Summertime!

It’s Summertime, it’s summertime,

It’s time to have ice lollies with lime!

Ice cream , ice creams everywhere,

Melting, dripping, we don’t care! 

Something humid in the air,

People tying back their hair,

Into the sea,

Come on friends, come play with me!

Jump off the paddle board, swimming free! 

We are all as happy as can be!

After school , let’s go and play, 

After a hot, angry, tiresome day,

“Let’s go on the swings!” my friends say,

So how do I reply?

OK! 

Just around the corner from the Seven Dials, down a narrow, hidden driveway, West Hill Hall plays host to one of the city’s most successful writing groups. The West Hill Writers have gathered these past few years to nurture voices and narratives and now they’ve gone public.

With much fanfare, they recently published “Brighton & Beyond”, a rich anthology of short stories featuring the city in all its complex glory, from 18 talented local authors. Relatable family and friendship dynamics mingle with dark folklore and fantasy. Queer perspectives and scathing social critiques rub shoulders with comedy, romance, historical fiction and magic realism. Animals play startling roles, and somehow, not one, but three distinctive takes on a circus emerge.

Anna Burtt, director of publishers West Hill Writers, said, “I am really proud of “Brighton & Beyond”. It’s a diverse collection of riveting reads and I’m sure there is something in there to be enjoyed by every avid reader, especially those who love Brighton.”

Authors include Ciar Byrne, Jane Crittenden, Kathleen Ford, Giacomo Gambone, Hilary Howard, Duncan Robert Illing, John Keenan, Pippa Lewis, Kate Marsh, Damian McCarthy, Becs Pearson, Paula Seager, J.E. Seuk, Fran Swaine, Mona Walsh, Maggie Winters, Sue Wood and J.E.C. Young. The very Brighton book cover, features an ice cream cone, and was designed by Patrick Knowles.

The WHW inspire each other through regular sessions with locally-based Anna Burtt who is head of events at Jericho Writers, hosts the Brighton Book Club on Radio Reverb, and is the director of the York Festival Of Writing. They create short stories, flash fiction, creative nonfiction and poems set in Brighton throughout the UK and around the globe, not to mention the past, present and speculative future.

The book launch for Brighton & Beyond was held in the Nightingale Room at the Grand Central Brighton, at the bottom of West Hill, and was a busy affair with books selling fast. Brighton & Beyond can be seen displayed on the shelves of books shops across the city.

They say everyone has a book in them, but here in West Hill, we’re proud to be home to a plethora of really accomplished writers and we wish them all success!

You can order the book direct at:
https://westhillwriters.carrd.co
or from book shops across the UK

There are still places available on the next West Hill Writers course – see linktr.ee/BTNBOOKCLUB

In a recent study carried out by Sussex FA and UEFA it was revealed that businesses which sponsor their local grassroots women’s football team could increase their life expectancy by up to 15 years. The study also found that those businesses tended to increase their profits by at least 150% and that business owners often had their life goals realised within six minutes of investing in women’s football. (Ed: Right now, Skip, I’m believing every word you’re telling me) 

 This is, of course, very exciting news for Montpelier Villa WFC who are your local women’s side and take their name from the local streets. The team has until now always relied on players’ fees to pay for the expenses incurred throughout the season including pitch hire, referees, kits and competition entries and insurance, but this naturally creates a barrier for some who can’t afford it, especially in the current climate. 

 However, this recent study is fantastic as previously we had relied on businesses who were socially conscious and wanted to give back to their community and who shared our values of being inclusive, independent and ambitious. Three adjectives that we feel encapsulates the best of Brighton and Hove. Thankfully we no longer have to worry about that nonsense and can focus on selling our product to the highest bidder. 

 “Our next item for sale in the great football auction is MVWFC, a football club that has a track record of fighting sexism, homophobia and transphobia over the past seven years in Brighton. Sussex League Cup champions and recently promoted to step six of the women’s football pyramid and will be competing in the Womens FA Cup once more this season having narrowly missed out on the most illustrious prize in womens football by a meagre 10 wins last season.”

Unfortunately Sussex FA and UEFA have carried out no such study yet, but we’re still in a position to sell ourselves to the highest bidder. With promotion comes increasing costs and considerations such as…”How much can we ask of our players financially?” And “If our players aren’t willing or able to do it then how do we make up that shortfall?” Do we market our players and their experiences on social media knowing full well many of them play football for that reason and that reason alone – to play football. 

 This is clearly a problem that doesn’t just affect the grassroots game. Recently in an attempt to model how our defenders should play I searched for videos of Millie Bright defending. I found out that she was afraid of spiders, her favourite movie is Step-Brothers and that the celebrity she would invite to dinner is Tom Hardy. There was only one video that focused on Millie Bright’s football. The problem faced by Bright and the Lionesses is that big brands are willing to pay for these insights however we have yet to have the same brands knocking on our door but still want to tell our players stories in an attempt to attract local businesses which is far more beneficial to everyone.

It’s been an amazing time to live in Brighton and Hove for those of us involved in women’s football. We had the Euro 2022 roadshow on Hove lawns where you could get up close and personal with the trophy and the inspiring Goal Power exhibition at Brighton museum, which highlighted the attitudes and obstacles that have been overcome by footballers across the globe. Finally, we’ve had the football with England putting on an incredible show by beating Norway 8-0 at the Amex yet it’s hard to ignore the feeling that this papers over the cracks that currently exist in women’s football especially in this city.

The hope is that once the Euros circus packs up its tent and leaves our city that it somehow manages to leave a tangible impact and ultimately, for us, that comes down to what it always does: cold, hard cash, ideally from businesses who are socially conscious that want to give back to their community and share our values of being inclusive, independent and ambitious. 

If this is you then please get in touch with us mvwfc@outlook.com or message/phone 07464768514 

 Your support would be appreciated, if you are a local business that wants to be associated with a progressive and ambitious women’s football team that also wants to reduce their tax bill then please contact us below.

Project managing a huge outdoor art commission, the key is to begin with your headache list. My headache list reads as follows: 

– Erecting a huge Artist Dotty robot without public distractions.

– Temporary road closure preventing traffic incidents. 

– Positioning of the robot secured on a stone plinth. 

– Convincing the West Hill and Seven Dials Residents committee that they need a robot at Seven Dials. 

A survey undertaken in West Hill, showed over 10,000 residents voted for a huge robot with beacon lights for overhead air traffic and oncoming vehicles. The issues were eliminated after receiving project investment from local film production company, ‘Mad Cap Productions,’ and a professional project leader was enlisted.

The Seven Dials roundabout was derived from a seven-way junction in London featuring a monument that had six sundials (not sure what happened to the seventh). With a ten strong team, one low loader truck and a stationed crane, ADSD1 took seven hours to safely erect. After a huge applause from onlookers, the public reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. The robot is made from reclaimed steel and, in time, will have dotty, street style paint (as performance art on a trampoline) to add a finishing touch. 

It’s one millimetre wider than the Angle of The North, and ADSD 1 has already been coined as, ‘The Robot of The South.’

Why a robot ?

Well, during his art journey, Artist Dotty noticed over the years that friends have become brainwashed by technology descriptions. For example, Dotty might create an all-consuming, heavily meditated piece of digital artwork, and a friend’s response could simply be: ‘nice pic.’ 

There are other observations, for example when signing up to any social media platforms that require you to fill out your profession. After 20 years of phone navigation, Artist Dotty has  noticed that there hasn’t been the option to say that you are an artist or comedian (comedy being the last bastion of free speech). 

Artist Dotty is convinced that, on the one hand whilst creative options are available, we are being moulded into a new way of perceiving art and creativity through diluted internet language. And what better way to get people thinking about this than by plonking a huge 1950s robot on a plinth on a roundabout. Get down there! ADSD1 really glimmers in the sunlight.  

Et maintenant, le journalist qui s’appelle Gilly Smith parlez avec Fabrice Camus qui runs “Le Club Pour Le Parlez de French”. Bon.

I’ve wanted to speak French since I was a 17 -year-old au pair in Paris, happy to chat with the kids, but freezing with anyone over the age of 10. I want the easy, shoulder shrugging kind of French off pat, not the ‘il fait beau aujourd’hui’ kind of French that’s never going anywhere. I want the effortless chatter over a glass or three that would transform our adventures en France, the friend-making, options-opening kind of French that’s almost impossible to learn in the country itself.  While everyone in France either sneers at your pathetic grasp of language (Paris) or wants to practice their English themselves, it’s just not going to happen on holiday. 

So I put a shout out on Facebook. ‘I think there’s a guy called Fabrice who does conversation classes’, said West Hill Hall Lou who knows the answer to everything. And she’s right. ‘Yup, Fabrice is your man’ says someone else. ‘He teaches my daughter GCSE’,  someone else pops up. ‘I do his Book Club’ says another.  It seems that the whole of Brighton is speaking French with Fabrice. 

I looked him up. Fabrice Camus, freelance French teacher, clearly an orchestra leader for a choir of English voices wanting to learn, advance or polish up their Francais! Camus? Wait. Surely he’s related by Albert, existentialist, poet, philosopher, footballer and my teen hero when I was a French A’ level student. ‘No relation, malheureusement’, messaged Fabrice. ‘Il ya beaucoup de personnes qui portent le nom de famille ‘Camus’ en France!’ 

£50, he told me, would include a weekly class at my local pub, The Eddy as well as French Book Club on Friday mornings and French Cinema on Saturdays or Sundays, both monthly. It turns out that there’s a Saturday morning breakfast too every week at  Cup of Joe in Kemptown. I was in.

Four months later, I’m chatting if not fluent French, fluently to an ever-changing cast of French Clubbers, also chatting happily, whatever their level, at Cup of Joe. Ceri is an TV animation producer who lives in Brighton and works in Paris one week a month. Hyanna is a young doctor who arrived in Brighton from Brazil and seems to like a challenge. Tony is a retired French teacher at Brighton College, Sian, a historian, Shirley an opera singer agent… The conversation is flowing.

I ask Fabrice how he thinks the magic happens. 

‘Number one is confidence’ he tells me. ‘If people have got the confidence, they can do it.’   And they can. Margaret and Richard moved to Brighton last year and have used the opportunity to polish up their French, aand to meet new friends. ‘I lived in France for 15 years,’ Margaret tells me. ‘My spoken French was good, and reading French is good. My written French is still terrible!  It was very difficult to speak French when I lived there; when you’re shopping it’s ok, and some people are always patient. In Paris not so much. But here, I can relax and practice it easily. It’s very informal.’

Husband, Richard works in Lyon but spent Lockdown in the UK and quickly found that the quality of his French was deteriorating. He went back to basics with Fabrice, concentrating on grammar through exercises in class and through homework. ‘The sessions with Fabrice are very efficient,’ he tells me as he tucks into his croissant.

Lesley is retired and moved to Brighton last year. ‘I’ve met so many people with common interests.  I love the breakfast most, but also we have the weekly class over a cup of coffee. We do have conversations but we also we go through the homework we’ve had during the week so that’s very useful.’   It’s more than 50 years since Jill was a student in France and is quietly loving the hubbub of spoken French. ‘I lived in Paris when I was young,’ she tells me, dreamily.

I notice the almost fluent French booming from the end of the table, albeit in a rather cute New Zealand accent. ‘When I came overseas,’ James tells me, ‘I realised that a lot of Europeans spoke their own language as well as English pretty well. So, I tried to use some of my high school French, and I struggled even to order a coffee in a cafe. And that really annoyed me. I got frustrated with the fact that I could only really speak one language. I had expected everyone to speak my language, to accommodate me in their country!’ He moved to Brighton, spotted a poster in a pub window for Fabrice’s informal French classes, and decided to give it a go. ‘I kind of just fell in love with it. It’s just a nice challenge. I enjoy learning another language and discovering a whole new world through the language and the culture.’  

l To join Fabrice’s Rendezvous French Club at a variety of pubs and cafes around Brighton, call 07704 188055.

As I write, it is a gloriously sunny afternoon, but for some reason, the first day’s play at Hove County Cricket Ground of a three-day match against the touring New Zealanders has been scheduled. This is a bit irritating for everyone who had been planning to go, whether as a player, an employee of the ground, or a spectator. I fall into the last group.

I have been living in Brighton for four years now (with a year off in Scotland) and until the beginning of May this year, I had not been to the ground (named now after an insurance company, but that need not concern us) at all. The reasons were laziness – living at the highest point of Dyke Road meant that coming back home involved a supreme effort, and the gound was about half an hour’s walk away; and later, the pandemic, when no one was allowed to go to a match, assuming the match was even being played in the first place. Also, I am a bit leery of Hove, which is, as everyone knows, a terrifying military dictatorship compared to the fun- and peace-loving Green/Socialist paradise of Brighton.

But the other week, now that I live about 10 minutes’ walk away, and on more or less the same elevation as the ground, I had no excuse, and it was also a lovely, sunny day, so off I went to see the final afternoon’s play of a four-day match between Sussex and Middlesex. I checked on the score before going, and without going into any detail, it looked as though the match was settling down to be a nice, peaceful draw. This was just as well: the crushed and downtrodden people of Hove can turn violent at the slightest provocation.

Oh, it was lovely. There were about 500 people at the ground, I’d say, so at least 90% of the seats were unoccupied; they let me in for a tenner because there wasn’t much play left and the match was getting soporific; and even though the Sussex Cricketers, the pub at the Sea End, which I’d never been to, was demolished last year, I could still get a bottle of Harvey’s from the otherwise uninspiring cafe that we have to make do with.

As it turned out, the match did get interesting: Middlesex, helped by a sporting declaration from the hosts, found themselves getting the runs with time to spare (even if they’d been held down a bit at one end whenever Ollie Robinson, the England quickie, came on to bowl). 

As I said, it was lovely, and one of the nicest things about it was the way the Sussex fans, including me, applauded every good shot made by Middlesex, even if it meant that defeat was creeping ever nearer. In which other sport in the world do you get a reaction like that? None, I’d think. 

So I say: get yourself down the Hove ground for a county match and prepare yourself for a nice quiet slice of Heaven. Weather permitting.

Let’s take the summer off. Not do anything, have a bit of time for ourselves”. 

“Yes, let’s go away for a month or so, just drive round France, stopping here and there. We won’t have to worry about getting back or who’s going to look after…” 

It was, in truth, a bit of a half-hearted conversation. Not that there’s anything wrong with driving round France for a month or so – I’m sure it’d be very nice – but it wasn’t going to happen. That coming weekend, we both knew, we’d be back at Shoreham Dog Rescue. 

It’s been a bit of an emotional time, here at Whistler Towers. I’m looking around and where there should be someone, there’s no one. I’m listening out, and where there should be noise, there’s no noise. For the first time in our famly life, we’re dog-less. And it’s just not right.

Our family has always had dogs. When the kids were little we had Maxwell and Lexa. When the kids were older we had Poppy and Molly and Moby. For a while we had Lily who actually lived next door, but preferred it at ours. And for a different while we had Pluto, who we brought back from Greece. Mostly we also had Rosie The Pussycat, and Princey, who was her baby. We haven’t even mentioned Tracy the Hamster (after Tracy Beaker, obvs), Fluffy the lop-eared lionhead bunny rabbit, Luna, Fluffy’s girlfriend and, as night follows day, their kids. There was a tank of goldfish all, for reasons lost in time, called Peter. 

There’s always been noise and paws. And now there’s not. It’s life’s deal, I know. You can have the love but you also have the grief. It’s not a new story, but it doesn’t get easier.

Nothing and no one could replace Maxwell. He was the Godfather – the Dogfather – the one who made it all happen. I took Maxwell to puppy training classees, but Maxwell trained me first. All single men should get a dog. Single men are, you know, single. A dog will train a single man to be a useful member of society. You have to be home for the dog. To feed the dog, to walk him, to let him out. But if something should stop you getting home when you said you’d be home – and this happens to all single men – the dog will still love you. When Maxwell went for his final walk… No, can’t talk about that. 

Poppy was a sweet. The rescue centre said she’d probably been stolen, taken to a puppy farm and put to work making babies. Then she was hurled out, found on a roadside, broken, still lactating. She needed some puppies, so we went back to the RSPCA and found the pups. Both of them fitted inside my hat. That was 14 years ago, nearly 15 now. 

Molly was the last. She stayed two weeks after Moby woofed his last woof and, as is so often the way with married couples and partners, she knew one without the other wasn’t right. 

The next day was the first day ever we woke up and didn’t go for a walk. That’s just not right, is it? A life without paws is… it’s a bit half-hearted, and leaves you empty hearted.

France is lovely. Driving around in the sunshine, stopping off pour un croissant et un cafe.. It would be lovely. But we both know that by the time you read this, there’ll be paws. And don’t even ask who’s on the cover of the next Whistler. 

Tom Waits at The Catalyst Club. It was always going to happen. Word has it that Tom was on his way and then… Covid. You know the rest.

Anyway. Alex Harvey – no, not that one – has written a book called “Song Noir” that explores the formative first decade of Tom Waits’ career, when he lived, wrote and recorded nine albums in Los Angeles; from the extraordinary debut, Closing Time where he introduced his storytelling barfly persona to the even more extraordinary surreal Swordfishtrombones.

Waits mined a rich seam of the city’s low-life locations and characters, letting the place feed his dark imagination. Mixing the domestic with the mythic, he turned quotidian, autobiographical details into something more disturbing and emblematic; a vision of la as the warped, narcotic heart of his nocturnal explorations.

Using music, images and stories, Harvey will show how Waits absorbed LA’s wealth of cultural influences to combine the spoken idioms of writers like Kerouac and Bukowski with jazz-blues rhythms, and explored the city’s literary and film noir traditions to create hallucinatory dreamscapes.

Alex Harvey is a producer and director of programmes including Panorama and The Late Show for the BBC. His later films include The Lives of Animals (2002) and Enter the Jungle (2014). Based in Los Angeles, he regularly writes on literature, film and music for London Review of Books and LA Review of Books.

The Latest Bar, Manchester Street

Wednesday August 3, 8pm

Tickets £8/5
https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/dr-bramwell/t-qjvdoyv

Pep Guardiola became friends with chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov while taking a sabbatical from football in New York. It may seem an unlikely friendship until you realise both are masters in a field where you need to anticipate an opponent’s moves and counter them accordingly. Both are masters of assessing their own weakness and dealing with them before their opponents are aware of them. 

 Hubris is not a crime, but in making any link between myself and Guardiola or Kasparov, I am certainly guilty of it however every time Montpelier Villa Women score, concede or just play and even when they don’t play, I can’t help but think of Kasparov, Guardiola and ultimately what does the opposition know about us that we don’t already know about ourselves. 

I’m Skip Kelly and I coach Montpelier Villa Women. Because of this I live in a constant state of paranoia. Melodrama isn’t a crime either. This season has been defined by our games against Pagham. We beat them 5-3 in the second game of the season, this was to be their only loss in the league as they went on an incredible winning streak including a heart-breaking 92nd minute winner in the return fixture. Results elsewhere meant Pagham finished the season as league champions however the cup semi-final presented us with the opportunity for revenge. 

Despite the distance between the teams, there is a lot of mutual respect and admiration between the teams. Pagham began their women’s team the same year as us and have navigated the murky depths of sexism and discrimination that is grassroots womens football since. As more and more established mens sides begin to address decades of inequality by investing in the women’s game, many of our rivals are in a position to offer incentives to play. Neither Pagham or Montpelier Villa are in a position to do this. Both teams don’t just play for the love of the game, they pay for the privilege. All the more reason to win. 

The Eurovision Song Contest and the Mens FA Cup Final were the scheduled curtain-raisers with the former being more fitting for the explosive chess match that awaited. Our plan was to use our strength on the flanks to overpower them, forcing their resources out wide leaving their king and queen exposed. Their plan was to score two goals in the opening 25 minutes. Unfortunately their plan was simple, effective and ultimately did not attempt to mix sporting metaphors and as a result after 25 minutes, we were two goals down. 

Half-time provided a welcome opportunity to assess our own weaknesses and attempt to address those weaknesses before the opposition found out about them. 

However we were in the unfortunate position that the opponent was not only aware of our biggest weakness but had inflicted it, leaving one of their knights staring at our king in the form of a two-goal deficit. The twenty minutes that had passed since their second goal had enabled us to implement our plan which gave the players a tremendous boost. I then loudly declared that we still have all our pieces to many bemused faces which was when I realised this was the first time I had externalized the chess metaphor. 

When Kasparov defeated a team made up of all willing participants in the world in 1999, he declared, “it was the greatest game in the history of chess.” Kasparov can have his opinions about chess but if he was in Pagham when we scored two goals in two minutes to equalise then he would have thought this game might just rival chess. If he was in Pagham when we scored an 87th minute winner to secure our place in a cup-final against our main rivals, he would have said this is the greatest game in history.  Hyperbole isn’t a crime either. 

 Your support would be appreciated, if you are a local business that wants to be associated with a progressive and ambitious womens football team that also wants to reduce their tax bill then please contact us below.

mvwfc@outlook.com

07464768514