Tag Archives: Brighton

Brighton Life, Pickleball, Sport, The Arts

Joy + Play = Pickleball

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Pickleball? Heard of it? Done it? Do it? Ceri Barnes Thompson goes for a dink… 

About 18 months ago the American podcaster, author, social worker and researcher Brene Brown posted a photo of herself on Instagram (right) that really caught my eye. She was wearing aviator shades, a headband and was holding a little racket and holey ball the like of which I’d never seen. She was also, importantly, wearing the most enormous smile. 

She wrote underneath this sunshine of a photo “For me, joy + play = pickleball. The court might be the only place in the world where I’m fully in the now. Not thinking ahead, worrying, wondering—just keeping my eye on the ball and my head in the game.”

What is this “pickleball”? Surely she meant “paddleball” or “raquet ball”? I asked myself, keen to achieve anything close to the level of happiness in that photo. I swiftly googled ‘Brighton and Hove Pickleball clubs’ and sent out an email to Richard Ellis hoping to join any kind of waiting list going. 

I got a swift and warm reply inviting me to come for a beginners ‘dink’. A week later I was on a court in Mouslecomb with around 16 people I’d never met before, welcomed and guided through the rules as a newcomer then straight into the deep end of playing pickleball. They take no prisoners those pickleballers, let me tell you. 

Liz is a whiz and keeps you on your toes. Paul is steady and stealth. “Stay out of the kitchen!” they yell! Before I knew it everyone was gathering up the gear and saying goodnight. 

Two hours had passed and Brown’s words couldn’t have been more true. I was elated. Maybe from running around – it’s a great work out. Maybe from feeling so welcome amongst strangers – it’s hugely comforting. Maybe from laughing out loud at myself. 

It’s really quite embarrassing when something that looks so easy is actually kind of hard. Maybe from the challenge of learning a new game – it’s very rewarding – but mostly I just felt like my over-stretched and stressed-out brain had had a break. Just like Brene, I’d experienced two hours just fully immersed in the game thinking of nothing else but that crazily lightweight ball and how to keep up with the rotation of each game. I came out feeling refreshed on a level I’ve not felt for years.

I asked Richard when he’d started playing the game. He’d been in Thailand looking for a doubles tennis game and they only played pickleball so he’d given it a go. 

Pickleball is often described as a mixture of tennis, badminton and ping pong – invented by three dads in the 60’s in the States for their bored kids during the summer holidays it’s massive in the USA now. The court is smaller than badminton and the net is low, like a tennis net. 

Richard and his wife loved it and the fact it’s easier on the joints than tennis so on returning to the UK they searched – a bit like me – once they came home to Brighton for picklers here. Finding one other couple – aces Joe and Liz – they persuaded the Stanley Deason people to let them mark up a badminton court for pickleball and started to play. 

Putting it out on Facebook they soon got a regular cohort of players with new people joining weekly. I asked him what it was about pickleball he loves. “I usually feel elated, glad to have played feeling we have had some good exercise with a great bunch of people, hoping to improve with time”. Jacqueline, another club regular who started playing the game in Florida in 2014, lives in rural Sussex and rides horses. She loves pickleball as it uses very different groups of muscles and is a good aerobic workout. She loves the people she meets as she has to travel widely to play – Bexhill, Eastbourne, Burgess Hill, Brighton, and she stressed “It’s not an old people’s game – it’s for everyone. It’s very social”. She’s right. 

On the day I played there were players from 18 to 80 – and the 80-year-old woman was one of the most sprightly and skillful on the court. I found it can be as gentle or as hardcore as you like – some of the games were seriously impressively skillful dinkathons with extremely competitive members sparring. 

Richard and Trish devote a lot of time to running something which, as with all community efforts like this, really delivers a huge scoop of joy to those who play. Sessions are broadly Thursday nights and Tuesday mornings give and take a few logistical bits and bobs. It’s harder for them than it should be due to the lack of facilities – they’ve recently moved to Moulescombe Leisure Centre, always searching for somewhere reliable to play. You can find them on Facebook – Brighton and Hove Pickleball Club – or if you google them, you can contact lovely Richard Ellis directly. You won’t regret it. And maybe we can persuade Brighton and Hove council to install some courts dedicated to the Mighty Pickleball. 

Sam Wollaston of The Guardian recently wrote about the game – coming to it with a hefty dollop of cynicism not least because he finds the name silly – ending up just like me, completely energised and turned around. “The thing about pickleball”, he said, “is that you can play at any level. As my level increases, I will play with greater intensity. And it will, and I will. Because it turns out I’m brilliant at pickleball! A total natural, nimble of foot and thought… the deftest of dinkers!”. 

That’s honestly how it makes you feel, very swiftly and without all the weight of tennis’ ladders, rankings and years of play. As George Bernard Shaw said “We don’t stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing”. 

Come on, have a dink! 

l Check out the Facebook page for Brighton and Hove Pickleball Club

Brighton Life, Nicholas Lezard

View From The Hill – Nicholas Lezard – August 2023

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I know I’ve written about it before, but I’m going to write about it again. Because it’s the pub. And not just any pub, but the Battle of Trafalgar, which you will know because you pass it on the road up the hill from the station. For some time I avoided it on the grounds that no pub that close to a train station could be any good. How foolish I was. 

Space is tight in The Whistler so I won’t describe it in detail and you probably know it already. Except to say that it is, and this is not meant disparagingly at all, what my children approvingly call “an old man pub”. That is: it doesn’t have TV screens or music, live or recorded. And people of all ages, not just the elderly, can be found there. I wish the fireplace worked so it could be even cosier in winter but you can’t have everything and besides the place really comes into its own in summer, because of its large and well-placed beer garden. Space can be at a premium in Brighton, and even though the town is well-stocked with pubs – the second-highest density of them in the country, after somewhere in Liverpool – there aren’t that many with such a wide-open space, especially in West Hill.

Of course, what makes a pub isn’t just its space, or its look, but the people who run it, and Mel, who has been running the place for more years than I know or can count, has made it the place we love (hiring the right staff has a great deal to do with it; they are wonderful).

And then Covid happened; and other things; and their bills went up as their customer base went down. I don’t go there as often as I’d like to because of similar budgetary restraints but when I popped in there and heard what the mark-up on their energy bills was going to be I had an attack of the vapours and I wasn’t even going to be liable.

So the Battle’s future became up for grabs. The sum being asked that I heard to take it over was … large. And their energy bills had gone up fivefold. Things were looking bad. Few things are more depressing than the closure of a pub, more damaging to a locality. And the companies that own and run most of the pubs in this country are not known for their philanthropy.

Everything seemed to be up in the air until the very last minute. On the day I write this, though, the pub has not closed down, but has changed hands. 

I spoke to Mel about this: she says that the new managers – who have also taken over the Green Dragon (a pub with, shall we say, a history) – seem like the kind of people who won’t be changing the Battle for the worse any time soon. 

She’s going to miss the place but says we should give the new managers a chance. So let’s do just that.

Brighton Life, Eating Out, Food & Drink, Gull About Town, Uncategorized

Gull About Town – June 2023

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There’s a real buzz in the bird world this month as a whole new community heads down to the beach. And as every scavenger knows, where there’s a day out at the beach, there’s a delicious trail of leftovers for the more discerning birds.  

Your Gull has already spotted the tasty treats the Salty Sea Birds, those cold water swimmers we share a nod with in all weathers, have in the pockets of their Dry Robes. So it was with beak open, she flew to check out the chow at Brighton’s new Sea Lanes down at Black Rock (see below). 

Sadly, the healthy breakfast bars were not quite what your Gull would call rich pickings, but a hop onto a thermal to follow some likely ladies over to the Bison Bar did the trick. As the BBQ fired and the sun set, the variations on a humble burger dazzled your Gull. 

It’s a theme along the beach. From Kemptown’s growing food scene to Lucky Beach and down to Rockwater in Hove, the competition is more about how to fake your meat than luring the locals. 

Holding court right in the centre of Brighton’s beachfront, Lucky Beach Cafe (pictured) is rated in the top 20 sustainable businesses in the UK with the highest rating by the Sustainable Restaurant Association.  But it’s not all about pea protein; after  years of picking at its delicious vegan burger, your Gull was delighted to find its new fresh crab and nduja tostadas with lobster aioli popping out of the bin bags after a busy night on the beach. 

But the Gull has always been about the best ingredients, vegan or regeneratively farmed, and so was rather thrilled to find Salt Shed bringing brisket all the way from Brick Lane to North Laine. Flying back to West Hill as the sun set, the smell of salt beef wafting up from Church Street was enough to give your bird a lift onto the final thermal home. 

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Best local in Brighton: The Eddy

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It was like when Usain Bolt was at his peak. Everyone would line up, but everyone knew they were racing for second place. No one minded. It was just the way it was. It was like that when the Bravos were announced and there was a category for “The Best Local” and The Eddy lined up on the grid. You see, the Bravos aren’t voted for by industry or by commerce or so-proclaimed experts, they’re voted for by the public. By us. (Ed’s disclaimer. The Eddy is The Whistler’s local and yes, we’re a little bit biased).

Gilly: Congratulations. First of all, how does it feel? 

Hatt: I think it’s the reward of all the hard work. It’s great to know that people obviously love our pub as much as we love it ourselves. 

Gilly: What does it mean “Best Local”? ‘The Pub’ in Britain has always been about community. It’s somewhere you go to be welcomed into a place that you’d call a second home. And in a time when people are so wrapped up in the social media world, this is the real world, isn’t it? 

Hatt: We’ve always tried to get to know the locals, been aware of people in the streets, recognise people, say hello. And then call people by their name. It’s all about remembering the people and knowing that they’re important. Welcoming people when they come into the pub and when they leave the pub saying goodbye, thanks for coming. All those little details make people feel special. When we took the pub over (Hatt and Mark Reed took over the pub the month before the first Covid lockdown) we had to really work at it because nobody used to come in here. The locals hated this pub because it was like a club with horrible music and drugs at the weekend. So it was a lot of hard work. Mark’s pretty good at schmoozing people and we just really put our arms around the neighbourhood. 

We’ve got a fantastic team. People like Bethany are so important to us  and to the locals who come here. 

Gilly: As a punter I know I’m going to get looked after, I know there’s not going to be any trouble. It feels really safe for women coming out on their own, they can sit at the bar knowing that they’re completely safe. 

Hatt: We have our eye on everybody, we’re here all the time and know how it all works. 

Jess: People don’t realise how much work we actually put into the pub and what makes all our events successful is the amount of detail that we put into it. Hatt and I are really good team. We’re absolutely on the same page. We both come from fashion world, the art world, and we’re used to organising shows. 

Gilly: So take me through the Bob Ross Night as an example. (Bob Ross is painter, big hair…  you’ll have to go to one of the nights  and see) Tell us about the presenter, Dolly Rocket. 

Jess: Dolly Rocket and I were together in a cabaret group in the 1980s and Dolly has gone on to become a notorious Brightonian. She runs Proud Cabaret in Kemp Town. And when we realised that Bob Ross Nights were a thing, we decided to make it more fun, throw in a bit of glitter and glitz, So we asked Dolly and she jumped straight on board. 

Hatt: She’s the long lost love child of Bob Ross, so she comes in this Bob Ross outfit and she’s larger than life and really funny. It puts all the painters at ease. 

Jess: When we organise an event, we think how would we like it to be. Each time, we set up an easel and get everything – all the brushes, the paint,the palate, everything in place. We ask oursleves: ‘Have I got somewhere for my drink? Have I got somewhere I can sit down? Is it comfortable?’ This is how we plan our stuff. We have very high standards, and we want our guests to really enjoy themselves and go away.

Hatt: All the events are really good fun. Quite a few people just come to sit and watch. I don’t think we’ll ever do events in the pub where we’re closed for private parties birthday parties. It has to be open to the public, you know, otherwise it becomes an exclusive thing. And we don’t want that. We live upstairs, so it’s our home. It’s as important to us as it is to everyone else.

l67A Upper Gloucester Road, Brighton BN1 3LQ

http://www.facebook.com/eddybrighton

Brighton Life, Nicholas Lezard

Nicholas Lezard – View From The Hill (June 2023)

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Do yourself a big favour and go to the Brighton Museum and see the exhibition of Roger Bamber’s photography. I’ve written about him before here: he was a friend, and he died last autumn. The exhibition has the splendid title “Out of the Ordinary”, which is beautifully double-edged, for he would turn settings that were ordinary and make them extraordinary. I wonder if this is why he moved to Brighton: because this is a town like no other, where surreal moments are a daily experience. (I was staying with him when the Grand was bombed in 1984, and, alerted by his News Desk, we raced down to be among the first on the scene. That might not have exactly been surreal, but it was certainly out of the ordinary.)

He was both a news photographer and a – what is the term? Art photographer? That doesn’t seem right, but his photographs are definitely art. I would tease him that his job only took him 1/250th of a second to do, but this was nonsense: he would set up his shots meticulously to get the right effect, often at great personal risk to himself. You look at his photo of men working on the Clifton Suspension Bridge and ask: hang on, how did he get up there? He would scorn safety harnesses, saying they got tangled up with his camera straps. There’s a photo of a microlight pilot achieving the world height record. Look at it without reading the caption next to it and it might not occur to you for a minute: this picture is taken from above.

He got along with everyone. The pop stars here include Freddie Mercury, Bowie, Mick Jagger, Suzi Quatro, but he also captured the working lives of railwaymen (he had a thing for steam trains), fringe performers, toy museum curators, the eccentric and the unusual. These latter he never mocked or ridiculed: he brought out their essence in a manner of pure celebration. He also had a thing for buses, and when he told the editor of Bus Times that his was the most boring magazine he’d ever seen, he followed this up with an offer to take the front cover photo for each issue, the condition being that he be allowed to borrow a bus for a day to get it into an unusual situation. Fittingly, there is a bus named after him now, as Brighton honours its best children: the 25, which takes you to the Amex Stadium.

Brighton was where his heart was. Come not just for the celebrity and news photos, but for the pictures of thew Fringe, the West Pier in flames, the seafront covered under a rare fall of snow. The people in it look like Lowry stick figures: the effect was deliberate. Few people has a way with a camera like Roger did. When his pictures were in the paper (which they were for decades; and he won numerous press photography awards), you could spot it was his from across the room.

Pic: credit © Roger Bamber/TopFoto