Can you name the 13th Best Cheese in the World – at least as judged at the World Cheese Awards in Bergamo in 2019? It’s a ludicrous concept of course, every cheese is unique, like every wine, but when the answer is Brighton Blue who in this city is going to argue?

From the start I have to admit it’s not made in Brighton; we suffer from a serious shortage of cows. It’s made by Mark and Sarah Hardy at High Weald Dairy, near Horsted Keynes. So why is it named after Brighton? How many other places are there in Sussex beginning with B? Burgess Hill Blue? Billingshurst Blue? They don’t quite have the allure that our city brings to the table.

What is it about the cheese that’s so special? It’s a question of texture and flavour. For texture it sits midway between soft and hard: it holds its shape but isn’t hard or crumbly like a Stilton. It’s all a question of how hard they try to separate the whey from the curds. Mark and Sarah don’t try too hard but, once the cheese is made and in the store, they turn it three times a week to aid the loss of moisture. That gets it exactly right.

But what’s really special is the flavour. It’s slightly salty with a delicate almost perfumed taste. It’s exquisite. That flavour comes from the mould, which is Penicillium roqueforti. That’s the same mould used to make Roquefort (and, incidentally, Stilton), but the Hardys use a milder version – number 3 on a scale of 1 to 9, whereas Stilton uses a 7 or 8. It’s cultivated now, but it’s ultimately derived from the wild moulds found in the limestone caves at Roquefort.

When you look at the cheese you see that the blue colour is not diffuse through the cheese, but it’s in clumps and sometimes in streaks. This makes some people think that the mould has been injected. It’s not; it’s mixed into the milk at the very start of cheese-making. But it doesn’t go blue at this stage because for that it needs oxygen. 

So the cheese is made, left to sit in store for a week, then pierced with a battery of long needles. Oxygen diffuses through the shafts created when the needles are removed and the blue colour and flavour start to develop. It’s usually ready to eat after 7 weeks, but cheese is a living thing and no timing is set in stone. 

Blue cheeses often become even more interesting with time and I look forward to keeping my next Brighton Blue for a bit to see how it develops.

Which wine should you drink with it? I’ve written before about matching fortified wines – Sherry, Port or Madeira – with blue cheese, but Brighton Blue is too delicate for that. Red wine (but again not too overwhelming) would be fine. A Sauternes would be marvellous as would any sweet white wine that isn’t too cloying.

Local social media channels fizzed last month upon learning pop poppet turned actual actor Harry Styles and his TARDIS had landed in Powis Square. Filming for Amazon’s “My Policeman” (the novel about a gay bobby in 50s Brighton) was afoot. Locals of all ages and genders grabbed their cameras and offspring, gathering for a game of ‘Where’s Harry?’

This Hollywood incursion shouldn’t surprise, given how important the area is for cinema. Take the Western edge of Whistler Country, St Ann’s Well Gardens, which predates Hollywood by over a decade as a moviemaking centre. From 1897-1904, the pleasure gardens’ owner George Albert Smith, arguably the most important of the Brighton [Hove Actually] School of pioneering filmers, made movies here.

[Dear readers: I will ignore William Friese-Greene in this article. Not just due to minimal Dials links. A plaque in Brighton’s Middle Street says he invented cinema there. No he didn’t. The first moving pictures were shot in Leeds by a French dude. Friese-Greene was primarily London-based at cinema’s inception anyway. I’ve made an entire YouTube video about how full of lies that plaque is. WFG mythology denigrates the achievements of the real Hove cinema pioneers. It. Must. End. Grrr.]

The much more pleasingly acronymed GAS, meanwhile, has many cinematic firsts to his name. First colour moving images? Check. Editing between different angles? Using cutaways from an establishing shot? A title card? Copyright notice? Yes to all of the above. Smith’s sheer volume of output (35 short films in 1897 alone) might be a factor in how many key elements of the language of movies he established.

Initially basing his studio in the Pump Room [which was demolished in 1935 after the well spring dried up], GAS was mindful that clear coastal daylight made Hove rather than smoggy London a cinema hotbed. In 1901 a glass walled studio was built to house faux interior sets. Some of Smith’s innovations (eg primitive colour footage) came after he’d upped sticks to Southwick three years later. Filmmaking ended at St Ann’s Well soon after. The council acquired it as a public park in 1908.

Fast forward 40 years and the south eastern edge of Whistlerland housed the grandly named Brighton Film Studios, operating from 1948-1966 in a former sunday school and auction house at 51 Centurion Road. 

Despite its longevity it struggled. In 1950 not a single movie was produced in Brighton & Hove. Fifty years earlier, dozens (albeit of much shorter duration) were shot in St Ann’s Well Gardens alone.

Advanced cameras and lights, with the accompanying move to primarily indoor shooting, meant seaside towns no longer had any advantage. Brighton’s provincial set-up couldn’t compete with edge-of-London titans like Pinewood and Shepperton. The sun (or lack of reliance upon it) has sadly set upon our local film industry.

What would Esmé Collings, bitter rival of William Friese-Greene [you said we wouldn’t mention him – Ed] make of it all? In 1896, while living at what is now 56 Dyke Road, Esmé directed the world’s first ‘adult movie’. Of course “A Victorian Lady In Her Boudoir” was tame by modern sensibilities, offering a brief glimpse of bare ankle at its, er, climax.

That said, we suspect the crowd gathered a stone’s throw away in Powis Square recently would happily eyeball far less (a gloved hand or flash of side-ear perhaps) belonging to Mr Styles. With ITV returning soon for more Grace TV movies, the area is back in the film spotlight for tales of spice, vice and police at least. Welcome to life in the West Hills of Diallywood, folks x

“Music has always been the
band aid that sorts everything
out” Fable tells Harrison Kirby

You know that feeling? You hear something on the radio and it just stops you. In the old days you’d sit quietly and hope the DJ says “And that was “Womb” by Brighton’s Fable”. Now, you’re more likely to jump on Shazam. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens. 

If you mourn the death of 90’s music, Fable might be exactly the artist you’re looking for. Think Thom Yorke and Massive Attack and you won’t be far off beam. It’s a unique sound and she’s got an incredible voice, it’s all there. But like so many extraordinary artists, the work might sound fresh and bright, but often comes from a dark place. “I’ve definitely battled depression for a long time. Music’s always been a band-aid that sorts everything out”.

She talks of “having a little bit of a wobble and a breakdown due to being a bit too neurotic about controlling things and who I am” but it was the tragic suicide of her ex-girlfriend that really sent life spinning. 

“I was thinking of giving up music completely because the only people I saw succeeding were people in much wealthier positions than me. They had a trust fund and all that. My friends were able to focus purely on music and not on how they’re going to pay their bills. I think that was a big part of it. It felt like the thing I’ve been chasing since I was very young felt like a childlike, unattainable dream for someone from my background. So, I moved away”.

But you know, it only takes one call… 

“I got a call saying an indie label called Naim were interested, and that kind of sprung out of nowhere. I think that after giving up on something that you’ve spent your whole life being passionate about, that kind of acceptance of ‘I don’t have to let this happen’. It was the letting go aspect allowed things to flow back into my life”.

And things are flowing and she’s preparing to release her debut album.

“Having that reflection time through the whole of the lockdown was an amazing thing to happen. It’s an awful thing to happen to the world but for me, at the time, it was the down, quiet time that I needed to really write without the stress. Because it was all sort of up in the air, we didn’t really know when things were going to come back to life it was a really nice lull period to write, which is quite a blessing. Normally you don’t get so long to create a piece of work!”

On top of her music, another one of Fable’s biggest prides is her work for My Black Dog, a mental health charity that specialises in providing personal, anonymous support for those suffering with depression.

“They are such an amazing charity, so needed at this time. I think throughout the pandemic people have forgotten how to talk to each other socialise. It’s different to the Samaritans in that the volunteers have all experienced mental health traumas of their own.”forward and embracing “this whole process of just relaxing a little bit and realising that life is simpler than you’re making it out to be. The next project is the video for my next single called Shame. It’s about our apathy, the addiction to capitalism, it gets quite political.

“After that there’ll be another single and then, hopefully, a tour. I’m just focussed on more content, some more videos. Just building a bit more of a picture up before I release the album, hopefully in September. It’s kind of all, weirdly enough, fallen into place. Thank you, whatever happened!”

Going to shows at The Fringe can sometimes feel like a bit of a lucky dip – put your hand in, who knows what you’re going to pull out – but a show about Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli? Come on, that’s easy.

Emma Dears, who wrote and created the show, stars as Liza in this sweet, empathetic telling of the tragic mother-daughter tale, with Helen Sheals as Judy and it’s just lovely. OK, it’s a fantastic story and the songs are… well, you know the songs. Judy sings Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Liza counters with Cabaret. Judy sings from A Star Is Born, Liza counters with Maybe This Time. It is, needless to say, completely lovely.

Emma and Helen – who both come armed with serious pedigrees (Les Mis, Miss Saigon, Brookside, Downton Abbey) – are both warm and funny and both, clearly, enjoy every minute of it. It’s on tonight and tomorrow night at The Warren and… go. 

https://www.brightonfringe.org/whats-on/judy-liza-musical-154044/

You ever fancied chancing your arm at being a writer? Well, as chance would have it… The West Hill Writers Group meet every Friday afternoon to focus their energies under the guidance of Anna Burtt.

“I joined the West Hill Writers Group this January, via Zoom sessions”, said group member JE Seuk. “Already they’ve shared insights, motivation, discipline, and community beyond all expectations. I can’t wait for meetings to resume in-person at West Hill Hall at the end of June.”

There’s also a new bursary for underrepresented writers. There’s a group anthology to be published in coming months. Advice about agents and publishing, opportunities for personalised feedback, writing exercises, and more.

If you find yourself itching to join but anxious about fitting in, know that there is no one size fits all West Hill Writer. “The ages range from 20-something to 70-something,” said Seuk. “Some have decades of writing experience, while others write for fun after the kids are tucked off to bed. Some voices are literary, others commercial. We’re all different, but we all love writing”.

More info at:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/west-hill-writing-group-summer-2021-tickets-156082608283.

Did you know there are two million podcasts out there? And every week seven million people tune into their favourite pod – whether it’s something hugely popular like My Dad Wrote A Porno, something smaller more niche like Suzy Buttress’s The Casual Birder or one of the wave of narrative non-fictions like The Missing Crypto Queen. And every time someone sits down to listen to any of the two million podcasts out there, they think “I could do that. I could make a podcast.”  If only they knew how to start and grow a successful podcast. Well, as chance would have it…  

“I’ve been podcasting since 2016 when I was first handed the keys to the delicious. podcast, for the food magazine of the same name”, said Gilly Smith, whose own Cooking The Books pod, a must for food book lovers, has just celebrated its first birthday by being ranked globally in the top 10%. “Delicious was one of the early ones in Britain, but in America podcasts had been making waves for some time”. 

What makes “How To Start…” different is as well as the stuff everyone wants to know but doesn’t really need to know like “What kind of microphone should I use?” it’s packed with stories from the podcasters themselves. There’s Ira Glass, the Godfather of Pod, who created This American Life, the team behind My Dad…, George The Poet…

What’s the secret of a successful podcast? “It’s about really saying something. It’s such a great platform – more and more people want to listen, it’s easier to find great stuff and it costs almost nothing to make. ”So those people who say “I could make that. I could do a podcast”, are they right? 

“Like everything, you have to work at it. Editing takes more skill, not just learning the buttons but knowing what to leave in and take out, but really it’s as easy as storytelling. If you like telling stories, do it. Think about what you want to say and who you want to say it to. Me, I just want to change the world.”

You can find How To Grow A Pod and Cooking The Books on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and buy the book from any good – preferably local – bookshop

OK, so we might not have chosen the whole lockdown thing, but that doesn’t mean nothing good came out of it. Gilly Smith finds the idea of community is alive and well

As we stumble into the light of a post-Lockdown world, the streets will soon begin to fill again. We’ll head back into town to spend, spend, spend, or so the chancellor hopes. But will we? 

The covid era has taught us a new way of living, shopping locally, working from home, and a rather old-fashioned idea of community has been a surprise result.

As the government limited shopping trips and supermarket shelves emptied in the first Lockdown and shoppers stockpiled to avoid the new hell of long queues and the masked dash to the checkout, a very British institution re-emerged. 

The corner shop with its smiley service and happy-to-help attitude became the go-to shopping experience for millions. 

According to the Association of Convenience Stores, 57% of corner shops began a delivery service for the first time, while 41% now have a website, and some have even embraced the delivery apps to take advantage of this unexpected boom.

Vinod and Meena have been serving the West Hill community at Bright News on Buckingham Road since 1984, and as locals locked down in March last year, they were part of the first response unit. 

‘We had always done our bit to help people,’ said Vinod. ‘Elderly people, disabled people, they always get a free service. They always know that they can call us.’ No delivery apps here; as Lockdown made people anxious and vulnerable, Vinod found he was suddenly delivering goods across a three miles radius.

‘Basically, you feel like your house is like a jail. You’re frightened to go out’, he said. ‘You’re frightened of the big shops and mixing outside.’ 

But it wasn’t just the delivery service that Vinod, Meena and the team provided. With shelves packed with Infinity foods and an impressive range of wines and spirits, including those imported from Spain by the couple’s son, West Hill’s neighbourhood were wondering why bother with the supermarket, where often there’s not even someone at the checkout to talk to. Going to Vinod’s was the chance for a chat as well as a shop. 

‘We all have our masks on. We social distance and follow the rules, but people are very, very happy and very supportive to us. We like to help as much as possible.’ 

It reminds him of how the shop used to be when they took it over in 1984. 

‘People love the one to one service. People talk about the neighbours, their family, how they have a good time. It’s like it was three or four decades ago, which is wonderful.’

To oak or not to oak, that’s just one of the questions. Andrew Polmear goes where we can’t to find the answers 

Almost everything about wine tasting is supposition, especially what I think of as the ‘Great Debate’- what makes a wine taste as it does? How much is it the result of unalterable things – the ‘terroir’ – and how much due to the intervention of the winemaker?

It’s rare that one has a chance to put anything to a real test. It would need a controlled trial, and that’s not the sort of thing winemakers do. Except for Luc Schweitzer, the owner of Château Bourdieu, in Blaye, Côtes de Bordeaux, an appellation on the right bank of the Gironde river from the châteaux of St Julien in the Upper Médoc, but on different soil and without the cachet that makes those Médoc wines so expensive.

In 2019 Luc made two wines that won prizes at the Decanter World Wine Awards. What’s interesting is that the two wines were made with virtually the same mix of grapes (about 88 % Merlot, the rest being Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec or Cabernet Franc) from the same vineyards.

The one that scored 97 out of 100 is called Château Bourdieu. It was fermented in stainless steel vats for four weeks, then aged in fresh steel vats before bottling. Luc’s aim was to preserve the original fruit flavours. 

The one that scored a mere 95 points (still a fantastic score for a Blaye wine) is called Château Bourdieu No. 1. It was made in the same way except that it spent six months aging in oak barrels. Luc’s aim was to allow the development of greater aromatic intensity. So, how do they differ?

The judges tasted blind. They only knew that the wines were from Bordeaux. They found the unoaked version  “Flamboyant and deep with ample, lush and fresh forest fruits, bramble and cassis, with cascading sweet spice swiftly following. A super brooding wine which will shine brighter with time”.

The oaked version was praised for its “pristine definition of damson, cherry and plum, with understated vanilla oak. Deep and long, the palate reveals a cascade of fleshy black fruits over ripe, fine-grained tannins and fruit-bonded acidity. Lovely stuff”

So they spotted the difference, even if it’s a bit hidden in their flowery prose. Both were rich in fruit (which ones doesn’t really matter) but the unoaked wine was lush and fresh, while in No.1 they could taste the vanilla of the oak and they detected tannins, that weren’t present in the unoaked wine.

Tasting the two side by side, I would go further. The unoaked version is all about the richness of its fruit. The oaked No.1 goes into a different realm where the fruit is transformed into something deeper and more complex. It’s the slightly smoky, rich velvet of a classic right bank Bordeaux. So now we know that it’s the oak that gives it that. How does it do it? Mainly by being porous. Tiny amounts of water leak out and tiny amounts of air leak in. It’s the oxygen that allows those extra flavours to develop.

While I prefer the No.1, what’s amazing is that both bottles sell for under £15. I bought them online from the wine merchant Exel.

When’s a shop not just a shop? When it’s
a gallery. And an exhibition space. And a …
Sam Toft tells Lucas Castellano what else

Walking through the streets of Seven Dials you will most likely have stumbled across many independent shops, but The Mustard Shop is way more than just a shop. For artist and owner Sam Toft, it’s “a shop, a gallery and a vibrant creative hub with an ethos of generosity, community and charity.”

Sam, who you may well know for her artwork as well as for the Dog and Bone gallery in Powis Square, is turning what was once a shop displaying only her work into what she calls “The Mustard Collective.” 

A collaboration of seven artists bringing a varied and eclectic range of displays such as paintings, doll making, textiles, animation, installation work and murals. 

After getting ill and having to close the shop, Sam turned the idea on its head and realised that by having just a couple of two week shows a year selling her original work she could make the shop viable.

“With the remaining 11 months I thought it would be a lovely idea to invite other artists to help make the shop a vibrant creative hub. Each artist will decide how they want to use the shop and raise money for their chosen charity within their month. Workshops, demonstrations, experiences, competitions, installations… whatever they like,” she said. 

Until May the exhibitions will be hanged in the shop. There will be virtual view online sales thorough YouTube and Sam will be holding a live afternoon tea event on Facebook with her partner and sculptor Graham Alborough. Toft will also be raising money for Breast Cancer Now thorough a live auction of one of the paintings exhibited and will be doing live drawings of people’s pets to raise money for MacMillan. 

This shop is for Sam a dream come true and more now that the space is shared with others. “Working together we can support on another, and also divide the responsibilities.

“I hope that having the shop all lit up and cared for, bright vibrant and full of interesting work will continue to be a real asset to the local community just as the Dog and Bone gallery is,” she said. 

Sam’s tells me this recent lockdown has been a “time to create in different ways and to work more collaboratively.

“My paintings have also taken on a more positive and complaintive narrative I think.”

She has been busy working with pottery masters, working on a limited series of leather bags with Holly M Atelier and making puppets with Brighton Puppetry School.

The future looks busy with a big show in September at Panter and Hall in Piccadilly Circus and the beginning of a new “uplifting and heart-warming” book with her sister which she hopes will be out for Christmas 2022. She’ll also be collaborating again with Holly M Atelier again to bring out a range of leather and vegan accessories and Roberto Gagliano to cast a range of dog sculptures. 

https://breastcancernow.org/

https://www.macmillan.org.uk/