to the festival Fringe though these days I wonder what is meant by Fringe since it seems as organised and deliberately marketed as anything else.
The real Fringe is fun. In the North Lanes today a couple of guys were creating enormous bubbles to the delight of many toddlers passing by. They have a secret recipe for the bubble mix consisting of washing up liquid, baking power, acetic acid and some kind of pet product which I can’t remember. It seemed to work very well.
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Also in the North Lanes Eco Logic Cool, on Sydney Street, have a great use for old singles.
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Finally!
Saturday afternoon the rain came in and visibility was down to yards up at Devils Dyke but FINALLY, today, we had clear skies and sunshine just in time for the Brighton Marathon. Pre festival spirit seems to be kicking in and last weekend Brighton Unitarian Church held a Makers Boutique (a craft fair to you and me) selling handmade contemporary arts & crafts with some good work by Nick Orsbournbe. They plan to repeat this throughout the year, check their site for details.
Classical Lighting on Western Road has closed down – FINALLY! I bought some lights in this shop 14 years ago when I first moved to town and they had a closing down sale then. As far as I know they’ve had a closing down sale every day since. I imagined that they got away with it because of the high turnover of people moving to Brighton and then moving out again. I had thought that this was just some sales gimmick but it seems they really were closing down, only very, very, very slowly.
January
Hooray! January is over. What an awful month! You get up and it’s dark, you go to work and it’s dark. You come home and it’s dark. And it’s cold. And it snows. And the snow instantly turnes to slush or black ice. And it rains. And there are car accidents and there are traffic jams and the bloody train system closes down.
But January is over. We’ve survived and on Monday the sun broke through just as I got to work. Isn’t the sun fantastic? We British are stalwarts. We persevere through these bloody winter days but every now and them we get a glimpse of what life is supposed to be like and it’s beautiful.
The people who do road works have decided that the wiggly bit in the A23 just before Handcross isn’t difficult enough for drivers so they’ve added a few hazards. They have run a line of cones along the outside lane and painted two extra sets of centre lines down the road. So now there is a chicane where drivers can’t tell where the middle is and so meander around like morons.
Still, we have a bit of sun at last which creates some great light just after the rain.
And in Brighton today I noticed a great new bit of street art in St. George’s Mews along with some written words seeming to blame globalisation for poverty in Africa.
Wandering around downtown this afternoon found myself at the bottom of Trafalgar Street. A new art gallery named ONCA has sprung up. ONCA stands for One Network for Conservations and the Arts and they work with artists and communities, running themed exhibitions at their gallery at St George’s Place. Proceeds from sales go to support conservation projects. At the moment they have some excellent work in an exhibition named Ghosts of Gone Birds also some good paintings. They have a new project due to run from February to May named ‘Our Time In Ice’ and are inviting submissions from artists.
The painting shown is by Oliver Harud who uses the style of a film noir/graphic novel to tell the tale of the extinction of an Australo-Pacific honeyeater bird named the Bishop’s ‘Ō‘ō.
They have a new project due to run from February to May named ‘Our Time In Ice’ and are inviting submissions from artists.
The ONCA Gallery
14 St George’s Place
Brighton
BN1 4GB
http://www.onca.org.uk
info@onca.org.uk
01273 958291
Here comes Christmas
The disturbance outside on Saturday morning proved to be a plethora of Santas preparing to run 5km to raise money for Passing it On a charity which helps to build schools in Africa. By the time I’d blown away the cobwebs and got down there most of them had finished. Later I was Christmas Shopping and passed Fabrica in Duke St where a crafts fair was being held. Some good stuff and I bought this and that for Christmas presents. Some Great badges and cards by Saffron Reichenbäcker and some beautiful owls like Russian dolls by Caleigh Illerbrun. Then in the evening up to London for company bash at big hotel. Dinner suit dusted off, shoes given quick brush, train then tube, cloakroom ticket, hoards of people, boss’s speech, sales targets, M&S vouchers, prize draw. Glasses of red, bottles of Becks, dancing like fools, talking bollocks. Squeeze onto tube, 12:05 from Victoria, stand all the way and taxi home to find Alien 3 and a glass of single malt. Here comes Christmas……..
I was texted Friday evening saying come and see a gig at the Duke Of York. A film about the sea with live music. Arrived just before midnight to find a lot of people waiting to see the Brighton based indie rock band British Sea Power perform a live accompaniment to the film From The Sea To The Land Beyond.
From The Sea To The Land Beyond is a film by Penny Woolcock using archive footage from films made over the past 100 years from the the British Film Institute. It is a montage and traces very loosely the history of the British relationship with the sea.
I bought a large glass of Rioja and took a seat. As the film started and the band began to play the connection between the two was not obvious. Much of the footage is fairly stark black and white and the music is modern indy rock. However, very quickly I relaxed into the film and found it captivating, the music providing a splendid backdrop to some fascinating images. British Sea Power are a basic guitar band supplemented by a viola and a cornet and I loved the way the cornet swept one along in what was at times quite an emotional experience.
Terrific stuff, reminiscent of Koyaanisqatsi in places and which could stand another viewing.
P.S. – Just discovered this is to be shown at 9pm on BBC 4 this evening.
Jeremy Bowen speaking at Brighton, Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College (BHASVIC) this evening. Sponsored by City Books of course. He spoke for around half an hour on the middle east to promote his new book The Arab Uprisings and then took questions. No great surprises but a listenable speaker with a good mix of political opinion and light hearted observation. Political power in the Middle East is now The Muslim Brotherhood’s to lose, lose they could if they don’t provide jobs, education and healthcare and Gaddafi‘s inner circle were connoisseurs of sophisticated fashion and design. Also he told a nice little anecdote that gave a glimpse into the oh so enviable life of a foreign correspondent. Woken by a phone call he was told to get going: “First Honkers, then Pekers” and the caller hung up. Mr. Bowen had to ring a BBC official for clarification, “First Hong Kong, then Peking”. Now why don’t I get calls like that?
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