Seven Cellars and Latina are part of the fabric of our world. They’re part of what makes the Dials the Dials. Now they’re under threat by the Co-op – maybe that’s what their motto “It’s what we do” really means. Louise Oliver of Seven Cellars explains what it means to her  

Seven Cellars is to me more than a shop. It represents a life-long dream to own my own business in Brighton. It represents four years studying Wine Business at Plumpton College. It is linked to friends and family, some whom are no longer with us, who helped me in so many ways to get it open, writing labels at one in the morning –  hurriedly getting an inadequate amount of change for our first days trade, poring over wine lists (and so many samples) to agonise which wines we should open with. It was enormous fun. And we were welcomed so heartily by the amazing people of Seven Dials I just knew it was going to be special. And it is.

All these things apply in different ways to Adelia at Latina café too. We were stunned to receive a call from our landlord, Bob (Patel – not his real name, his business name) to tell us he had sold our protected leases (I still don’t know how that can happen) to the Co-op for £1.5 million, thus making the Co-op our landlords.

The Co-op sent us both a letter which simply told us to change the bank details for rent payment with Immediate effect.  It was a bit rude to be honest because there was no attempt to introduce themselves, no niceties whatsoever.

They sent inspectors to “review” the properties – along with structural engineers and architects. They used a third party to tell us that they will be seeking to remove us from our properties. Under a protected lease there are only two reasons you can do that: non payment of rent or redevelopment. The redevelopment will happen. They will increase the size of the second co-op and force us to move out.

I did write to our MP but she said there was little we could do unless we can get an effective campaign to get them to back off. The expansion into our little shops is inevitable because it’s completely legal.

I wonder if it will cause consternation if we use their twitter hashtag #itswhatwedo to ask them if what they really do is put two well-loved family-owned shops out of business? I can confirm that whatever happens we will try to stay in the Dials and relocate as soon as we can if new premises can be found. We have three years yet so we are not going anywhere soon. The wheels of corporate business turn very slowly indeed.

Thank you so much for the support. So many of you are asking what you can do to help. We have been overwhelmed by the sentiment and people coming in to offer words of encouragement. Some people have sent letters to the MP and the council, some have offered to design posters. Some have offered their company on a lock in protest!

We’ve put a lot of planning and energy into Seven Cellars and Latina Café and now it feels as though all our plans are on hold and we have to live with constant uncertainty. We don’t take it personally but whether the co-op group intentionally or unintentionally are failing to give us clarity on what the next steps are the result it exactly the same and we are left worrying night after night about what the future holds. 

The irony is that Seven Cellars and Latina Café have been and still are successful and popular shops and yet they face an existential threat. On a final point and putting our own issues to one side the Seven Cellars and Latina Café premises go back to 1841. And I often wonder how many families have spent their lives trading from there and serving the community. It seems a bit brutal and unnecessary to bring it all to an end. When the Co-op already have a bigger shop just a few hundred meters away.

We are not powerless. We have a voice. There’s a petition at change.org. 

Write, shout, put it on your social media platform. Don’t be passive, be active. You have a voice. Use it. 

There’s a piece in The Argus:

https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/20063414.seven-dials-shops-faces-closure-expansion-co-op/?ref=fbshr&fbclid=IwAR0cwMs0Nzo4JKn8Xr2sb7HvjlHO7yH1S-QE3v_xbqAMok4vruUaB48Bwkw

It’s about me getting to grips with my childhood erotic obsession with watching hyper-muscular men being tortured by their male antagonists in 1980s action films. So it’s about ‘musclebound men’, and (my favourite porn category) ‘bound muscle’.” Already I know no one is reading this because anyone who was reading, right now they’re on the Fringe website, credit card in hand, looking up dates. Anyway. Where were we? “Bound muscle. but it’s also about me, as a woman, having been “bound” to this idea of the power of macho men all my life – and about what is at stake in maintaining that idea. It’s less niche than it sounds – I promise!”

Rosy is – and I say this from a completely biased point of view – extraordinary. She’s a  doctor – no, not that kind – and did her PhD on the Russian poet Mayakovsky, for which obviously she learnt Russian. She’s the Queen of The Poetry Slam, a performance poet and was behind “Hammer and Tongue” (which The Guardian said “reinvented the medium for the hip hop generation”). She also, it seems, has a bit of a fascination for men who have spent too long in enclosed rooms lifting up lumps of metal and then putting them down again. 

Where did the fascination with musclebound hunks come from? 

“Well, torturing musclemen was a major cultural obsession in the 80s, but the thing that really got me hooked was He Man: Masters of the Universe, starring Dolph Lundgren, which I first saw when I was five. There was something so powerful and inherently sexual about watching this impossibly muscular body being publicly stripped, whipped and humiliated. Of course, the beefcakes in these films always escape – so the function of the torture scenes is only to reinforce their strength – and yet they have to go through this performance of weakness to get there. Being captured, having one’s clothes removed – being objectified like that – is generally what happens to women in films, but for women it always implies a loss of power whereas for these men it only seems to make them stronger. Musclebound charts my mission to get to the heart of that power, to unpick the politics of it and to channel it into my own life by any means (and I really do mean any means!) possible.

By any means possible. What kinds of means are we talking about here?

You’ll have to come along and find out! I’m a Grade-A stalker, and I got some damn good stalking in on this project – from cruising my local bodybuilding gym all the way to the dizzy heights of Hollywood!

So who are we talking about here. Who are the top three chunks of hunk? 

“The top three would have to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren and Sylvester Stallone. Stallone has a very different kind of physique – he’s naturally quite slight compared to the other two – but he sure knows how to take a beating in submissive style (see Rambo: First Blood Part II for some great examples).” 

Where and when can we see the show?

It’s on at The Rialto theatre, at 6.30pm on 20th, 21st and 22nd May. See you there!

“Hapless, hairy, northerner” Iain Cochrane finds all human life when he knocks on doors. Sometimes he also finds iguanas, and when he’s really lucky, a bearded dragon. And people think reading gas meters is easy

But I have a smart meter!” they say…a lot. The reality is that those evil entities known as energy suppliers don’t read their own meters. They outsource all that nonsense to people like me. I literally do not know why a meter needs to read. I just go where they send me and record the numbers. Even smart meters. As I always joke, “Well I must crack on. These smart meters aren’t going to read themselves are they?” (ba dumm tish – Ay thang yew, I’m here all week)

All human life is behind these closed Brighton doors. When you ring a doorbell, you just don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for. For instance, in the 15 months I’ve been doing the job, eight women have answered the door in nothing but a towel. similarly, six men have responded to a friendly knocking in just their pants. You learn not to react but to suggest a level of modesty before any further action is taken…or not.

Iguanas – 1

Sex shops – 1

Funeral parlours – 3

Bees rescued – 7

Happily, the number of pleasant, helpful homeowners far out-number the unpleasant obstructive ones. And this being Brighton, every third house I enter has a piano in the corner or a guitar hanging from the wall which lends a bit of common interest to break the ice and establish a modicum of trust. One bloke in Woodingdean was even kind enough to let me fondle his BAFTA!

Oh, and the celebs. Modesty forbids me to divulge who and where. Or possibly it’s the current data protection laws.

Bearded dragons – 1

Tarantulas – 3

Corn snakes – 1

Convents – 1

Then there’s the occasional personality who defies pigeon-holing. Like the wonderful old lady whose short-term memory was itself a memory. 

But whose recollection of her childhood remained perfectly intact. The reason for my visit established, she then enthused that I “Run orf and read my meter and then come back, sit down and tell me all about yourself”. She began by asking me what my passion was. “Music” I said. Clasping her hands together and gazing heavenward, she waxed “Ahhh, MUSIC! If music be the food of love…” 

She was unable to finish the adage. Instead she asked me, three times in the space of five minutes, how many children I had. But then her story unfolded. She told me about how, as a little girl, she and her family ‘escaped Poland’.

You don’t meet many like her anymore (Ukraine situation pending). What struck me most of all was her passion for life. Amazing, eccentric, life-affirming lady.

People who mistake my uniform for that of a traffic warden – 10 per day (at least)

People who have threatened to “rip my (bleep) head off” – 1

Rats – 2 (both dead)

So it’s not all about recording numbers. There’s an element of social work too. Although I can’t remember specifically how I responded to the six people so far who have told me they’re terminally ill. It does somewhat put you on the spot. And I see signs several times a day warning me of an immediate danger of death by electrocution. People think reading gas meters is easy!

On the upside, I’ve dropped a trouser size and the 7 or 8 miles I walk per day has got me feeling almost fit and healthy!

So if a hapless, hairy northerner knocks on your door and asks to read your meter, just let him get on with it. And yes, he’d love a cup of tea.

And no, HE ISN’T A BLOODY TRAFFIC WARDEN!!!

For anyone who missed the last issue of The Mighty Whistler – and really, why would you do that? – there’s a new outdoor gallery in town, The Tat Modern. 

Now whereas most galleries have art as regular, ongoing fixtures, some rather peculiar and fascinating activity has been taking place with art fairies in the night. 

In the last few weeks, I have seen (to name but a few) the arrival and disappearance of a religious cross, a mirrored turtle, an arty toilet seat, a horse portrait, a square of Anchor butter and last but by no means least a chandelier lampshade.  

My initial suspicions were that someone might plonk a street cone on Lieutenant Landfill’s head, but I didn’t expect such a high level of interactive art, wrapped around the mysteries of arriving and disappearing. 

The quickest item to arrive then go, was a found lamp, with above mentioned lampshade, the porcelain vase was taken in the blink of an eye, whereas the upcycled revamped shade was left on the pavement.  

A thought ran through my head. I can’t  even give my art away. At which point an art buyer, who once sacrificed his entire classics art collection, by placing it back into auction, appeared like a pixie, from nowhere. He said when you hit a certain age and you’re surrounded by classics, your living room just feels like a musty museum. So he’s transitioned to contemporary art for a vibrant colour hit and loves auction houses. I gave him a small piece of dotty art from the Tat Modern and after telling me he still buys gold snuff boxes, he scuttled off into the streets of Brighton.  

As this encounter happened on St Patrick’s Day and to celebrate, I had a Guinness or two in the Cresent, while wearing my shiny gold shoes that light up in neon blue on the base. 

All of this, art pokery has been in the lead up to my Tat Modern fashion show, for a camera shoot I’ve been considering, using a cool established technique called hyperlapse, where the finished cut, gives off the feel of you floating along a street.  I decided to do a test run back at TM HQ and gathered all my arty upcycled fashion jackets into a robust mountain climbing zip up case and once again donned my clown shows to head across Montpelier Rd to Temple Gardens.  

I unloaded my collection of Royal Academy and Harper’s BAZAAR magazines for an eclectic backdrop, then proceeded to take photographs of myself walking in a fashion walk manner and after almost falling sideways inbetween two parked cars, I met an Irish chap, who started taking photos of me in various poses, with the aim of showing them to his painting and decorating brother, as he may want to purchase one of my Artist Dotty jackets. 

We concluded the conversation by saying lampshades may really work as fashion hats. So if you see a few shady looking people in Brighton, you know where you heard it first.  

Artist Dotty was talking to Matt Whistler 

You might not be able to teach them new tricks but everyone loves an old dog. Sam Harrington-Lowe looks at
Fat Alice and wonders what’s her secret

I’m under no illusion that the pug is an acquired taste. A taste I acquired about eight years ago with my first rescue, one-eyed Ruby Doo, and then again in 2016 with the current officer, Fat Alice.

Alice waddles towards me where I’m sitting on the sofa, and wants to be hoisted up, so she can sit on her parmesan-fragranced blanket next to me. I’ve long since gone nose-blind to her cheesy smells, although they make the visitor’s eye water. We have a face-off, like High Noon. I know she is more than capable of jumping up on the sofa, but she wants me to lift her up. Guess who gives in. 

Have you seen that famous senior pug, Noodle? If you’re on social media, he’s hard to avoid. The ‘bones or no bones’ prediction each day, as his owner Jon hoists him up to sitting position in his bed. Will he stay sitting up, or slump like a sack of spuds back to slumber, indicating a ‘no bones’ day? It’s wild. 

People love the dog seniors – cats too. Alice is not a senior; she’s middle-aged, but already showing some grey chops. Instead of finding this horrifying, like when I look in the mirror at my own jowls, I adore it. My daughter and I call her ‘elderly’, even though she really isn’t.

Why then, don’t we feel the same way about human seniors? I have a grandmother who just turned 100, and while I’m fond of her in a gosh-you’re-still-alive-please-stop-spending-my-inheritance-on-care sort of way, she’s not endearing like an old dog is. 

I have love for her, but I don’t really want to cuddle her. In fact, the closest I’ve been to her physically in recent years is when I had to emergency-remove insufficiently chewed pork chop from her throat before she choked to death in a restaurant.

But an ageing, smelly old dog, cat, or horse – I’m all over them with cuddles and the not caring about smell and moulting and scabby bits. Is everyone like this? 

Joking aside, we generally have a poor attitude towards ageing. Why are we not warm with our elders? I melt when I see a snoozy old dog gently wagging a tail and chasing the sunlight across the floor all day. But I’m far less enamoured with old people. And we really need to address this, because we are an ageing population. People are not having kids, and everyone is living longer. Hard not to envision the future as a kind of zombie apocalypse, the grey and infirm staggering around looking for blood – or Botox.

I think perhaps we need to reframe our oldies. Embrace their knowledge and wisdom, and give them the time of day. Interestingly, when I was 16, I had a job as a sleeper in an old people’s home, and I loved it. I’d chat to the oldies, look at their photos, fascinated by their pasts. These days I’d recoil. Is it my own advancing years that makes them less palatable? I can see my own mortality looming closer?

I expect one day I’m going to need helping on to the sofa, to my own smelly blanket. I’m going to forget what I’ve said, and tell young people the same thing over and over again. I’m going to dribble, and possibly whiff a bit. Frankly, I expect my daughter would say I’m already there. 

Going forward I’m going to try and apply a bit more patience and give a bit more time to oldies, and encourage everyone to do the same. Maybe we can even learn from them. If we’re lucky, we’ll be old at some point, and it would be nice to feel loved and appreciated, wouldn’t it?

Sam is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Silver Magazine – for the mature maverick

www.silvermagazine.co.uk

Whitehawk might seem an unlikely place for a football revolution, but strange things have been happening down Wilson Avenue.  Andy Davies reports

It’s difficult because those first few that come out will be seized upon and they would be seen as trailblazers for the next generation, and it shouldn’t be the case. They should just be accepted as professional footballers and be known for that rather than for their sexuality.”

Kevin Miller, vice chairman of Whitehawk FC, is talking about the last great taboo in the biggest sport in the world. 

Whitehawk might not seem the obvious place to fight racism, sexism and homophobia, but Whitehawk FC has been confounding preconceptions for quite some time. Founded in 1945, the club has, in recent years, been heavily praised for its attempts to tackle homophobia in football. The steps leading up into the stands are painted “Love”, “Peace”, “No Racism”, “No Sexism”, “No Violence”, “No Homophobia”. Above the coach’s dugouts hangs a huge rainbow flag.  The work done by the club has gained backing from sponsor Utilita Energy, Football Supporters Association and anti-racism organisation Kick it Out amongst many. “I think it’s a testament to the work we’ve done in the past that’s given us the opportunity to call upon the football opportunities and get approval. Some of the work that we’ve been doing over the last three or four years with inclusion, diversity and certainly with the LGBT community, it’s given us a bit more credibility. 

Earlier this year, Whitehawk launched an initiative “Football vs Homophobia” (the inaugural match was due to be played on February 19th but was called off due to Storm Eunice). “One of the key reasons Utilita are sponsoring us is because of the work we were doing with Rainbow Rovers (Whitehawk’s affiliated LGBTQ+ team). 

“Rainbow Rovers side was set up by Sophie Cook and she approached me with Guy Butters, an ex-Brighton and Tottenham player. They wanted to put forward a charity match between an LGBT team and a Premier League all-star team. We said ‘Why don’t we do it at Whitehawk because it’s got the reputation’. We kind of went from there. It went down well with the fans, as they’re inclusive and very welcoming. 

“Utilita noticed what we were doing. Our first Rainbow Rovers game was in 2019 and we played a team of ex-Premier League all-stars and we managed to get Sky Sports to cover the whole game. I think Utilita realised because the city we were in and the free-thinking attitude Brighton has, it gives us the opportunity to be more expressive.

“When we launched it, we thought it would be a great opportunity to highlight LGBT issues in football and what better place to do it than a very progressive place like Brighton.” 

A progressive place like Brighton hasn’t always opened its arms to Whitehawk which has often been perceived as being outside of the “cool, progressive” side of Brighton. “It’s had a reputation in the past. The Whitehawk estate, 15 to 20 years ago, was one of the most deprived in Europe.  There was a disconnect between its local club and the community and we’ve tried really hard to re-establish that connection. “We recognise that those people might not be into football, but they may be into the occasion of being part of Whitehawk fanbase. When they come in, they can pick up a drum, sing ‘Homophobia, We Say No’, have a laugh, drink a beer.”

In October 2021, Australian A-League player Josh Cavallo became the first active professional player to come out as gay. It is surely no secret that there are some gay or bisexual players in the Premier League. Former Manchester United left back Patrice Evra has claimed that there are at least two gay players at every Premier League club. 

With the fight against homophobia in men’s football, did Kevin think it would be long before we see an active Premier League player come out as gay? “If you look at the women’s game, it is accepted. It’s been known for years and no one bats an eyelid. Because of the vastness of the sport across the world, it’s going to be highlighted. 

It should be a day where every gay person at every football club across the world comes out. The press wouldn’t know where to focus their attention and would make a massive global statement. That’s the point we want to get to, where people say ‘So what?’”

I sometimes feel a bit of a fraud, writing for The Whistler, because I don’t live in West Hill any more. And even then I lived on its Western frontier, Dyke Road. I now live about ten minutes’ walk away, off Montpelier Road. It is a testament to the editor’s commitment to free speech that he lets me write for this publication at all. 

Life on the frontier was hard in those days, it’s why I moved. The worst thing was the regular incursions of raiding parties from Hove, who’d turn up in Mad-Max style customised Nissan Leafs and pinch all the best olives from Ricci’s Italian Deli without so much as a by-your-leave. Or should that be Nissan Leaves? 

I campaigned strenuously for armed border guards and tank-proof barriers, but you know what councils are like. They drag their feet until the problem sort of goes away. (The last time I was up that way, the Seven Dials Co-op had been gutted. This completely freaked me out. The Co-op may not have been the loveliest supermarket in town, but it was very much the nearest, and the idea of having to another quarter mile down the road to the next one made me come over all faint. I hope it’s back to normal now.)

Hey, but we’re all still in the BN1 gang, right? Well, I’m not so sure. BN1 is a funny old postal district, extending like a fan (the kind you hold in your hand and flap to look coquettish, not the kind that goes on the ceiling) from its southern border, a strip of land on the seafront that is many, many times smaller than the arc of its northern border. And it goes on for ages. 

You’d think that everyone who lived in the same postcode would have a pretty common identity, but no. I remember looking for a flat when on the run from the maniacs in Hove – I’d crossed one of their warlords in a Nocarello olive deal gone wrong – and going miles up the Dyke Road on foot in awe at how suburban it became, and how quickly, when compared to the image of itself that Brighton likes to portray. A trip to Devil’s Dyke last summer really brought home to me how big, and how various, BN1 is.

I looked on the internet for a bit to see if anyone had anything to say about this unusual situation. I didn’t find anything pertinent, but I did notice on the Zoopla website that it pointed out that Brighton is in the county of Sussex, which is not news to me, and that Sussex has a population of 0, which is. 

I haven’t gone outside today so I can’t check whether this is true, or whether this is a cock-up from the website people at Zoopla. I hope it’s the latter because the editor is taking me to the Regency for lunch. (The Editor also has a commitment to lunch). If it’s the former, at least the pirates of Hove are no longer a worry.

My Policeman by Bethan Roberts

Diallers might remember the disruption last May when Harry Styles (gratuitous pic, below)  came to town and lorries and crews took over the area for filming of the adaptation of My Policeman by Bethan Roberts, which was first published in 2012 and was a Brighton City Reads book choice.  

In Peacehaven in 1999 Marion narrates her story through memoir and flashbacks to Brighton in the early 1950s when as a young teacher at St Luke’s, she falls in love with Tom, her best friend’s handsome older brother. He teaches her to swim in the shadow of the pier, and when he asks her to marry him she is overjoyed, despite hints that he is “not like that” and his close friendship with Patrick, a cultured museum curator.

The clue to the novel is in the word ‘my’ – Marion and Patrick both love Tom, and have to share him. It’s a heartbreaking tale of a threesome obsessed with each other in various ways. Tom needs the safety of his marriage, Patrick is besotted with Tom, and Marion won’t let go. Patrick opens up Tom’s eyes to a glamorous sophisticated new world. At times Marion’s obliviousness seems unbelievable, but her dawning realization of the truth and her reactions feel true to life.

Roberts was inspired to write the novel by EM Forster, who once lived in in Brunswick Place and fell for a married policeman 20 years his junior. Because the story is told through Marion’s and Patrick’s point of view, Tom is strangely less present in the book. Although both sides of the story are completely gripping, Patrick’s narration is the more engrossing. 

We also see two sides of 1950s Brighton, and the era and seaside atmosphere are beautifully conjured up with the underground gay scene – drinkers in The Spotted Dog, drag queens selling sequins on the seafront – and a straight majority who get on with their lives none the wiser. Plus there’s an element of tension with Tom being a policeman and the fact of homosexuality being illegal. 

My Policeman is a moving and sad portrayal of two people obsessed with man. The film is due for release later this year, with Harry Styles as Tom, Emma Corrin as Marion, and Rupert Everett as the older Patrick. 

Dymphna Flynn is development producer at Pier Productions and judge on the Costa Book Awards

1976. Ground Zero. My first year at university, and my first encounter with Brighton’s Seven Dials.

Reader, it was a dump. Not even a glamorous dump. I’d come from an edgy part of north London, but areas in Brighton in the mid 70’s were pretty tasty, as they used to say in The Sweeney.

The site of The Cow (nee The Tin Drum) was a Spa ‘supermarket’. But really, you took your life in your own hands passing over the threshold. Who knew who or what lay within. What you could be sure about was being hustled by a gauntlet of junkies on the way out. As this was way before The Walking Dead, there was no shuffling, snarling zombie precedent on which to assess the level of danger, but you could be pretty sure that things may well end badly if you did not hand over at the very least a fag.

Nonetheless a lack of other options meant this was a regular gauntlet to be run. The chi chi wine shops and innumerable coffee joints which pepper the area now were long
pre-dated by some horrible greasy spoons and a smattering of shops so run down it was difficult to determine whether or not they actually sold anything or were in fact fronts for other nefarious operations. There was for example a faded antique shop opposite The Flour Pot which, in my head, was clearly an elaborate facade for a hive of criminal activity. 

The area was also well known as a red light stop off for punters hopping off the London Victoria trains. A short, gasping march up Gloucester Road and they were in streetwalker nirvana. 

One of my early rental flats in the area was always popular with friends coming down from London. It may have been seedy, but it was seedy and central. And if you were stumbling out of the Zodiac club on West Street at 4am partially deafened by Dexys Midnight Runners’ blasting you insensible, then the relatively brief sway to to Seven Dials was a Godsend.

An old actor buddy of mine, Sean Wood, came down from London for a knees up one icy cold winter’s night, and the familiar three in the morning lock-in at The Good Companions saw us in high spirits.

Being a relative lightweight I passed out pretty much as soon as I stumbled upstairs to bed, but unbeknown to me, my old mate Sean had sensibly decided to remove all his clothes and clean his teeth before hitting the sack.

All fine, except, fatally, he turned right rather than left out of the spare downstairs bedroom, and the door he opened thinking he was nipping into the bathroom was in fact the front door onto Dyke Road. Too late, realising his error, as he turned with horror to scramble back into the warmth, the door had slammed firmly shut.

A stark naked, highly inebriated actor went into full Fred Flintstone mode with increasing panic. It was after all by now 4am on a particularly freezing. February night. And I was out for the count.

It would have been easier to wake the dead, and (when he finally did manage to speak to me again), Sean reported several kerb-crawling drivers slowing to offer him alternative accommodation for what was left of the night. 

As I breezily said when he finally managed to wake me (by screaming through the letter box for 45 minutes), the wandering tribes of the Kalahari would have regarded a single night under a fixed roof protected from the elements as a ridiculous luxury. And anyway, these were the days of the metaphorical short, sharp shock. Sean wasn’t quite so philosophical about it. 

Once described as a town in search of a fight, Brighton has always had its rough underbelly. While the current levels of gentrification belie its impossibly hard heritage, if you dig deep enough you’ll be able to flush out whispering echoes of what over the centuries has made the town so… so different.

Of course we all know of the romantic associations of writers like Greene and the perpetually soused Patrick Hamilton, with other greats such as Malcolm Lowry rarely far from a piss up and a punch up in some Regency bar or other. But Brighton has always been about an inherent otherness. It’s indefinable. 

As Proust said, you have to live it and you have to feel it. For we measure our lives in encounters, in off-grid relationships and a constant desire to make sense of the insensible. And to know Brighton is to know you can never really know it. But you can feel it.