The backstreets of Brighton

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I went to Brighton yesterday. I’ve lived nearby most of my life, but I’ve never really been sure if I actually like the place.

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It has a vibrancy about it that I’ve experienced nowhere else in the world, not even in London. It’s alive, it’s fun, it’s a happening place. It’s the gay capital of the UK and the Goth centre of the universe! The population is young and trendy, and you find something to surprise you around every corner.

Art and music abound, whether on the street or in the galleries of North Laine. Its Restaurants are daring, experimental and as often as not, vegetarian! Its thousands of small shops are invariably decked out in a riot of colour and refuse to conform to the normal image of the High Street.

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But I don’t know. I sometimes feel I’m on another planet. I have never felt I belonged there. I feel like ha gate crasher at some exclusive outrageous wacky party!

But there is a normal Brighton, if there is such a thing as normal. It has the obligatory shopping mall with all the usual names, a beach, pier, parks, gardens and churches. Children in school uniform and elderly people are there among the trendy young peacocks strutting the streets.

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I visit now and again. I try to soak up some of the atmosphere, and as often as not I do leave with a bit of a buzz about me. In fact yesterday was one of the most enjoyable days I’ve had for ages. I spent it entirely in the North Laine district and came away with 175 photos!

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A few I’ve used here, but if you want to see more, in far better quality then click HERE and by the magic of the interweb you will find yourself

walking the narrow backstreets of the City of Brighton.

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J'ai lu une poésie dans le Français très mauvais

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I used to live in France, but anyone who knows me will tell you that when it comes to speaking or writing in French, I am très pathétique! The best I can manage is to order a beer and a baguette in a bar, and even then I can never be entirely certain what will arrive!

If you do ever find anything in French on my blog it will almost certainly be a joint effort between me and my trusty Babel-poissons translator.

Anyway, I used a French phrase in an email to friend Missy the other day, and she commented in her reply that I should use my near fluent grasp of la langue française when I next write and record a poem.

Well, I’m never one to pass up a challenge so I wrote my poem and enlisted Babel Fish to help with the translation. I then made another ami called TTS – Text to Speech, who helped me with my pronunciation. Actually, TTS is a hoot! You write what you want to hear then choose between Spanish, French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, Chinese or, Russian. Then up pops a very realistic head sporting the appropriate national features, and it jabbers away in your chosen accent! Cool or what? And I have to say that the French girl is très sexuellement attractive!

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Anyway, have a go yourself! Type in something like 'my name is ...whatever' then choose a nationality and click 'say it'. It takes a second or two, but it's worth the wait! (please don't forget to come back afterwards!)




But I digress, and to be honest I’ve completely forgotten what I’m writing about! Let me read back - yaba yaba yaba – oh yes. My poem. Well, here it is in written and spoken form, and I apologise in advance to any French speakers, or indeed French people, who‘ll have no more idea than you - or me -what I’m going on about!

I heard a voice, a soft voice
Suivez-moi it said
Suddenly from the gloom
A girl appeared

Ce qui vous veulent? I said
Suivez et vous verrez she said

I said Je fais l'aucun veux à
She said Vous devez

She ran down a dark street
Occasional streaks of light
Revealed her tear stained face
Hâte svp she said

Je ne peux pas continuer I said
Faster and faster she went
Hâte she said
Je suis perdant vous I said

Then she disappeared

Là où êtes vous? I called
Il est trop tard she cried
Ce qui vous a voulu? I asked
Il est trop tard she sobbed

I guess I’ll never know

Here goes - time for me to read it!

In case you are interested, you can read and hear the entire piece in Queen’s ENGLISH by clicking HERE. In the meantime merci et au revoir

Casper our Curious Cat

This weeks prompt on Wrtiters Island is Curiosity
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He was born too soon. They said he wouldn’t make, but he did.


In his second year he was curious about the big wild world and wandered out of the house and got lost. He was missing for days and was given up for lost. But a few weeks later he appeared again as if nothing had happened.


When he was three he wondered if he could fly. He leapt out of very high tree, discovered he couldn’t, but somehow landed on his feet.


As a four year old he was a little adventurous. He thought he could chase dogs. But he was wrong, and one day a dog turned on him. He was badly mauled but eventually he pulled through.


His is fifth year was quite a difficult one. He was unwell for months after sampling some tasty looking rat poison on a neighbours farm. We were told to expect the worst but against all odds he recovered.


Six years old and enjoying independence. He would walk down the street, head in the air, king of everything he surveyed. But one day he was wondered what it was like on the other side of the street and walked in front of a car. How he survived we’ll never know.


When he was seven he should have known better. We’ll never know why he decided to attack a little bird which was sitting on a ledge outside an open window – two stories up!


He was eight years old when he decided to investigate the inside of a clothes dryer. Unfortunately he was fast asleep on a pile of warm damp clothes when it was switched on! But he was spotted just in time and jumped out dizzy and hot, but unharmed!


He was a typical nine year old and simply had to explore. That was fine until one day he went down a fox hole and got stuck. It was days before a gamekeeper came across him and set him free.


He would have been ten this year. He wanted to know how it felt to swim. He discovered too late that he couldn’t. His curiosity eventually killed him.


Now, all we have to remember him by is a mound of soil between some flowers in the garden, with a little cross made from a couple of bits of wood sticking out of the top. A little plaque simply says ‘Casper our Curious Cat’
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Vision On Sound On

This weeks Sunday Scribblings prompt - Vision

In 1934, following the first public demonstration of television, Isaac Shoenberg turned to his team of engineers and said “Well gentlemen, you have now invented the biggest timewaster of all time. Use it well”

The editor of the Manchester Guardian newspaper said a year later –“Television. The word is half Greek and half Latin. No good will come of it”

And so public service broadcasting was born. In the UK the British Broadcasting Corporation was set up and in March 1936 the first television programme went to air.

It was a live broadcast from the Radio Olympia exhibition called Here’s Looking at You and stared Miss Lutie and her Wonder Horse Pogo, a vocal trio called The Three Admirals and a couple of tap dancers. The whole thing was kicked off by singer Helen McKay who warbled the theme song. This short clip shows those first moments.

By November of that year the Beeb (sorry –The BBC!) had really got into its stride and was transmitting a news programme and a documentary and a ventriloquist as well as other fascinating programmes.

The link man, or the continuity announcer as he was know, was Leslie Mitchell. He was a dapper man with piercing eyes and a pencil line moustache. After seeing a film of the first day he was heard to say “There was a little man with bow legs and a bowler hat – who the hell was that?” “It was you Leslie!” came back the reply!

Television in Britain continued as something of a Cinderella service for the next few years, but its defining moment came on June 2 1953 with the live broadcast of the coronation of our present monarch – Queen Elizabeth 2nd. That was when a television set first took up its position in our front room, as well as many others country wide.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Despite the onset of commercial TV in 1954 and the onslaught of hundreds of new pretenders in recent years, the Beeb remains the most respected and revered broadcaster in the world. And it’s still to this day free of adverts!

But let me take you back to those early days with a short promotional film called ' Vision on Sound on' which shows some behind the scenes footage whilst the BBC Song is sung for your delectation and entertainment.

‘Conjured up in sound and sight
By these magic rays of light
That bring television to you’

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A walk on the cliffs

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Any thoughts I had of spending my free day cleaning my house or hunched over my computer, were soon dispelled when I flung back my curtains this morning. The sun was shining, the sea was blue and the sky bluer! Today was a perfect summer’s day.
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I decided that it was about time I took a walk along the cliff tops, so that is what I did. We are blessed with having a range of dramatic white chalk cliffs along our coast. They are collectively known as the Seven Sisters, and today I walked across most of them!
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My journey started at Beachy Head where I climbed 600 feet to its highest point with its amazing view of the red and white lighthouse in the sea below. I walked on in virtual seclusion, to the old lighthouse – Belle Tout which is perched on the cliff edge. '
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Nowadays it’s a home, and a few years ago I was among hundreds of people who gathered there to see it physically moved 50 metres back from the edge!
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After a mile or so I wandered into the downland village of East Dean and called into the Tiger Inn for a pint of rejuvenating local ale!
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Then it was off to a valley in the cliffs and a stroll on the beach at Birling Gap. Another climb, then down again onto the plain where the River Cuckmere winds its twisting path from the sea into the lush countryside beyond.
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And then I turned my back to the sea and the cliffs, and walked a mile or so along the riverside, back to civilisation, and a bus ride home!
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These were just a few of the photos I took on my walk today – to see my favourite twenty in far higher quality click here

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The De La Warr Pavilion

If you were to visit the sleepy seaside town of Bexhill on Sea you could not fail to come across the the De La Warr Pavilion.
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There is no denying that this building is different from anything else you are likely to have seen before. Not a week goes by without mention of the Pavillion in our local paper. Over the past few years we ratepayers have had to shell out millions of pounds in maintaining and repairing this iconic construction. It prompts an opinion from everyone who visits it. One other falls in love with it or finds it hideous and a blot on the landscape, there is no middle ground.
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Completed in 1935, what we have is the first and largest modernist building in the UK. It was commissioned by the Earl De La Warr, designed by Mendleson & Cherayff and officially opened by the Prince of Wales, soon to be crowned King George IV. Built in a style mid way between art deco and industrial, its use of concrete metal and glass was a pioneering method of construction and one which typifies the decadent style of the decade. At its centre is a breathtaking steel and marble spiral staircase.
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So what is its purpose? It has often been described as a skyscraper on its side. The ground floor alone houses a theatre, a prestigious art gallery, art education workshops, a retail shop and an arts library. All these facilities are in constant use with performances of ballet, music and comedy taking place alongside international exhibitions, children’s art clubs and cultural television programme production. On the first floor there is a restaurant and bar, above that a vast roof terrace which looks straight out across the sea.
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But with all facilities of its type, it’s often seen as elitist and inaccessible by those residents who have to support it through their taxes, yet have no wish to neither use it nor tolerate its continued presence in our town.

Me? I love it!
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A hall a marble floor

A flash of mirror steel

twisting skyward

Glass, seductive curves

Signs black on white

Stark

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Strings and wind

Discordant tuning

The maestro taps his baton

then a quilt of harmony

cossets the hushed crowd

Unheard outside

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Figures creep silently

twixt sculptures, images

Standing back

Contorting bodies

finding the best angle

to view

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A table in a hall

littered with paint and crayons

Surrounded by tiny stools

where children just sat

Art pegged to a string

on the wall

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The ding of a till

Books chosen then wrapped

Painting bought

Small works of art

taken home

Souvenirs

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Above, a clatter of cups

and glasses

Excited chatter

The air filled

with the smell of food

and wine

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Out on the roof

couples cuddle in the breeze

Stare out to sea

like actors on the set

of Titanic

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Sun sets at the end of the day

White concrete glows pink

in the setting sun

Glass reflects

the dying rays

It sleeps

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let me read my poem to you

I'm not so sure

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This weeks prompt on Writers Island is 'Questionable'.

I love a conspiracy theory. Particularly when my reasoned judgement coincides with that of the conspirator’s.

But let’s get one out of the way. There are people today who still believe that Princess Diana was ‘disposed of’ by a certain member of the Royal Family. This is one conspiracy theory that I am unable to subscribe to. Let’s just think about it. It would have been so easy to place a marksman in the building opposite if Diana was to have been killed that night. Consider this (a) what were the chances of the driver being under the influence of alcohol on that night (b) Diana not wearing a seat belt and (c) the driver colliding with a wall. Certainly the most clumsy and flawed assassination plot ever. So let’s sideline that one!


But I have two favourite conspiracy theories. The first concerns the sinking of the Titanic. I think the whole story is questionable. On September 20th 1911, its sister ship the Olympic was involved in a collision with the naval cruiser HMS Hawke. The circumstances of the accident were such that it was not possible for White Star Line to make a claim for the damage to their liner from their insurance company. The Titanic was still under construction at the time, but when it was due to be launched it was decided to swap over the names of the two vessels. The Olympic was patched up , renamed Titanic, then sent to sea on its ‘maiden voyage’ and deliberately sailed into an iceberg. The lack of sufficient lifeboats was an unfortunate oversight in the design of this supposedly unsinkable ship. After the accident the insurance company paid out for the loss of the ‘Titanic’ and the ‘Olympic’ (nee Titanic) sailed on.

The two ships had slightly different porthole configurations, and photographs of the two ships at the time clearly showed the shapes and positions of the portholes reversed. I rest my case.

I mentioned two conspiracy theories. Given that the majority of my visitors are based in the USA, I am a little reluctant to bring up my second topic. So I’ll say it quickly in the hope you don’t notice. I think the Moon Landing on July 20th 1969 was a hoax. An elaborate studio set-up in which the producers failed to realise that a flag wouldn’t flutter, and shadows wouldn’t appear as they were portrayed. Sort of a ‘ba-hoo we got there first’ gesture to the USSR.

I would be very interested to receive your comments – on the Titanic that is! Given that 89% of Americans are convinced that the moon landing actually happened, I could be out here on my own on that one!
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