On Friday in the morning I explored central Brighton on foot, the shopping centre and shopping street parallel to the sea front towards Hove, and then in the evening the North Laine and the South Lanes and the cultural area around the Royal Pavilion. In the afternoon I went to the pictures at the Odeon Cinema adjacent the travel Lodge.
Yesterday or perhaps the day before I wrote about my understanding of Brighton having become several distinct communities, conference and holiday centre, two university and recreation town, commuter, retirement and gay town. I did not set out with any intention to establish how far I had correctly judged the situation but now a couple of days later I have to express pleasant surprise at its cosmopolitan sophistication. On my first evening I had a brief conversation with a young man in the lift on his way to watch the match and drink beer with friends and discovered that he came from Jesmond in Newcastle and therefore knew South Shields well but wished to move to the south coast. I now know why.
After two days watching cricket, one day in the sun but with a chill wind, and the second hiding from the bitter cold behind glass or clinging to the back of the lower member’s pavilion on a park bench against the wall, I needed recovery and exercise. As forecast there had been rain overnight and it was after eleven before the skies brightened. I had eaten croissants and drank coffee around between six and seven and then snoozed before undertaking some writing and making my way to the car to transfer the remains of the evening meal and to begin to sort out the rear before the transfer to the Hove Travel Lodge the following morning. As the skies still looked threatening I decided to make my way first to the Churchill centre and do so without climbing the Hill.
Brighton and Hove has a population of 150000 and is located at the western edge of the county of East Sussex. Worthing which I was visiting next has a population of 100000 and is the largest town of West Sussex and in between is the unexpected port of Shoreham by sea, unexpected because I had no idea before visiting that there was such a large port in the form of a waterway created by the mouth of the river Adur and a huge bar which extends to Southwick and Hove. Its population is around 20000.
Brighton the town is built around a hill with shopping and recreation district south of the railway station going down towards the sea front. The main shopping road extends for over a mile east west and part of this road is restricted to buses and taxis and in order to get to the major car parks it is wise to first reach the sea front coast road and then taking the turning past the Brighton centre, which also contains the Odeon cinema, the Travel Lodge and with the Grand Hotel also on the sea front adjacent. I made the mistake of trying to enter the parallel road on my way to the Hove ground on the second day and had to enter the bus only road area at one point. It was all very confusing until working out the system operated.
On Friday I missed the easiest entry into the Churchill shopping centre development which takes on into the Debenhams store with entry from the road between the Travel Lodge and the NCP Car Park. I did find a way from the outer centre car park which involved negotiating incoming and outgoing cars, noticing as I did that a stay here of more than 12 hours to 24 costs a massive £25 designed to restrict use to shoppers and day visitors. I joined a number of passengers from the car park basement who knew that the main entry level into the shopping mall was on the fourth floor and then take the escalators up the next level to reach the front centre street level and the buses.
I felt peckish and made my way to the highest level where there is small food court, MacDonald’s, Spud U Like, a ubiquitous Subway type filled baguette outlet and an healthy organic fruit drinks and hot good restaurant. I was in the mood for a MacChicken, French fries and diet coke and knowing this was unhealthy managed to tip most of the coke onto the floor, a just punishment I felt for the eat the food at a table overlooking the central area where down below a stage had been erected with a cabin like changing area for five tall models giving a professional fashion show with music, lighting, a compere and the designer taking a bow to the bemused shoppers who had intended to pass by.
I picked up a copy of a free magazine Latest 7 which combined property advertisements with articles about local entertainments and I was impressed by a piece by Will Harris on Britain’s I got talent and the sensation of the Scottish singing lass Susan Boyle. I must send him an email later.
It was time for a walk so the decision was taken to travel the shopping road east west towards Hove. I had forgotten that the only Wilkinson’s on this part of the South Coast was at Worthing and not Brighton so misguidedly went in search and to buy lottery tickets of the evening’s £80 million Euro draw. The street and the walk seemed longer than indicated by the return journey or went travelling by bus.
There were two noteworthy discovering and both involved food. La Fourchette is Brighton based with adjacent restaurant and separate bar restaurant and a separate restaurant in Kemptown, a patisserie and a Kemma bar. The place had contemporary European style and a mouth watering menu which needed a partner in gastronomic indulgence for the main course and pudding as well as the wine choice.
For starter I could not make up my mind between Mediterranean King Prawns sautéed in a parsley sauce, garlic and butter £11 or the Pan roasted red Mullet salad with oven dried tomato sauce and a petite salad £7 but the wine choice was a half bottle of Pouilly fume Chateaux Favray 2007 £13. Then we would share a shoulder of lamb slow braised and marinated in 25 spices with mixed vegetables and sautéed potatoes and a bottle Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 £20 and then a shared pudding of Assiette Gourmande, a chef’s platter of portions of all the sweets on the menu for £14 drank with Bollinger £55 and followed by Liquor Coffees for a total of £9 about £150 for two including gratuities.
The second discovery was Taj ( Mahal International) in the Mediterranean end of the street. This was the most interesting store encountered on my travels with a stupendous selection of olives in 2 kilo kegs, tins, cans bottles and served loose and fresh from large vats and with every size and stuffing.
I then went back to my room which had been cleaned and tidied for a second wash and a cup of tea and relax before going to the pictures in the afternoon. After a cup of tea I went out on an evening explore. There was still the cold wind but it had brightened up although I was not inclined to follow those heading for the pier along the sea front. My first destination was towards the cultural area and as I walked up the hill I was joined by a young man with a pedal bicycle hording on the pavement accompanied a young woman guide leader and a part of about ten young women dressed in green frocks and sashes advertising but can I remember what. Before getting to the cultural area I saw a number of younger people remembering everyone under sixty is young heading into the Lanes to my right, twisty and leading down to the sea front and was tempted by a piano at the Friends meeting House where for a modest few pounds there was a 90 minute concert and a light buffet. I needed to explore and to exercise so I passed and the various inns crowded out in preliminary for the rest of the evening entertainment. There are by the some 400 inns, pubs, restaurants and clubs in the town ranging from the sophisticated already mentioned to the tourist sea front, everywhere chain, earthy environmental and those used by the gay community the largest in the UK including London with its annual Gay Pride event.
The cultural area lies next to the Brighton Pavilion and a wide traffic free piazza before theatres and facilities used for the fringe performances leading to the North Laines. Here environmentalism, the organic and bohemianism was much in evidence and an interesting hotel whose name I forgot which had a lounge bar in a shop window. And then there is the Komedia a multi performance centre boasting 700 activities a year with two most nights featuring comedy, cabaret, club and music as well as performance for young people. Before going home I bought a two glass bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon with two cheese twists but what else I had I did not note or remember. The lights on the seventh floor were fused at one point, perhaps a lady used the wrong voltage hair dryer was one suggestion but it was soon fixed and I Found out that only five of the twenty rooms on the floor were occupied at the time. I conveyed one lot of luggage to the car and then bought a diet coke with ice at the bar around 11pm. There were lively sounds from the young until the early hours.
Fort anyone who has not seen State of Play and intended to do so Goodbye for now. It was my most enjoyable film of the year, requiring constant attention and a great plot with an ending twist which I worked out the bare bones but only just before it was revealed.
The film is an American update of the equally brilliant six part British BBC TB drama series in 2003 which won awards for Nighy and David Morrissey and also starred James McAvoy and concerned the death of a young woman researcher to a Member of Parliament.
The film opens with a black man running for his life and being executed for the metal case he is carrying. You it is more than a drug killing the police believe because the behaviour of the assassin indicated a professional hit and he also attempts to kills a pizza delivery man on a bicycle. Chasing this story for a national newspaper is Russell Crowe, long haired unkept but at the top of the job with Helen Mirren as his editor boss concerned about impressing the new owners of the paper .
Congressman Stephen Collins is participating in a committee investigating the activities of Points Corps a mercenary force which is involved in conducting work on contract for the army abroad as part of a government out sourcing operation. His research assistant appears to have committed suicide or had an accidental death on her way to work and fellow journalist who concentrates on the internet edition is investigating the sexual aspect in terms of the relationship between the assistant and the married Congressman. An added complication in the story at this point is that Crowe roomed with the Congressman, Ben Affleck at college and also had a relationship with the wife of the Congressman during their college days. As the story develops it emerges that the girl researcher was placed by Media Point to spy on the work of the Congressman but she stopped doing so when she fell in love and became pregnant by him. It began to look that she had been killed by Media Point when she failed to deliver further information and their involvement might become known as a consequence of the relationship.
It also emerges that in addition to the overseas involvement, Media Point is responsible for the creation of a raft of companies successfully bidding for multi billion homeland security contracts and the reason for knowing about the research of the Congressman and ensuring that he is silenced or removed from the committee. At one point a female friend and club hostess alleges to the press that she and the murdered girl were involved in group sexual activity with the Congressman as a further means of discrediting and eliminating the threat he poses. A later revelation is that the senior politician who suggested the girl as a research worker is also linked with Media Point who have an operation at the Watergate building!
And the twist in the tale comes from the efforts to find the killer of the black man in the opening sequence. He and his druggy girlfriend operated a racket of stealing brief cases of businessmen and then selling them back to feed their habits. In this instance the case contained surveillance photographs of the murdered and a weapon which suggested that a hit was being planned. The pizza delivery man is then killed while under police protection in hospital by a riffle at a distance from an adjacent taller building and Russell barely escapes with his life when discovering the base use by the assassin. The congressman with support from his wife agree to make a statement to the paper about his knowledge of the situation but Russell holds publication of the story when he puts together the actual scenario. The Congressman and served with the assassin in Vietnam and the twist is that the Congressman began to have suspicions about the role of his assistant and also the seriousness of the relationship and the implications for his marriage and political career. He argues that he intended for the girl to be frightened and that his former military colleague had gone to far. However this is shown to have been a further attempt to limit responsibility because of a telephone conversation between them on the need to kill the pizza man and the girlfriend of the black drug addict, four deaths in total. It is also true that Points Corps were prepared to go considerable length to protect their growing financial interests.
The film covers the problems of media ownership and political interests and the problems faced by newspaper media by 24 news TV and Blog writing stories. It has a relevance given the stories about Ministerial and parliamentary expenses and how to use the system. It was a good day.
Yesterday or perhaps the day before I wrote about my understanding of Brighton having become several distinct communities, conference and holiday centre, two university and recreation town, commuter, retirement and gay town. I did not set out with any intention to establish how far I had correctly judged the situation but now a couple of days later I have to express pleasant surprise at its cosmopolitan sophistication. On my first evening I had a brief conversation with a young man in the lift on his way to watch the match and drink beer with friends and discovered that he came from Jesmond in Newcastle and therefore knew South Shields well but wished to move to the south coast. I now know why.
After two days watching cricket, one day in the sun but with a chill wind, and the second hiding from the bitter cold behind glass or clinging to the back of the lower member’s pavilion on a park bench against the wall, I needed recovery and exercise. As forecast there had been rain overnight and it was after eleven before the skies brightened. I had eaten croissants and drank coffee around between six and seven and then snoozed before undertaking some writing and making my way to the car to transfer the remains of the evening meal and to begin to sort out the rear before the transfer to the Hove Travel Lodge the following morning. As the skies still looked threatening I decided to make my way first to the Churchill centre and do so without climbing the Hill.
Brighton and Hove has a population of 150000 and is located at the western edge of the county of East Sussex. Worthing which I was visiting next has a population of 100000 and is the largest town of West Sussex and in between is the unexpected port of Shoreham by sea, unexpected because I had no idea before visiting that there was such a large port in the form of a waterway created by the mouth of the river Adur and a huge bar which extends to Southwick and Hove. Its population is around 20000.
Brighton the town is built around a hill with shopping and recreation district south of the railway station going down towards the sea front. The main shopping road extends for over a mile east west and part of this road is restricted to buses and taxis and in order to get to the major car parks it is wise to first reach the sea front coast road and then taking the turning past the Brighton centre, which also contains the Odeon cinema, the Travel Lodge and with the Grand Hotel also on the sea front adjacent. I made the mistake of trying to enter the parallel road on my way to the Hove ground on the second day and had to enter the bus only road area at one point. It was all very confusing until working out the system operated.
On Friday I missed the easiest entry into the Churchill shopping centre development which takes on into the Debenhams store with entry from the road between the Travel Lodge and the NCP Car Park. I did find a way from the outer centre car park which involved negotiating incoming and outgoing cars, noticing as I did that a stay here of more than 12 hours to 24 costs a massive £25 designed to restrict use to shoppers and day visitors. I joined a number of passengers from the car park basement who knew that the main entry level into the shopping mall was on the fourth floor and then take the escalators up the next level to reach the front centre street level and the buses.
I felt peckish and made my way to the highest level where there is small food court, MacDonald’s, Spud U Like, a ubiquitous Subway type filled baguette outlet and an healthy organic fruit drinks and hot good restaurant. I was in the mood for a MacChicken, French fries and diet coke and knowing this was unhealthy managed to tip most of the coke onto the floor, a just punishment I felt for the eat the food at a table overlooking the central area where down below a stage had been erected with a cabin like changing area for five tall models giving a professional fashion show with music, lighting, a compere and the designer taking a bow to the bemused shoppers who had intended to pass by.
I picked up a copy of a free magazine Latest 7 which combined property advertisements with articles about local entertainments and I was impressed by a piece by Will Harris on Britain’s I got talent and the sensation of the Scottish singing lass Susan Boyle. I must send him an email later.
It was time for a walk so the decision was taken to travel the shopping road east west towards Hove. I had forgotten that the only Wilkinson’s on this part of the South Coast was at Worthing and not Brighton so misguidedly went in search and to buy lottery tickets of the evening’s £80 million Euro draw. The street and the walk seemed longer than indicated by the return journey or went travelling by bus.
There were two noteworthy discovering and both involved food. La Fourchette is Brighton based with adjacent restaurant and separate bar restaurant and a separate restaurant in Kemptown, a patisserie and a Kemma bar. The place had contemporary European style and a mouth watering menu which needed a partner in gastronomic indulgence for the main course and pudding as well as the wine choice.
For starter I could not make up my mind between Mediterranean King Prawns sautéed in a parsley sauce, garlic and butter £11 or the Pan roasted red Mullet salad with oven dried tomato sauce and a petite salad £7 but the wine choice was a half bottle of Pouilly fume Chateaux Favray 2007 £13. Then we would share a shoulder of lamb slow braised and marinated in 25 spices with mixed vegetables and sautéed potatoes and a bottle Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 £20 and then a shared pudding of Assiette Gourmande, a chef’s platter of portions of all the sweets on the menu for £14 drank with Bollinger £55 and followed by Liquor Coffees for a total of £9 about £150 for two including gratuities.
The second discovery was Taj ( Mahal International) in the Mediterranean end of the street. This was the most interesting store encountered on my travels with a stupendous selection of olives in 2 kilo kegs, tins, cans bottles and served loose and fresh from large vats and with every size and stuffing.
I then went back to my room which had been cleaned and tidied for a second wash and a cup of tea and relax before going to the pictures in the afternoon. After a cup of tea I went out on an evening explore. There was still the cold wind but it had brightened up although I was not inclined to follow those heading for the pier along the sea front. My first destination was towards the cultural area and as I walked up the hill I was joined by a young man with a pedal bicycle hording on the pavement accompanied a young woman guide leader and a part of about ten young women dressed in green frocks and sashes advertising but can I remember what. Before getting to the cultural area I saw a number of younger people remembering everyone under sixty is young heading into the Lanes to my right, twisty and leading down to the sea front and was tempted by a piano at the Friends meeting House where for a modest few pounds there was a 90 minute concert and a light buffet. I needed to explore and to exercise so I passed and the various inns crowded out in preliminary for the rest of the evening entertainment. There are by the some 400 inns, pubs, restaurants and clubs in the town ranging from the sophisticated already mentioned to the tourist sea front, everywhere chain, earthy environmental and those used by the gay community the largest in the UK including London with its annual Gay Pride event.
The cultural area lies next to the Brighton Pavilion and a wide traffic free piazza before theatres and facilities used for the fringe performances leading to the North Laines. Here environmentalism, the organic and bohemianism was much in evidence and an interesting hotel whose name I forgot which had a lounge bar in a shop window. And then there is the Komedia a multi performance centre boasting 700 activities a year with two most nights featuring comedy, cabaret, club and music as well as performance for young people. Before going home I bought a two glass bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon with two cheese twists but what else I had I did not note or remember. The lights on the seventh floor were fused at one point, perhaps a lady used the wrong voltage hair dryer was one suggestion but it was soon fixed and I Found out that only five of the twenty rooms on the floor were occupied at the time. I conveyed one lot of luggage to the car and then bought a diet coke with ice at the bar around 11pm. There were lively sounds from the young until the early hours.
Fort anyone who has not seen State of Play and intended to do so Goodbye for now. It was my most enjoyable film of the year, requiring constant attention and a great plot with an ending twist which I worked out the bare bones but only just before it was revealed.
The film is an American update of the equally brilliant six part British BBC TB drama series in 2003 which won awards for Nighy and David Morrissey and also starred James McAvoy and concerned the death of a young woman researcher to a Member of Parliament.
The film opens with a black man running for his life and being executed for the metal case he is carrying. You it is more than a drug killing the police believe because the behaviour of the assassin indicated a professional hit and he also attempts to kills a pizza delivery man on a bicycle. Chasing this story for a national newspaper is Russell Crowe, long haired unkept but at the top of the job with Helen Mirren as his editor boss concerned about impressing the new owners of the paper .
Congressman Stephen Collins is participating in a committee investigating the activities of Points Corps a mercenary force which is involved in conducting work on contract for the army abroad as part of a government out sourcing operation. His research assistant appears to have committed suicide or had an accidental death on her way to work and fellow journalist who concentrates on the internet edition is investigating the sexual aspect in terms of the relationship between the assistant and the married Congressman. An added complication in the story at this point is that Crowe roomed with the Congressman, Ben Affleck at college and also had a relationship with the wife of the Congressman during their college days. As the story develops it emerges that the girl researcher was placed by Media Point to spy on the work of the Congressman but she stopped doing so when she fell in love and became pregnant by him. It began to look that she had been killed by Media Point when she failed to deliver further information and their involvement might become known as a consequence of the relationship.
It also emerges that in addition to the overseas involvement, Media Point is responsible for the creation of a raft of companies successfully bidding for multi billion homeland security contracts and the reason for knowing about the research of the Congressman and ensuring that he is silenced or removed from the committee. At one point a female friend and club hostess alleges to the press that she and the murdered girl were involved in group sexual activity with the Congressman as a further means of discrediting and eliminating the threat he poses. A later revelation is that the senior politician who suggested the girl as a research worker is also linked with Media Point who have an operation at the Watergate building!
And the twist in the tale comes from the efforts to find the killer of the black man in the opening sequence. He and his druggy girlfriend operated a racket of stealing brief cases of businessmen and then selling them back to feed their habits. In this instance the case contained surveillance photographs of the murdered and a weapon which suggested that a hit was being planned. The pizza delivery man is then killed while under police protection in hospital by a riffle at a distance from an adjacent taller building and Russell barely escapes with his life when discovering the base use by the assassin. The congressman with support from his wife agree to make a statement to the paper about his knowledge of the situation but Russell holds publication of the story when he puts together the actual scenario. The Congressman and served with the assassin in Vietnam and the twist is that the Congressman began to have suspicions about the role of his assistant and also the seriousness of the relationship and the implications for his marriage and political career. He argues that he intended for the girl to be frightened and that his former military colleague had gone to far. However this is shown to have been a further attempt to limit responsibility because of a telephone conversation between them on the need to kill the pizza man and the girlfriend of the black drug addict, four deaths in total. It is also true that Points Corps were prepared to go considerable length to protect their growing financial interests.
The film covers the problems of media ownership and political interests and the problems faced by newspaper media by 24 news TV and Blog writing stories. It has a relevance given the stories about Ministerial and parliamentary expenses and how to use the system. It was a good day.
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