Brighton.
South Coast Town, East Sussex, England, UK

Brighton Breezy

Brighton (if you didn’t already know it), is a medium-largish sort of town/city type place on the south coast of England. Officially it’s Brighton and Hove, not just Brighton, although most Hovians (just made it up), might not like being annexed by its big brother.

There’s a lot of night life and day life for that matter in Brighton. We have our fair share of pubs, clubs and rub-a-dub-dubs (if you know what I mean). It's also damn windy here, probably because of the sea and all that.

We have two universities here, the world famous Sussex University where Nici studies, and the ex-polytechnic University of Brighton (Scumbag College) where I study.

Famous Brighton, Infamous Brighton

Say the word ‘Brighton’ to somebody and they’ll probably say something like, Brighton, oh yeah, little place - by the sea, Quadrophenia yeah, and that funny ‘Taj Mahal’ thing. And aren’t there a lot of , you know, them living in Brighton?

Well, apart from the obvious, there are a few people, places and faces that characterise Brighton life for those that actually live or work here.

The first thing you notice once you’ve been here for longer than 5 minutes is that Brighton is a university town, in fact its a double university town, and that means a double big helping of students. Now, I’ve nothing against students, they can’t really help being students can they, and after all, I AM one myself. They can’t help being so excited about leaving mummy and daddy to live in the big wide world that they always look as if they’re gonna burst with joy. (Or is that just the drugs)? They can’t help forming close knit cliques not ten minutes after they’ve been introduced to each other at the start of term. I don’t think they can even help pulling on a nice pair of bumpy trainers, a fluffy jacket and a record bag to top it all in the ridiculous hope that this will not only endear them to their fellow students, but also gain themselves that elusive ‘individual’ tag. Well, OK, I su-pose you’re an individual. You all are. The lot of you.

Brighton of course has resident celebrities by the bucket load. But they all seem to live in Hove. Protecting us all we have of course a Lord of Brighton, the famous boxer and bad mouther Chris ‘Thethelia’ Eubank. Tch, only in Brighton eh?

The Levellers came from Brighton of course. Lived in a house not to far from the Level, a little triangular patch of grass near the middle of town. Around or on the Level live one sector of the dynamic mix of people that make up the population of Brighton. These people have many names, the ones usable in polite company are Krusties, New age travellers or just, ‘those funny looking people with bad hair, big boots, and train of mangy dogs in tow’. Now, don’t mistake this description for genuine homeless people. Homeless people don’t actually have anywhere to live, rather than actually aspire to look and live like those unfortunate enough to really have no roof over their heads.

Brighton is known as ‘London-by-the-sea’. I wonder, does that make London a ‘landlocked Brighton’? Well they have their similarities, Brighton has some of London’s bad points but a lot of the good points too. The people most importantly, I mean, they’re more laid back here than in London, which I left a few years ago. So, which do I prefer? Well, after having waxed cynical for two minutes non-stop about Brighton, you’d probably think I should have stayed in the big city. But, you’d be wrong. Because I love Brighton, and I love hating Brighton.

Update: January 2003. Shut up Tone, you miss Brighton and you know it.