The Prince Albert, you know, the one by the station, a downhill stumble from the peak of West Hill, is one of the greatest pubs in a town with a greater abundance and favourable ratio to bad pubs than in any town I have ever seen, and I’ve seen a few. Both towns and pubs. I really know what I’m talking about. And such is the way of the world, or the way of this country, pubs are being closed down and this is terrible.

The Prince Albert – and I am open to the suggestion that the lewd piercing referred to by this name originated if not in this very pub but at least in this very town, for reasons I do not need to elaborate – is one of those places where the traditional and the counterculture meet as one. 

My first proper evening there was when I finally, some years ago, moved to Brighton for good with the last items of my scant luggage. There wasn’t much: it was mostly my grandfather’s overcoat, which I was wearing, and a plastic bag containing, mostly, a teapot. I was tired, and it was late, and my new lodgings were up a steep hill – you know the one I mean – but the Albert was a brief step downhill and I could hear the noise of a band thudding through the walls and the mist, the kind of band I used to stay up late to tape off John Peel in the 70s. A truly horrendous noise, designed to both offend and charm – there were tunes behind it – with what I could tell even at a distance was a very angry female singer. This, I have to say, is one of my favourite genres.

So I went in the pub and went upstairs to listen to the band and even though I was wearing an ancient overcoat and carrying a teapot and was, by some decades, the oldest person in the room, I was utterly charmed. The band were called something that I cannot repeat even here; let’s just say a four-letter word was involved. They were clearly not aiming for chart success. But I stayed for the whole set and even chatted with the lead singer (her traumatised backing band, mostly men, had disappeared) for a while afterwards, and of course she turned out to be as sweet and modest and considerate as her on-stage persona had been confrontational and furious. This is so often the way.

And yet downstairs it’s all fireplaces and wallpaper from the 1920s as far as I can tell and, well you get the idea. The problem is that the pub has been under threat from developers. The latest recent plans have rejected by councillors but we need to make sure new plans don’t rear their ugly heads again. The best way to do that is to pop down there for a pint some time, just to let you know you love them. You don’t have to see Bleeding Ohyouknow upstairs but if they are playing, give them a listen.