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Food Review: An excellent Sunday roast at The Geese by Ellie Haine

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In terms of atmosphere and food, The Geese has it all. You cannot exactly say that the pub is particularly tucked away, with it only being a five-minute walk away from the level. It is also not a hidden gem – it regularly features on lists of the best Sunday roast in Brighton and always seems busy. I have to say, it certainly is one of the best that I have had in a while, and I make a mean roast myself.

The meat-based roasts were gorgeous, but they do plenty of vegetarian and vegan friendly options. A family friend got the vegan sausages and said that they were lovely. The roast garlic and thyme chicken were plentiful and had a beautiful flavour. You really could taste the herbs used. And the portion size! I mean, I functionally had almost half a chicken to myself. It is a permanent fixture on the menu, and I highly recommend it if you love chicken. Or even do not, it was that good. I eat a lot of chicken, and trust me, it is worth getting. The lamb is not a permanent fixture on the menu, but I would also recommend getting it if it is on the menu. It was a perfect balance of plenty of meat, and fat. It was beautifully tender, and I am sure even my grandad would have been happy with it which is saying something.

Now, onto the accoutrements. The cauliflower cheese was probably the best one that I have had in a restaurant. It was perfectly cheesy and was gluten free as well so that’s always a plus. They clearly used a good strong cheddar, which just elevated it perfectly. And I am from Somerset, so I know my cheese. My only wish is that it also included broccoli – although there is a separate broccoli cheese on the menu. The carrots were cooked nicely but they were a little bit plain in my opinion. The cabbage was hidden under the meat (or alternatives), but it was nice. Admittedly, I am not the biggest fan of cooked red cabbage, so I wasn’t particularly impressed with that part of the dinner. However, my mother and our family friend did enjoy it, so you’ll have to take their word for it. The roast potatoes were wonderfully crispy and are also probably one of the best roasties I have had. Once again, this is saying something because I really love roasties. The Yorkshire puddings were pretty good, and they did come with the vegan sausages so that’s always a plus. I will say, the bottoms were a little bit stodgy, and I have had better. They were probably the weakest point of the roast, and that is saying something.

Overall, it was a brilliant roast, even if we did not make it to desert. I would highly recommend the short walk to The Geese on a Sunday, just for the roasties on their own. But remember to book in advance – they are always popular.

16 Southover St, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN2 9UA

https://thegeesebrighton.com/

Cat Fletcher, Freecycle, Freegle, recycling

Climate Cafe: Cat Fletcher

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Continuing our virtual Climate Café where we look at people making a positive contribution to the planet, Gilly Smith talks to Brighton’s queen of reuse Cat Fletcher

Cat Fletcher has always been a trailblazer when it comes to environmental consciousness. She moved to England from Sydney in 1992 for love, but quickly became passionate about waste. 

Recycling had been a part of Cat’s everyday life back in Sydney; it was easy and efficient. “People simply set out their recyclables by their doors, and they were collected weekly without much hassle,” she says. The absence of a similar system in Brighton had Cat initially just sorting the leftovers at her friends’ houses after parties, collecting their bottles, cans and cardboard to recycle. “They just thought I was a bit bonkers,” she laughs.   

Her passion for reducing waste was rooted in her Sydney upbringing. Her father, a professional yachtsman, instilled in her an appreciation for materials and the work that goes into making things. “I had a good understanding of materials and the work that goes into making something. I look at things and have this X-ray vision of how have they made that? What’s that made of?” 

This hands-on approach was particularly useful when she had three young children and a tight budget.  “I just had to get a bit creative,” she says. “I used to pick things up off the street, you know, chest of drawers, a bag of stuff, and I’d take it back and see if I couldn’t paint it or fix it.” 

With an eye for an upcycling bargain, she took on a stall for years at Brighton Station’s legendary Sunday car boot. “ It was a place full of old school duck and dive guys. There were the Victorian antique boys who used to get there at three in the morning with their mining lamps, and they’d be gone by 7am.” With the kids asleep in the back of her van, she was perfecting her craft while making a name for herself and enough cash to pay the bills. It was this vibrant reuse scene that inspired Cat to take her passion to the next level. 

In 2007, when she had to downsize her home, she discovered Freecycle – an online platform for giving away unwanted items. Impressed by the concept, Cat decided to launch her own local group, Brighton Freecycle which quickly gained a loyal following. But frustrated by the rigid rules imposed by the US-based company,  she began to think about upcycling the group itself.  “I just thought, you know, I don’t need their Yahoo group. The group doesn’t even have to be called Freecycle. I can just make another Yahoo group. And so I did, at three o’clock in the morning, I just made up a name called a Greencycle Sussex, and I just transferred all the members of Brighton Freecycle onto that new group.” 

This bold move caught the attention of a Guardian journalist, who wrote a story about Cat’s independent venture. The article sparked a domino effect, with Freecycle groups across the UK abandoning the US organisation to join Cat’s new network. “By Friday night, I think 60 Freecycle groups had gone.”

A

nd so Freegle was born – a decentralised, volunteer-led network of reuse groups across the country. Over the next 15 years, Freegle would grow into a well-organized, legally recognised cooperative, with a team of dedicated volunteers supporting local groups, winning Cat a Sussex Eco Volunteer Award. 

It also won the attention of the head of sustainability at Brighton and Hove Council who was one of the judges. He invited her to join its sustainability partnership along with the main players in the city’s infrastructure. “So I turn up there and there’d be a skip outside full of furniture. I was like, ‘Guys, there’s a pile of reusable stuff being smashed to pieces outside. What’s wrong with you? Either give it to someone to use, or you can get money for metal that could be income for the council. Why are you paying a waste management company for a skip?’” 

Using Freegle to shift everything from desks to filing cabinets, windows to heaters to NHS surgeries, schools and individuals, she was soon emptying Council buildings, 16.9 tons of furniture from Bartholomews House alone. “I even gave away the carpet tiles on the floor”, she laughs. 

The clearance of the old Council HQ at Kings House won her a Naticnal Recycling Award, but also an introduction to the CEO of the UK’s largest waste management company bidding for a contract in Greater Manchester, valued at £50 million annually. As the contract demanded an element of social value, Cat spotted the opportunity to recycle the work that she was doing for the Council in Brighton and Hove and adapt it for Manchester’s specific needs. 

“They deconstructed this huge anaerobic digester, a great big industrial building, hollowed it out, brought in 20 shipping containers, turned them into art galleries and makers’ units. They brought in all the people that I’d found around Manchester that could fix, reupholster, upcycle, repair, jewellery and they all came in and got a hub, a place to work. And then they retrained 650 staff all around the tips, so now, when anyone in Manchester goes to the tip with anything that’s upcyclable, it goes back to all the different makers in that one hub and back out shops at the tips where they sell it. It makes over a quarter of a million in profit every year which goes back into the community.”

Cat can be found at the Freegle Free Shop in the Open Market on Thursdays to Saturdays

Brighton, Brighton Life

Editorial – Jan 2025

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Happy New Year. Glad tidings we bring. By the time you read this I’m guessing you’re halfway through your resolutions – that Direct Debit to the gym is already looking as appealing as Dry January. We here at Whistler Towers don’t buy into that “New Year, New Me” thing because, well, the old me’s still basically OK. A few tweaks and it’ll be fine. It’s not that often we sit down with a box of Quality Street and a small Jack. A little something sometimes, it’s OK. And walking to the bamboo Hawaiian drinks cabinet to get another glass… That’s exercise. 

We have though been watching a fair bit of telly and recently watched a rather fine series about the early days of the American airline PamAm. It’s set in 1963 and essentially it’s about style, and the style is to die for. The clean lines, the attention to detail. The clothes they wore, the angle of their hats, everything was about the cut, the line, the style. And nowhere was the style more stylish than the cars. 

You should watch PanAm just for the cars. These extraordinary, exquisite creations, all chrome and fins, were the ultimate in style over purpose. On almost every measure we’d use today, they’re ridiculous. They were unfeasibly big – the Ford Galaxie 500, an extraordinary thing of beauty, was 18ft long and did about 12 miles to the gallon – but it’s heart-breaking that that idea, the idea that style comes first, fell out of fashion. 

No one ever got frothy saying “Oh look, there’s a five-door hatchback” or “Look at the lines on that SUV”. What’s happened to car design is nothing short of tragic. 

Take away the style and all there’s left is purpose. And if all there is is purpose, then there’s little argument against getting an electric car. It’s quiet. It’s cheap to run. It doesn’t use fossil fuels. It doesn’t spit out emissions. And, for those who care, they’re surprisingly very fast. No engine, no weight. It goes from A to B. There’s no road tax. Insurance is polite. And it costs next to nothing to run. Plug it in, go to bed. Wake up, full tank, less than £20. The other thing is, you won’t only feel good, you’ll look good too . You’ll be fit and svelte because you’ll never go to a petrol station, so you never buy a useless Twix or raisin and biscuit Yorkie Double. 

And here in Brighton, electric cars make even more sense, because we’re Green. First Green MP, don’t you know? So you’d think everything is geared to supporting these environmentally friendly if slightly dull cars. Well, no it isn’t. There are precious few street chargers, which you need because if you live in a house on a street with a pavement between you and the road, you can’t charge at home because even if you could park right outside your house/flat, you’d have wires trailing out of your window across the pavement. You need a street charger. But there are precious few street chargers and they’re all in parking permit bays and so people with ordinary cars and permits park there. So, unless you’re very lucky, you can’t charge your car. If the Council was serious about supporting electric cars, it would a) provide more street chargers and b) make it so that only electric  cars can use those bays. 

We’ve got a new column by two of our Green councillors (see opoosite page). Maybe next time they can address this. 

Just a quick line to say how sad we here at Whistler Towers are about the sad demise of the i360. It’s not in our manor, but it’s in our city and we care. Take away the money, the costs, the politics, all the miserable stuff, all the practical stuff and what you’ve got is a phallus, complete with ring, rising up from the beach. It’s a little odd. Brighton’s got a rich heritage of mad stuff – think about Magnus Volk’s “Daddy Long Legs” train in the sea. It’s very Brighton. Make it more accessible – or, better, free. And make it part of our landscape

Nicholas Lezard

Nicholas Lezard – Nov 2024

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The other day I was complimented on my clothes again. A young-ish – well, much younger than me, because most people are – man in the lift at Waitrose pointed out my neckerchief and said that you didn’t see many of those around these days, and that I carried it off very well. Now, leaving aside the gross breach of protocol by talking to a stranger in a lift, and discarding the possibility that he was chatting me up (I’d never seen anyone looking less gay, and also I am too old to be fancied any more), this was simply a very nice thing to say, I decided, after I’d got over the initial shock.

The thing is, this only happens in Brighton. Not often, but about once a year. I once stopped to give a homeless man a light and he looked at my tweed jacket – which is older than I am, as it happens – and he said: “Love the look. Very retro. You carry it off.” 

Then there was the time I had just bought a new pair of glasses from Vision Express in Churchill Square. The lenses are the kind that go dark when it’s sunny, and that day was very bright. A young man about half my age said “nice glasses” as he passed me. He was halfway up the hill before the remark sank in. I remember vaguely what he looked like: dark skin, trimmed beard, black t-shirt, muscles. Despite the muscles I don’t think, again, he was gay. The thing is that the glasses were cool – think the Beatles on the back cover of Revolver, which all authorities agree was their coolest-looking period – and maybe something in my bearing suggested I knew this. I thought: this is going to happen every day I wear these. This is great.

It didn’t. But I did have someone say “wicked shoes, man” as they saw my multicoloured Converse with purple toecaps. Again, this has only happened once: but I’m grateful it has happened at all. And in case you think that this is because I am effortlessly stylish, I should say I have been mocked and even thumped because of my clothes. 

The only other places I have lived in for appreciable periods of time are London, Paris, Cambridge and Scotland, and in all of them bar Scotland I have suffered mockery and abuse. The worst time was on the Metro in Paris, when a young man unticked my grandfather’s paisley scarf from my collar and went “tee hee hee.” It was 44 years ago but I still glow red with shame and anger when I think about it.

No, the only possible conclusion is that this is Brighton for you. A town whose main principle is tolerance is actually going to be pretty welcoming towards the eccentric. I would hesitate to wear those Converse in any other city on earth, and as for the countryside, forget it. 

But thank you, Brighton. You may only compliment me once every two years, but that’s more than anywhere else has.

Cabaret, Catalyst Club, Cinecity, Cinema, David Bramwell, Horatio's Bar

David Bramwell tells the story of The Catalyst Club

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Back in the noughties TV seemed to be awash with things like Room 101, An Idiot Abroad and Grumpy Old Men, programmes that reinforced an already stablished British stereotype  – having a right good moan. Comedians like Jack Dee peddled misanthropy, as did best-selling books like Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Shit? Despite having agreed to be on the programme in the first place, Stephen Fry chose Room 101 to put in Room 101. Something we shared was a disdain for privileged celebrities on the radio and telly, bitching and complaining. (In true circular fashion, Steve Lowe who co-wrote Is It Me with Alan McArthur, later gave a talk about it at The Catalyst).

Having spent my formative years in Brighton in the early 90s going to spoken word, cabaret and open mic nights – and loving the inclusive, grass roots aspects of these  – I had an idea that an event I’d like to go to would be the antithesis of Room 101: a night where people from different walks of life shared their passions with a live audience in the form of an entertaining 15-minute talk or presentation. Topics would remain a secret, only to be revealed on the night: the best talks after all are rarely down to the subject but the speaker themselves. The only problem was – the night didn’t exist. So I decided to set it up myself. 

The Catalyst Club began at what is now the Rossi Bar on Queen’s Road, with three friends having kindly agreed to come and speak. One chose the history of the Martini, another ‘sex and classical music’ and a third told us about a road trip round the states with his band. From hereon I never looked back and have never been short of guests or new topics. 

Over the next 19 years the Catalyst Club ran at the Latest Music Bar clocking up over a thousand talks from speakers whose ages have spanned from 16 to 93 and topics that have ranged from the ridiculous (musician Ron Geesin’s collection of 10,000 adjustable spanners) to the sublime (Sally’s Kettle’s heroic account of how she rowed across the Atlantic with her mum and made it into the Guinness Books of Records). From alchemy and Hove’s secret blancmange history to Cornish Rap and the books of Patrick Hamilton, the knowledge and passions of Brightonians seem to know no bounds. 

Quentin Crisp once said that there is no such thing as a boring person, merely our need to ask more interesting questions and be better listeners. We all have our unique personal stories to tell, our singular passions to share. And you don’t have to be an academic to share your interests at the Catalyst Club or be a professional performer. 

Sometimes these qualities can be a distinct disadvantage, masking our ability to speak from the heart. It is what we do for the love of it that really matters. Of course for some folk public speaking is on par with root canal work or being trapped in a lift with Jacob Rees Mogg. It’s ok to come and just be a punter. Though it needs to be said that the Catalyst Club has nurtured a few nervous speakers over the years. One, despite saying, ‘never again’, has since travelled the world giving talks on underwater photography. 

In 2016, in collaboration with BBC Radio 4’s Archive on Four we explored the theme of public speaking, offering advice from the most practised to anxious newbies. My favourite was a speaker called Charlotte whose topic was ‘The Terrible Knitters of Dent’ and whose advice was, ‘three pints of cider hits the sweet spot.’ 

This year, Brighton’s Catalyst Club celebrated its 20th anniversary. I never imagined it would last this long. Our new home – for now at least  – is the Nightingale Room above Grand Central. Coming up in November we have magician Paul Zenon, hypnotist Danny Nemu and cinephile Linsay McCulloch. All are welcome. You never know what you might learn. 

l The next Catalyst Club is Thurs Nov 7 at the Nightingale Room Above Grand Central doors 7.30pm 

l To sign up to the Catalyst Club mailing list visit: 

catalystclub.co.uk or drbramwell.com 

A Brighton Catalyst Club and Cinecity Special: Horror on the Pier! 

Occasionally The Catalyst Club likes to go rogue and host a themed special in which we do share the topics for the night. In collaboration with Brighton’s Cinecity Festival we’re doing a horror special at the end of Brighton Pier. Our guest speakers for are cinephile Mark Keeble, who’ll be giving a tour of his favourite classic horror anthology films; Alexia Lazou on the three Kings of Horror – Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Vincent Price, while Horror actor and TV presenter Emily Booth (Pervirella, Cradle of Fear) will be sharing her personal journey through horror and dipping her claws into a few classic black and white horrors to discover if sometimes, less is more. 

Thursday Nov 14th 8pm-10pm £10 

Horatio’s Bar, Brighton Pier 

A beautifully-designed compendium of biographies, Bramwell leads us on a picaresque ride unearthing an artist’s pilgrimage around the world with a giant, inflatable ‘deadad’; the world’s biggest treasure hunt, an extraordinary eleven-year odyssey involving Evita’s mummified corpse, an ethnobotanist’s search for the psychedelic secrets of the Amazon and a couple who walked the Great Wall of China from opposite ends, only to spilt up when they finally met in the middle. It all ends with a At the very end is a Brighton-based graphic novella that incorporates the town’s hidden river, Aleister Crowley’s ashes and the occult talisman, the Hand of Glory. There’s also a story about Andy Warhol’s penis ending up on the moon – but I’m not sure we’ve got room for that here. 

l https://oddfellowscasino.bandcamp.com/merch/outlandish