Viva Brighton Issue #35 January 2016

LEWES
Wednesday 27th January
16:00 – 19:00
EASTBOURNE
Wednesday 3rd February
16:00 – 19:00
www.sussexdowns.ac.uk

vivabrighton
Issue 35. Jan 2016
editorial
...................................................................................
Ask anyone about their New Year’s resolutions, and chances are they’ll
be about giving up something they like. Eating less starchy stuff, drinking
less booze, cutting out the fags, whatever. Any such endeavour, by
its very nature, is about depriving the giver-upper of something they
enjoy, on one level. Which is why any such attempt must be preceded
by them making the decision that they really don’t like the thing
they’re giving up. This is a tough process that I personally explore
within these pages, as I go to a hypnotherapist in order to help me give up smoking.
But resolutions needn’t be about giving something up: they can also about taking something
up, which we explore in some depth in #35, having given the issue the theme-title ‘old dog,
new tricks’. We’re turning the old adage on its head, believing it’s never too late to incorporate
positive stuff into your life. The best thing I did in 2015, for example, was taking up longdistance
cycling, in order to ‘train’ for the London-Brighton ride. And you know what? One of
the reasons I felt I was ready to make a serious attempt to give up smoking was that I realised
it was hampering my ability to cycle up hills. Which led me to thinking much more about the
other positives of a life without fags; giving up didn’t seem like quite such a deprivation after all.
Spoiler alert: I’m still off the buggers. Enjoy the issue… and happy 2016.
The Team
.....................
EDITOR: Alex Leith alex@vivabrighton.com
DEPUTY EDITOR: Steve Ramsey steveramsey@vivabrighton.com
ART DIRECTOR: Katie Moorman katie@vivabrighton.com
PHOTOGRAPHER AT LARGE: Adam Bronkhorst
EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Rebecca Cunningham, Giacomo Vezzani
ADVERTISING: Anya Zervudachi anya@vivabrighton.com, Nick Metcalf nickmetcalf@vivabrighton.com,
PUBLISHER: Lizzie Lower lizzie@vivamagazines.com
CONTRIBUTORS: Amy Holtz, Andrew Darling, Ben Bailey, Chloë King, Di Coke, Holly Fitzgerald, Jay Collins,
Jim Stephenson, JJ Waller, Joda, Joe Decie, John Helmer, Lizzie Enfield, Martin Skelton and Yoram Allon
Viva is based at Brighton Junction, 1A Isetta Square, BN1 4GQ
For advertising enquiries call 07596 337828
Other enquiries call 01273 810259 or email hello@vivamagazines.com
Every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of our content. We cannot be held responsible for any omissions, errors or alterations.

contents
...............................
Bits and bobs.
6-23. Viva reaches NYC, a larger-thanlife
Margaret Thatcher, Joe Decie’s New
Year’s resolutions, and the all-new Martha
Gunn. And that’s just for starters.
50
Photography.
25-33. Miniclick’s Jim Stephenson
interviews Heather Suker, who has been
examining the body language of forcedoutside
smokers.
Columns.
35-39. Amy Holtz resolves to bless people,
John Helmer finds his inner Elvis,
and Lizzie Enfield examines generational
differences in pronunciation.
11
70
27
My Brighton.
40-41. Graham Randall, life coach,
on running, Raleigh bicycles, and
reinventing yourself.
In town this month.
42-51. Our usual mixed bag of the
sublime, the ridiculous and the
downright controversial: Brighton
Actually Gay Men’s Chorus; Malian
musician Vieux Farka Toure; I’m
Sorry I Haven’t a Clue’s Tim
Brooke-Taylor; the logistics behind
putting on Holiday on Ice; ‘invisible’
prog-rocker Steven Wilson;
comedy guru Jill Edwards; and Gaspar
Noe’s explicit new film, Love.
....4 ....

contents
...............................
Art, design & literature.
53-59. Another creative smorgasbord this
month: Ros Barber on her latest novel
Devotion; set designer par excellence John
Napier; fish knitter Kate Jenkins; puppetmaker
Isobel Smith and website designer
Andy Budd.
Old dogs, new tricks.
61-67. Zapp laser tattoo removals, and
a bunch of people, in The Way We
Work(ed), who’ve changed their career.
71
67
82 57
Food and drink.
69-81. Newly opened eateries Polpo and
1847, vegetarian tapas at Rootcandi, a
figgy breakfast recipe from Black Radish,
great juices from Helmston, Coffee Guy
reports back from Colombia, the Blink
Experience, and ‘Hut Therapy’.
Sport, health and fitness.
82-91. We try out synchro-fitness, hula
hooping, hypnotherapy, the tantrum
spa and dynamic meditation, as well as
interviewing the Albion’s crowd doctor, a
senior dancer and a choir leader. Plus we
learn how to mend our bikes.
Family.
93-94. The lowdown on salt caves, and
Spotty Dog tutoring, helping kids with
dyslexia.
98
Bricks & Mortar.
95. Earthship, Brighton’s self-sufficient
building project.
97 95
Inside Left.
98. St Dunstan’s, 1967; a new angle on
Roger Bamber’s famous pic.
....5 ....

this month’s cover artist
..................................................
Most magazines use their covers to lure readers
in with attention-grabbing headlines and
teasers for the features inside. As a general
rule, we don’t give away too much on our
cover. We prefer to use it as a space to celebrate
the art and design talent in our city.
This month’s cover artist, Chloe Batchelor,
has managed to achieve both with her quirky
illustrations depicting some of the articles inside
this issue.
“I’ve always really loved character stuff,” says
Chloe. “I grew up on some amazing cartoons
- like Ren and Stimpy – which inspired the
cheekiness in my illustrations.” Despite beginning
her career in animation, she learned that
what she really enjoyed was more fast-paced
illustration. “I probably should’ve realised
this at uni but animation is a really long and
painstaking process. To make the type of stuff
I really love, you have to animate every single
frame. I think if I’d carried on with animation
I would have lost my love of animating.”
We gave her a few pointers as to what we
would be doing this month, and she ‘knew immediately
that the hula-hooper
had to be the main character’,
closely followed by the
‘synchro bearded
man’. The main
lady looks like
she’s having as
much fun as I
did learning to
hoop – although
my choice of
outfit was rather
....6 ....

chloe batchelor
..........................................
more conservative.
She draws her characters
separately using ‘HB twirly
pencils’ and then layers
them up on the computer.
Using Illustrator the
sketches are transformed
into vector shapes, to which
she can add colour and outlines.
“It’s really fast,” she
explains, “but it’s really, really
clean and I don’t like
really clean work, I like it
to have a bit of texture.”
So she takes the image into
Photoshop and uses a spray-can effect to add
light and shadows, roughening some of the
edges to give it a more handmade feel.
The colour scheme proved to be difficult to
settle on. Chloe says: “I
spent a long time larking
about with the colours
and probably tried
out about seven different
colour palettes.” We
thought the retro feel of
the oranges and browns
suited Brighton – and our
Old Dogs New Tricks
theme – perfectly. Once
she had settled on a palette,
she played around
with variations using the
‘magical button’ in Illustrator,
which flicks through different colourways
using your chosen colours. You can find
more of her colourful characters and animation
collaborations at chloebatchelor.com RC
....7 ....

TOUR THE
WINE ESTATE
EAT OR STAY AT
THE FLINT BARNS
EXPLORE THE
RATHFINNY TRAIL
SHOP GIFTS AT
THE GUN ROOM
Rathfinny Wine Estate, Alfriston, East Sussex BN26 5TU / www.rathfinnyestate.com

its and bobs
...............................
spread the word
on the buses
#9 fred perry (Route 7)
Here’s a picture of Jan Lower, who took her
November edition of Viva on a visit to New
York over the Thanksgiving weekend. Here
she is at Coney Island having walked all the
way to the end of the boardwalk to reach New
Brighton beach, in Brooklyn, for this photo
op. We love getting these pics in, so if you’re
going on a New Year break, don’t forget to
take this issue with you… and keep spreading
the word.
DREAM OVER
Commiserations to Whitehawk FC, who were
knocked out of the FA Cup by Dagenham on
Dec 16th. Pic of the Ultras by JJ Waller.
It was a family holiday
in Eastbourne that really
sparked Fred Perry’s interest
in tennis. This was
in 1924, when he was 15.
Previously he’d ‘tried [his]
hand at all the sports and
found I was pretty useful
at most of them,’ Perry
wrote in his autobiography.
His favourite had been table tennis, and he ‘used
to drive everybody in the house crazy’ by practising
endlessly with the kitchen table pushed up against the
wall. But he ‘didn’t take much interest in the table-less
variety’ back then.
However, in Eastbourne, seeing lawn tennis at Devonshire
Park ‘awakened something deep within him,’
biographer Jon Henderson claims. Though he also
quotes Perry’s more self-deprecating account: ‘I asked
my father if all those big cars belonged to the players
and he said they did. “Then that’s for me”, I said.’
‘For five years table tennis and tennis vied for his attention,’
Henderson notes. Though Perry won the
ping pong world championship aged 19, he gave it up
to focus on lawn tennis.
Despite the three Wimbledon titles, the Davis Cup
successes, etc, he accepted that his name had become
better known worldwide for the sportswear brand he
co-founded.
He sold his stake in the firm in 1961, and moved to
Rottingdean the same year. Though he had a house
in Florida, and was still ‘living out of a suitcase’ in his
mid-70s, he kept the place in Sussex. And, as Henderson
points out, though he died an American citizen, in
Australia, ‘the choice of venue for the funeral was significant’.
It was at St Margaret’s Church, Rottingdean.
Steve Ramsey
....9 ....

its and bobs
...............................
jj waller’s brighton
“Unlike a lot of street photographers, if the opportunity arises I like to chat
with people I have photographed,” writes JJ Waller. “I spoke with the lady in
this picture… not the one on the wall but the lady carrying the 99p Stores bag.
We both admired this witty graffiti mural although particularly in her case, it
was with contempt for the subject. Both her and several members of her family
had lost jobs in industries closed by MT’s policies.”
....11....

Joe decie
...............................
....13....

its and bobs
...............................
Painting by Jay Collins
Pub: martha gunn
I’m disappointed, when I order lunch one late
November Friday lunchtime in the Martha Gunn,
to hear that they have no pierogi or golabki in.
This is not the sort of problem one would have
encountered in this bar a couple of years ago.
The dishes in question are Polish, and usually on
offer alongside a varied menu which includes fishburger,
which I opt for instead. The kitchen is run
by Anya of The Pickled Kitchen, and the fact that
there’s decent grub on offer is by no means the
only change the place has undergone recently.
“When I first started working here, and asked the
taxi drivers to take me to the Martha Gunn, they’d
say ‘are you sure you want to go there?’” says Dan,
the friendly bar manager, who has been running
the place since its £265,000 refurb in 2014. The
place didn’t just have a bad reputation, it had a
terrible one. “It’s taking us a while to spread the
word that everything has changed. It used to be
the sort of place where you wiped your feet on
the way out. One bar, it seems, was out of action.
There was a hole in the floor of one of the toilets.”
The money was stumped up in a joint venture by
two pubcos, Enterprise and the Regency Company:
the owner of the latter is a specialist in taking
on places that have gone to seed, and doing them
up. Now the place looks a good deal dandier than
its surroundings in Upper Lewes Road, outside
and in. As you approach, voguish lettering invites
you to ‘MEET, DRINK, EAT’; inside it’s all exposed
brickwork, original art and purposefully
scuffed paint. A bossa nova track greets my entry.
I order a pint of Meantime London Lager.
Dan’s very apologetic about the lack of Polish
dumplings, and buys me an extra pint to make
up for it. He shows me an old Victorian photo
of the pub, when it was half the size, and called
The New Inn. It was subsequently called ‘Martha
Gunns’ (with no apostrophe, after the famous sea
bather of the 1700s) before taking on its current
more grammatically correct name. The fishburger
is very tasty. Finally there’s a reason to linger in
the Upper Lewes Road.
Alex Leith
....14....

VALUATION DAY
Jewellery and Watches
Wednesday 20 January, 10am to 4pm
Brighton and Hove Office
Bonhams jewellery specialist will be in the Brighton
and Hove office to offer free and confidential advice
on items you may be considering selling at auction.
APPOINTMENTS
AND ENQUIRIES
01273 220000
jenny.bouston@bonhams.com
Bonhams
19 Palmeira Square
Hove BN3 2JN
bonhams.com/hove

experience the extraordinary
at the Royal Pavilion
Become a member and help to conserve the Royal Pavilion, and also contribute
to our exhibitions and education programmes, bringing the very best of art and
culture to Brighton & Hove.
Membership from as little as £20 will give you:
• FREE entry to the Royal Pavilion & Museums
• Invitations to Private Views and a regular Newsletter
• Exclusive events programme
• Discounts in Museum and Royal Pavilion shops & cafes
• Accompanying children and grandchildren go FREE
• A FREE after hours tour of the Royal Pavilion!
Registered Charity No 275242
Become
a member
today!
visit pavilionfoundation.org
or call 01273 295898

its and bobs
...............................
di coke’s competition corner
This month’s prize will ensure you’re looking smart in 2016 – a
‘Scott’ plaid shirt, available in your choice of ladies’ or men’s fit from
Milo’s Cutting Rooms and Boutique on Dyke Road.
For a chance to win the shirt, tell us about something new you’d like
to try in 2016. Perhaps there’s a new restaurant you’d like to visit,
a language you want to learn - or even a new hairstyle you want
Milo to create! Share your entry on Instagram, Twitter or the Viva
Brighton Facebook page using the #VivaBrightonComp hashtag -
photographs are welcome! Alternatively, email it to competitions@
vivamagazines.com before 31st January 2016. The most original
entry will feature in our March issue and win the shirt. Full terms
and conditions can be found at vivabrighton.com/competitions.
Milo’s Dyke Road salon is much more than just a hairdressers - you
can browse and buy a range of clothes, shoes and accessories as well as
fragrances and styling products. Contact Milo’s on 01273 757264 or
find them at milosonline.co.uk.
competition winner
In the November issue we asked
readers to share their favourite
way to relax. Our winner Alex
Downey (pictured) sent in this
entry: “As a member of Brighton
Swimming Club sea swimmers,
one of my favourite ways to
relax is to swim to a corner at
the end of the pier, then lie on
my back, relax and let the tidal
current take me round to the
other corner whilst taking in the
scenery and nature – I call it the
big swimming pool in the sky!”
Alex wins a Relaxapac session for
two plus a massage at Cocoon Healing Arts Centre on Gloucester Place.
Di Coke is very probably the UK’s foremost ‘comper’, having won over £250,000-worth of prizes. For winning
tips and creative competitions, check out her blog at superlucky.me and SuperLucky Secrets book.
....17....

its and bobs
...............................
bus(y) Lizzie
Now open.
7,483. Not bad for 1.17pm on an office day.
This is my new measure of self-worth. 7,483
steps since I got out of bed. 14,777 since I
bought a gizmo with the ability to quantify my
activity (or lack thereof). I’ve been thinking
about getting rid of my car for a while now.
In a city as rich in public transport as ours, it’s
bound to be worth it, right? But I never got
round to doing the maths. Carole Richmond at
Brighton & Hove Buses thinks she knows the
answer, but I’m up for helping her to check. I’ll
be taking the Get Bus(y) challenge to see how
taking the bus impacts on my fitness and, over
the course of three weeks, I’ll be recording my
levels of activity. One week, with my usual mix
of car, bus and train transport; a second relying
completely on my car; and a third taking the
bus as often as it will get me where I need to
go. In addition to feeling fitter, Carole reckons
that I’ll end up felling happier all round and
more connected with the world. Hard to measure,
admittedly, but I’ll give it a go. My gizmo
will give us the hard facts of steps taken and
calories burnt and, as for connectedness, you’ll
have to take my word for it. I’ll be reporting
back next month. There may or may not be pie
charts but there will be steps. Thousands and
thousands of steps. Lizzie Lower
www.ubyk.co.uk
43 Sydney Street, Brighton | 01273 945 850

its and bobs
...............................
Secrets of the pavilion:
“All change”: A ‘Transformer’ book about the Royal Pavilion from 1806
One of the most beautiful and intriguing books
published in the early 19th century shows us the
Royal Pavilion estate as it might have been, had not
George IV changed his mind. It is a printed version
of designs by Humphry Repton (1752 - 1818), commissioned
by the then Prince of Wales for the orientalisation
of his neo-classical Marine Pavilion (Henry
Holland, 1787) and the surrounding gardens.
Repton embarked on a career in landscape gardening
in 1788, shortly after the death of the famous
landscape designer Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown in
1783. He quickly established himself as the leading
landscape designer in Britain, working for a wide
range of clients, while also writing a number of
books on his profession. Repton became known for
lavishly produced portfolios, known as Red Books
because many of them were bound in red morocco.
These comprised paintings of ‘before and after’ views
of gardens, landscape settings and buildings. For
maximum visual effect the ‘after’ views (Repton’s own
designs) were typically revealed by lifting an overlay
glued onto the sheet. A total of around 123 Red
Books have been identified, one of which is that of
the Royal Pavilion and dates from 1806. It survives
in the Royal Collection.
In November 1805, after the completion of William
Porden’s Stables, George invited Repton to produce
designs for the transformation of the Royal Pavilion,
having rejected earlier Chinese designs by both
Holland and Porden. Repton worked feverishly on
this prestigious commission and presented the Royal
Pavilion Red Book to George less than a month later.
It consisted of fantastical and elaborate Indian-style
designs for the estate, complete with his famous ‘before
and after’ views. His ideas included aviaries and
orangeries, a pond reflecting the Moorish features
of Porden’s stables, a glass corridor surrounding the
western side of the estate, a viewing platform with
telescopes, Chinese-style hipped roofs, and dainty
flower beds. According to Repton, George responded
enthusiastically to the designs, but despite giving
him hope of ‘immediate execution’, the project was
never realised, allegedly because Maria Fitzherbert
(George’s long-standing mistress) commented on the
financial implications of the ambitious plans.
Short of commissions in the difficult years of the
Napoleonic wars, Repton had the Royal Pavilion
designs engraved by J.C. Stadler in 1808 and, in an
effort to generate money, decided to publish the
Above: Repton West front before. Below: Repton West front after. © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove.
....20....

its and bobs
...............................
Repton view of stables with pond. © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove.
plans, together with a treatise on architectural styles,
under the title Designs for the Pavillon at Brighton. He
dedicated it to George, perhaps in the vain hope of
re-kindling his interest in the designs. The Royal
Pavilion portfolio is the only one of Repton’s Red
Books that was ever published in its entirety.
A few years later, in 1815, John Nash was the lucky
one who was commissioned to transform the Royal
Pavilion estate. By then, George had become the
Prince Regent and Napoleon had been defeated.
While Repton never really recovered from having
missed out on this important royal commission,
John Nash would turn Holland’s Marine Pavilion
into the oriental fantasy palace George had envisaged,
and would later publish his own book on
the project. One cannot help but think that Nash’s
designs were a cheaper, watered-down version of
Repton’s spectacular ideas. But time and circumstances
were in favour of Nash. Alexandra Loske, Art
historian and curator at the Royal Pavilion Estate
A longer version of this article with additional images
is available on the Royal Pavilion blog: brightonmuseums.org.uk/discover/category/blog
Repton viewing platform detail. © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove.
....21....

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pechakucha
‘Passionate’ will be the theme of the 23rd edition
of PechaKucha Brighton, the fourth which has
been co-curated by artist Woody (aka Zara Wood)
and Viva editor Alex Leith.
The event will take place on Thursday 25th February
at The Nightingale Room above the Grand
Central pub, a space which was fairly lavishly refurbished
last year, and which boasts its own bar.
For those unfamiliar with the PechaKucha concept,
presenters are allowed 20 slides, and 20 seconds
to speak about each one, so there is no space
for rambling!
There will be ten presenters, each giving a talk on
their own particular passion. Speakers confirmed
so far include: design enthusiast Will Hudson,
founder of creative blog It’s Nice That; Richard
Robinson, founder of the Brighton Science Festival;
Beth from the creative hub Artpothecary; and
Holly Budge, a world-record-holding adventurer
and jewellery designer.
Early Bird tickets are £5 plus booking fee and are
available to buy at pechakucha.org/cities/brighton.
The last couple of events have sold out in just a few
days, so make sure you book early!
....22....

its and bobs
...............................
magazine of thE month: Kinfolk
The biggest problem in writing
about a different magazine each
month is which to choose. Normally,
I end up writing about a smaller
low-circulation magazine that I
think is worth helping.
But I’ve realised this month that
none of the magazines we stock are
huge sellers in comparison with the
big sellers of the dwindling mainstream
market. The successful ones
are only big sellers relative to other
indie magazines, some of which –
gorgeous and high quality though they are – print as
few as 500 copies for the world.
So this month I’ve chosen an indie magazine with a
relatively big indie-world sale. You might even have
heard of it. It’s called Kinfolk. I’ve chosen it because
they have reached issue 18 – this alone makes it an
oldie in indie mag-land – and because over the past
few issues it has actually got better and better. Kinfolk
is a magazine that favours simpler living, the cultivation
of community and time spent
with friends. It’s a magazine to be
dipped into and enjoyed over a couple
of months.
How has it got better? Partly because
it has had one of those great
seamless re-designs that you only
notice when you compare it to
previous issues. This current issue
is packed with good pieces about
where ideas come from, the nature
of desirability, how social patterns
are influencing house design and -
for me - a fantastic piece on whether empathy can
be learned and designed and, if so, how. Every page
produces calm reflection and thoughtfulness. The
photography is delightful.
Kinfolk is almost an oldie now and a (relative) bestseller.
Both of those things have stopped me writing
about it before. I was wrong. It’s simply a really, really
good magazine that everyone should know about.
Martin Skelton, Magazine Brighton, Trafalgar Street
toilet graffito #12
Our first scrawler starts 2016 with
a nihilistic reflection on the impermanence
of all things, but the
respondent clearly has the more
traditional New Year’s problem of
too much junk in the trunk. She
can rest assured that – with a few
spin classes - this too shall pass.
But in which pub ladies’ is the
philosopher’s stall?
Last month’s answer: (appropriately
enough) The Hope & Ruin.
....23....

photography
..........................................
Heather Shuker
The art of smoking
With a new year, comes resolutions
- big ideas to change something
in our life (that inevitably
are abandoned by springtime…)
Surely one of the most common
resolutions is to give up smoking.
Brighton graduate Heather
Shuker spent months documenting
the gestures involved in this
increasingly marginalised habit
in The Art of Smoking, during
her time studying for an MA in Photography.
A lot of your work focuses on gestures and
small movements. What draws you to this and
what are you trying to investigate? Smoking as
a common and formally socially accepted activity
is becoming more and more marginalised and
pushed underground. With further legislation
being implemented around what constitutes a
public space and a doorway, the activity will soon
be a part of our social history. In this first series on
pavement smoking the images document the often
covert act of public smoking, capturing the exchanges
and interactions and seeking to highlight
the gestures around the communal and private
moments of smoking.
My work as a photographer is generally about
people in everyday situations (this work followed
on from documenting girls in nightclub toilets).
With the Art of Smoking series I was exploring the
notion that smoking is often a stolen and taboo
moment. I was drawn to the covert and furtive
nature of smoking, especially with the solitary
smoker. I also wanted to explore the collective
practice of groups of people and the smoking
“huddles” that are often conspiratory in nature.
Do you find that there
are certain gestures that
everyone you photographed
adopted? The solitary smoker
would often be hidden away,
tucked in a doorway and the
smoking gesture itself would
be a lot less open. Solitary
smokers would often be lost
in their own thoughts or
their mobile phones, whereas
groups of smokers would be found more out in the
open, their smoking gestures more confident and
a lot less furtive.
My approach was covert however, when subject
became aware of my presence, I would get this
almost horrified look, in that I have stolen an
element of their private moments. I was never
challenged, though. The subjects would turn away
or retreat back behind a wall and quietly slip away
from my view.
Did you ever smoke? If so, do you recognise
these gestures from your own when you did?
In the words of Allen Carr, I didn’t give up, I
‘stopped’ smoking in my early 30s as I just started
to fall out of love with it and realised it was not
actually giving me anything… and in fact never
had. (I am not an anti-smoker at all, though, and
never discourage people from smoking round
me.) Mostly I tended to smoke within groups in
social settings, so body language and gestures were
a lot more open, and back then everyone smoked
anyway, so there was never any need to conceal it.
Heather was interviewed by Jim Stephenson of Miniclick,
miniclick.com
heathershuker.co.uk
Photograph by Katie Palmer
....25....

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Brighton & Hove Calendar 2016
52 images by 19 photographers
Local event listings and fixtures
Full tide table for 2016
BRIGHTON
PHOTOGRAPHY
Available now!
www.brightonphotography.com

photography
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....27....

photography
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....28....

photography
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....29....

photography
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....33....

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column
...........................................
John Helmer
Swears he’s Elvis
Illustration by Joda, jonydaga.weebly.com
‘There can hardly be any lamé left in Brighton,’
says one of the party guests as we arrive. Gold
is everywhere - gold suits, gold sequins, gold
jewellery. Nearby, a prominent museum director
robed in pharaonic splendour dazzles the eye
as he twerks with a gilded mummy. Spandau
Ballet launch into Gold and they chest-bump.
The room comes alive: suddenly it’s a crucible of
bubbling molten metal. Always believe in your
soul… you’re indestructible...
‘Where did you get yours from?’ I overhear one
aurically attired guest say to another.
‘Angels’ — that’s Morris Angel & Son Ltd.
to you; one of the Big Two London theatrical
costumiers. This glistering party is thrown
by Sarah, an illustrator and designer of richly
patterned dresses, whose friends are mostly in
fashion, theatre and films. What chance do
mere punters stand?
Kate has gold-sprayed hair, gold
eyelashes, gold shoes and gold accessories
but says she feels understated.
To be honest, Shirley Eaton from
Goldfinger would feel understated.
Though most people have gone
for gold, the party also has a subtheme
of surrealism, in keeping
with which I sport a hook-nosed
carnival mask that says to me –
and probably no-one else – Max
Ernst. Careful not to poke an eye
out with the beak, I chat to the
eventual winner of the fancy dress
competition, who has managed to
hit both themes by coming as a
golden retriever. Since 5pm
he’s been gluing clumps of gold-sprayed dog hair
to his face. ‘What do you do for a living?’ I ask.
‘Theatrical costumier,’ he barks.
Another weekend, another fancy-dress party;
this one 70s themed. Chastened by my gold
experience (Brightonians count it the ultimate
shame to be out-blinged) I show subtlety the
door. I hire an Elvis-in-Las-Vegas white and
gold jumpsuit from Revamp in Sydney Street
and accessorize with polyester quiff, rings,
medallions, shades and a chest wig. The rest
of the family are pushing the boat out too: the
honour of the Helmers is at stake. We gather in
the kitchen prior to calling the taxi for a selfie
(an us-ie?) which goes straight to Facebook. We
have a Disco Stu, a Björn Borg complete with
tennis racquet, one roller-disco girl with hair
bunches and a couple of cartoon hippy chicks. As
a family we look impossibly happy and attractive,
and some deep anxiety stirs within me. Is this
going to strike outsiders as a collective act of
narcissism – like those sickening round-robins
you used to get at Christmas? And by the way,
how did I get to be so lucky and not quite notice
it? I know what you’re thinking: some people are
never satisfied.
The taxi arrives. I go out to talk to the driver and
straight away see that we have a problem.
‘Er … we ordered a six-seater?’
But she is gazing in rapt adoration at Elvis. ‘Oh
my God: I knew one day this would happen!’
Only it’s not going to happen, I want to say. Because
there are six of us and you can accommodate,
at most, four passengers. Instead of which, I
decide, just for once, to take what life offers.
‘Why thank ya Ma’am.’
....35....

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column
...........................................
Amy Holtz
The truth is, I’m a Minnesotan
I have a friend who says ‘Bless
you’ to anyone, anywhere,
who sneezes. Coming from
the land of ‘Gesundheit’, this
is already controversial. She’d
say it, on average, about ten
times a day; to the stranger
walking past her on the sidewalk,
to one of her lecturers,
to the man who used to scare
us and not wear trousers at the
bus stop.
“Why do you do it?” I asked,
when, after a particularly
nasty fit of sneezing I got a “Bless you” from her
sweet, high voice. She shrugged. “It was just a
resolution one year.” She didn’t even realise she
did it, sneeze after sneeze.
And it was contagious. I couldn’t help myself. To
the grumpy lady with a sneeze like a foghorn in
line at Dunn Brothers, I said “Bless you”. To the
bus driver who’d just accepted my dollar in pennies,
and was really angry about it, I said “Bless
you.” At an especially low moment, I said it to a
Jack Russell Terrier, whose leg, at the time, was
cocked against an oak tree. His little doggy snort
catapulted him forward and he looked at me as
though some quirk in the time-space continuum
meant I had actually caused the sneeze in the
first place.
Some old wives’ tale insists that in blessing
a person who’s sneezed, you’re recapturing
their soul from the Devil, returning it from his
clutches to its rightful owner. This is quite an
important responsibility, if you believe in that
sort of thing. But it could
be that the last thing the
man the next table over at
the library wants is for you
to draw attention to his
handful of snot with a wellintentioned
blessing - devil
or no. Then there’s the fact
that not everyone wants to
be blessed - by you with all
your dubiously bestowed
soul-reclaiming powers
or any other self-styled
miracle worker.
It’s been 11 years and counting since my classical
conditioning. But in all that time, the one thing
I’ve noticed is that they are rarely a bad thing,
these silly words. Don’t get me wrong - the first
few times my habit revealed itself over here, I
expected someone to turn around and punch
me in the face and say “Bless that”. But I’ve
found, even in Brighton, even on the receiving
end of a blank or even menacing stare, a
sneeze is a game changer. Since I can no longer
stop ‘Bless you’ coming out of my mouth, I just
watch, helpless, as the words cast some sort of a
booger spell over the sneezer - like scruffing a
cat. I’ve fortuitously saved their soul and, while
recovering from the spasmodic nasal incident
that’s left them dazed and vulnerable, they’ve
become receptive to the words’ strange, magical
intervention. And, for the most part, the newly
rescued reply with a smile.
I’m sure you can think of better, actual ways to
be nice this New Year. But, if you’re at a loss...
....37....

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column
.............................
Lizzie Enfield
Notes from North Village
Illustration by Joda, jonydaga.weebly.com
“It’s FORE–head!”
My children are busy correcting my pronunciation
for the bit of my head above the eyebrows and below
the hairline.
“You say forehead,” I reply. “I say forehead.”
The latter, to rhyme with torrid or florid.
“It’s four-head,” they stick to their guns. “When
you’re on a golf course you shout Fore not Forr.”
“Yes but there’s a nursery rhyme,” I begin.
The kids exchange a look. Their mother’s knowledge
of nursery rhymes has always been a cause of
embarrassment.
When we were growing up they were the subject
of general knowledge tests at mealtimes, which I
realise now was a slightly eccentric way of spending
Sunday lunch.
At the time, I thought everyone’s father sat at the
head of the table asking, “Who worried the cat that
chased the rat that ate the malt? Quick. First to answer
can have another roast potato!”
“The Dog.” The potato went to my brother.
Just now the nursery rhyme in question is There
was a little girl, Who had a little curl, Right in the
middle of her forehead…
If you pronounce forehead my way the rest of the
rhyme rhymes.
“And when she was good, She was very, very good,
but when she was bad, She was horrid!”
This, I say, proves that my form of pronunciation
is right. Otherwise the little girl is not “horrid”
but “whore head” and it’s not a children’s nursery
rhyme after all.
The kids snigger but are not convinced.
I try to enlist my father’s support but it’s surprisingly
unforthcoming.
“I think it’s one of the words, the pronunciation of
which has changed over time,” he says. “And pronunciation
is pronounced with a nun not a noun
like some newsreaders whose names we won’t mention.”
He only doesn’t mention their names because they
escape him, along with the other names of people
he knows, like me, or knows by virtue of seeing
them on the television, like Evan Davies.
“Is he a homosexual?”
Dad pronounces this work “hommer-sexual” not
“home-o-sexual” the way some do. My father is
a classicist. He knows the word derives from the
Greek homo, meaning the same, as in homogonised,
not the Latin homo meaning man, as in
homo sapiens.
Most of the time he refers to homosexuals as “what
we used to call queers” which always has and still
rhymes with beers.
According to linguists, pronunciation changes from
generation to generation and the accepted pronunciation
shifts, as words are handed down. So, you
can date a person by the way they say words such as
says. The younger you are, the more likely you are
to rhyme it with lays rather than fez .
“So you’re just stuck in the past,” my son says, as he
heads out the door.
I hear him swearing as he goes down the front
steps. I think he hit his head on the scaffolding
which has been there since homosexuals were
known as queers.
“Mind your 4head,” I text him.
Stuck in the past indeed…
....39....

Photo by Adam Bronkhorst
....40....

interview
..........................................
mybrighton: Graham Randall
Life coach
Are you local? I’ve lived here since 2001. I was
an art director for TV before, and I once did an
EastEnders night shoot in Brighton. I just loved
the Mediterranean feel of the place – it was one of
those blissful balmy summers, everybody was hanging
around outside, and I thought ‘I’m going to live
here’. I had connections: my mum was born here
and I used to love coming as a child.
So did you stay down from that point? It took
me a year to get myself sorted, but then I took two
weeks off, staying in Brighton, and in that time I
looked at 68 properties. I was absolutely on it. I
wanted to live in Kemptown but something kept
pulling me Hovewards: I’ve ended up in Wick
Hall, a big 30s art deco place in Brunswick. I love
it there.
And you changed profession? I’d been doing
TV for 20 years, and I wanted to do something
more meaningful with my life. Also I was always
travelling and I wanted to put roots down in a
community. So I did a life coaching course in 2007.
And now I help people who want to make changes
in their life.
Is Brighton a good place to make a life change
in? It depends what you’re changing from and to!
It’s a very open, cosmopolitan city. Anything goes.
So there are plenty of opportunities for change.
How do you travel about the city? I cycle around
on an old Raleigh I’ve had for years. You can get
everywhere on your bike in Brighton… I just wish
there were more spaces to park it.
Is that how you get your exercise? I also run.
I’m in a group called BLAGGS [Brighton LGBT
Sports Society]. We meet every Saturday in Preston
Park. I did the first Brighton Marathon, which was
amazing. This summer I did a lot of swimming, too,
because I was looking after a friend’s beach hut.
What’s your favourite pub or restaurant? I love
going to The House restaurant, in the Lanes. It
does great continental-style food. I’m not really
a pubby person, though, especially if there’s a TV
screen on the wall. On a night out I might go to
the Camelford Arms and then onto Legends… but
more and more it’ll just be round to a friend’s place
for dinner and wine.
Is Brighton a good place to go shopping? It’s
amazing. In the Lanes and North Laine, especially,
where there are all those independent shops. That’s
what makes Brighton Brighton, really: there are a
lot of entrepreneurs and if you walk around town
you can see them trying to make their idea work.
That’s better than walking round a place with a lot
of chains.
What do you think of the i360? I wish someone
would pull it down. I don’t see the point of it, and
I’m not the only one. It would have been much better
to renovate the pier. Still it hasn’t got its doughnut,
yet, so I’m open to having my mind changed.
What’s your favourite building? I love the Dome.
Especially the way they did up the interior.
How would you spend a perfect Sunday
afternoon? With friends. In the summer hanging
around the beach hut, drinking wine. Otherwise
going for a roast, and then a walk along the seafront
promenade.
Where would you live if you didn’t live in
Brighton? Nowhere in this country. I’d have to
go abroad: somewhere like the South of France or
Spain, where there’s a bit more sunshine.
Interview by Alex Leith
....41....

local musicians
..........................................
Top of the World
A Himalayan adventure
What did you do last summer? Coady Green and
Christopher Smith played a record-breaking multisensory
concert at a monastery in the Himalayas. They’re
partners in life and music, touring classical pianists
and directors of Brighton’s Actually Gay Men’s Chorus.
They’re also playing at Brighton Dome this month,
albeit without the help of any Buddhist monks.
How did you end up playing in the Himalayas?
We were contacted by the photographer and
film-maker Jarek Kotomski, who was planning an
event to mark the 100th anniversary of the death
of the Russian composer, Alexander Scriabin. He
proposed a multisensory concert at the top of the
Thikse Monastery in Ladakh, 3,500 meters above
sea level in the Himalayas, to be filmed as part of a
documentary on Scriabin’s life.
Not just your average gig then? This was the
first time Scriabin’s dream had been realised. The
multisensory nature of the concert was totally
unique, with specially designed scent infusions,
a dazzling light show based on Scriabin’s own
colour-tonal system, plus dance movements from
the monks of the Thikse Monastery. It didn’t cause
a cataclysmic change to mankind as Scriabin was
sure his music would, but it was a very moving
event – and is now on record as the highest publicly
attended classical music concert in the world!
Was Scriabin ahead of his time or slightly
nuts? Both! He was a genuine visionary whose
music inspired and influenced a generation. But he
really did believe that he was a God-like figure. He
believed his proposed plans for an epic seven-day
event of his music in the Himalayas would change
mankind as we know it, engulfing the world in an
orgiastic trance and creating an entire new race
of beings. A small pimple on his upper lip became
septic and caused his untimely demise – not the
grandest of deaths for one who was so certain of
his super-human status!
Tell us about the concert at Brighton Dome…
The Brighton & Hove Actually Gay Men’s
Chorus are celebrating their 10th anniversary this
year with the fantastic London Gay Symphony
Orchestra for a vibrant concert that will include
Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, narrated
by the charming and hilarious cabaret star Miss
Jason, Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos and
Orchestra, highlights from HMS Pinafore, big band
jazz songs, arias from Tosca and Tristan und Isolde,
cabaret songs and more.
What is the Actually Gay Men’s Chorus? Do
you actually have to be gay to join? It’s one of
the most popular gay choruses in Brighton, a huge
contributor to the local community and an amazing
group of people. We’ve been involved for the
last few years and they are family to us. They’re
welcoming to anyone regardless of sexuality!
What’s it like making music with your partner?
It’s the best job in the world for us, and we’re
lucky that we work together so well. Travelling
all over the world, practising and performing together
is hugely rewarding. Interview by Ben Bailey
Brighton Dome, Sun 10 Jan, 7.30pm, £8-25
....42....

local musicians
..........................................
Ben Bailey rounds up the Brighton music scene
TONY BLAIR WITCH PROJEKT
Sat 9, Latest Music Bar, 6pm, £4
Auto-tuned vocals have become so ubiquitous in
pop production they’ve set a new standard where
anything recorded naturally almost sounds wrong.
Tony Blair Witch Projekt make a joke and a feature
out of the effect by pushing it to the extreme,
while using an instant-anthem backing track in a
knowing and nostalgic homage to 90s rave music.
In case it wasn’t obvious, the neon face paint and
daft nicknames (Raveheart on guitar, Darth Raver
on drums) should flag them up as ‘not entirely
serious’. They’re headlining this ‘Snazzy Rave’
night alongside a bunch of other dance rock acts
including what is (surely) Brighton’s first computer
game covers band.
GANG
Thu 14, Green Door Store, 7pm, Free
When Gang moved to Brighton from Kent a
few years ago they must have found it easy to
make friends in a scene bursting with a new wave
of grunge and garage rock bands. Though they
certainly share a soft spot for Seattle with fellow
riff-crunchers Demob Happy, The Wytches and
Tigercub, Gang also have a trippy stoner vibe
that’s less doomy and more laid-back. As can be
seen in the new video for the awesome Animalia
(in which a redneck hunter chases a feral and naked
man through a forest), these guys like to let it all
hang out.
MAISIE PETERS
Tue 26, Latest Music Bar, 7.30pm, £5/4
Though she
sings of jealously
and insecurity,
many singersongwriters
are
likely to feel
the same way
when they hear
Maisie Peters’
fresh take on
confessional folk
pop. It probably
doesn’t help that she’s only 15, but then it doesn’t
really show either. With a wordy streak that’ll
be familiar to fans of Emmy The Great, Maisie’s
songs are sometimes whimsical, sometimes angsty,
but her voice is always on fine form. Though she’s
not technically from Brighton – a year ago she won
a talent show at Steyning Grammar School – it
might be wise if the city claims her as one of its
own, as she won’t be stuck in the sticks for long.
JUDGE TREV MEMORIAL GIG
Sat 30, Brunswick, 7pm, £15/13
If you’ve heard of the Real Music Club then you’ll
know it was run by Judge Trev until he passed
away in 2010. If you’ve heard of Judge Trev then
you’ll know he was the blues rock guitarist who
formed Inner City Unit with Hawkwind’s Nik
Turner in the late 70s. This is the fifth memorial
Brighton’s RMC has held in his honour and once
again his old band are reuniting for the occasion
– with Krankschaft, Jaki Windmill of The Pink
Fairies and The Uncontrollables in support. As the
Hawkwind connection suggests, it’s psychedelic
space rock all the way.
....43....

New Year
27 Jan Stewart Lee
DYNAMO
Wed 27-Sun 31 Jan
JASON DERULO
Tue 2 Feb
1 Feb Massive Attack
(returns only)
13 Feb Theatre: I Am Not
Myself These Days
14 – 15 Feb Family Theatre:
The Bear
18 Feb Theatre: On Men,
Women and the Rest
of Us
19 Feb SPECTRUM (line up tba)
21 Feb Otava Yo
REEVES & MORTIMER
Sun 14 Feb
THE X FACTOR
Mon 22 & Tue 23 Feb
23 Feb Dance: NORA
26 – 27 Feb Teen Theatre:
A Local Boy
box office 0844 847 1515 *
www.brightoncentre.co.uk
*calls cost 7p per minute plus your phone company’s access charge
01273 709709 brightondome.org

music
....................................
Vieux Farka Toure
Malian musical messenger
You’ve said ‘Music is life in Mali. There is
no difference.’ Is it possible to make someone
in the UK, who’s never visited, understand
just how important music is to Malian
culture? No, I don’t think so. You must experience
life in Mali to understand the importance
of music. The best way I can say it is that it’s
like water for our spirits. We simply cannot live
without it.
You mentioned in a previous interview
that musicians aren’t just artists in Mali,
they’re also like journalists and historians.
Could you elaborate on that idea? In Mali
it is not part of our culture to get the news
from newspapers and that kind of thing. In our
tradition, it was the griots, the musicians, who
would transmit the news and the history for
the people. If there was a problem in Segou, it
would be the griots letting people know about
it in Bamako. It’s like this. This is why being
a musician in Mali it is not just being an entertainer.
There are many other responsibilities
that go with being a musician, and one of them
is to share news and our cultural traditions
through the music.
What was it like growing up as the son of
possibly the most prominent musician in
a music-obsessed country? I
am very lucky, you know.
My father was really
larger than life, you
can say. He gave
me so many
things and
taught me so
many things
about life. So of course being the son of Ali in
Mali, there are good things. But people will
also have a lot of expectations on me because
I am Ali’s son. The people of Mali love to gossip
all the time, so I also can be under pressure
because everyone is paying attention to what I
do. So there is good and bad, but in the end of
course I am very lucky.
You were asked in 2012 about the situation
in Mali, and said it was ‘not safe for
me to talk about’. Did you feel personally in
danger? Yes, and to be honest I still do. These
people, they are still in Mali. We see what is
happening in Bamako and in Kidal just this
weekend. We are not finished with this war. It
is a terrible situation politically right now in
Mali. It will get better but I do not know how
many more years we are going to have to endure
these atrocities.
When the rebels tried to ban music, how
effective was that? Did people continue to
make and listen to music, in secret?
Yes, of course!
Could it ever realistically
have happened that music
making would have been extinguished
in Mali? No, no,
a million times no! There is no
Mali without music. They
would have to kill all the
Malian people if they
want to stop music in
Mali. It is never going
to happen. SR
Wed 20 Jan, Komedia,
7.30pm, £17
....45....

figure skating
.........................................
Holiday on Ice
The logistics of ‘Passion’
This is how to write about Holiday on Ice: you say
something about how vastly popular it is, quoting
the latest figure for how many hundreds of millions
of people have seen it. You joke about its reputation
for rhinestone-coated kitschy naffness. And
then you go and see it and declare that actually, it’s
really good fun.
The standard format wasn’t open to me, though:
I haven’t seen it. Anyway, I was more interested in
the logistics – how do you take an elaborate icerink-based
show on tour? Stage manager Darren
Pitt claimed to be “terrible at interviews”. But I
think he got across a sense of how it works.
Obviously there’s the development stage – writing,
designing, choreographing, organising, building,
getting “acrobatics insurance”, etc. They spend
“almost a year” on all this, Pitt thinks, including
the three months of rehearsals. Then they put their
equipment – around 30 tons of it – into six trucks.
They build the rink using an “ice floor”, made
of “freezing plates”, filled with something called
glycol. This is pumped around at below-zero
temperatures; water’s sprayed on top, and freezes.
It takes two-and-a-half or three days to build up a
5cm layer of ice. They travel with two ice floors,
to save time: while they’re still at the first venue,
some people go ahead to the second, and set up the
rink there.
They’ll do a few days at each city, or maybe a week.
They may have to put the trucks into storage,
because where can you park six trucks in a city like
Brighton for a week? Then, on the last night, the
crew spends four or five hours dismantling everything
and loading it up.
Rebuilding at the next place, and doing rehearsals
and soundchecks and getting everything ready,
is “actually like a day-and-a-half long process, I
guess”. When they’re rigging up the aerial-stunt
equipment, and working out the logistics, they
have to try and factor in that the extra weight of
hundreds of audience members can distort the
shape of the room, giving “as much as 30cm extra
distance between the floor and the roof.”
As well as the set-builders, the 18-strong technical
crew includes “lighting technicians, cameramen,
video editors, wardrobe staff…” Then there’s the
four “ice technicians”, and a “physio, tour manager,
tour assistant, catering, merchandise. And we’re
travelling with a cast of 30… 36, I believe.”
They used to go around in caravans, but nowadays
all these people spend the months-long tour living
in hotels. So how much does it all cost, staging
something like this? “I try not to get involved in
that part of it. I don’t really know.” How about two
or three million pounds? “I’m sure it’s around that
mark, if not a little more.” Steve Ramsey
Holiday on Ice: Passion. Tues 5 – Sun 10 Jan,
Brighton Centre
....46....

comedy
....................................
Tim Brooke Taylor
Goodie Goodie Python
“I was very nearly a Python, actually,” says the
Goodie and long-serving Clue panellist Tim
Brooke-Taylor. He got an offer, but he had other
commitments; he couldn’t do it.
It sounds like, at Cambridge in the early 60s,
future Pythons and future Goodies were pretty
friendly. Brooke-Taylor even shared a flat with
John Cleese and Graham Chapman. They were in
Footlights together, though they didn’t really have
showbiz ambitions at the time.
“Bill Oddie, I think, is the only one who had an
idea that he might go into the business. John
Cleese and I used to go to law lectures together,
and Graeme Garden and Graham Chapman
were qualified doctors afterwards. Most of us just
thought ‘well, let’s enjoy it while we can.’ And even
when our revue in ’63 reached Broadway, we still
thought that was going to be the end of the road,
and we’d go back to being, in my case a lawyer,
and doctors and various other things like that.”
But instead, Cleese and all three future Goodies
ended up in a radio sketch series called I’m Sorry
I’ll Read That Again, which was, according to the
Guardian, ‘an early platform for several members
of Monty Python’.
Then, in 1967, Cleese and Chapman were doing
At Last the 1948 Show with Brooke-Taylor, while
the other two future Goodies did a series called
Twice a Fortnight, featuring Michael Palin and
Terry Jones.
“At that time I was sharing a flat with Eric Idle,”
Garden once told Viva. “We’d worked together in
various combinations over the years and split off,
particularly into Goodies and Pythons, but then
we’ve sort of drifted back together to do things,
off and on, since then.”
So how did the separation occur, into these two
groups? “Well it wasn’t so much a separation,”
Brooke-Taylor says. After the 1948 Show, he did a
series with Graeme Garden, at Eric Idle’s suggestion.
“I was writing with Eric at the time. So we
weren’t sort of separated.
“We did two series of a show called Broaden your
Mind, Graeme and I, and the BBC said ‘we’d like
another series, but could you make it a bit different?’
I think what they meant was ‘could you make
it a lot better?’ And that’s where The Goodies came
out.”
I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue was Garden’s idea.
Apparently he and Bill Oddie didn’t really have
time to write any more radio scripts, but wanted
to carry on making programmes. When it started,
in 1972, The Goodies had been on TV for a couple
of years. They were successful enough that this
improvised show was “a huge risk”. “Bill actually
threw up before the first one,” Brooke-Taylor says.
“It didn’t suit John or Bill.” You’ll have guessed, of
course, who this ‘John’ was.
It seems, I suggest to Brooke-Taylor, like there
was quite a big element of chance, in terms of who
ended up in which group: Pythons and Goodies.
“Yeah, absolutely.” Steve Ramsey
I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, Sat 30 Jan, Brighton
Dome Concert Hall, 2.30pm and 7.30pm
....47....

music
.........................................
Steven Wilson
The invisible superstar
Joyce Carol Vincent had had a decent job in accountancy.
She’d apparently been popular and
successful. But later she became such a recluse that,
when she died aged 38, her body lay undiscovered
in her London flat for almost three years. ‘She
chose, in a way to erase herself, to become invisible,’
Steven Wilson has said.
Wilson is a work-obsessed prog-oriented musician
and producer, who tours regularly, gives interviews,
and chats cheerfully. He doesn’t sound much like
Joyce Carol Vincent. And yet, her story inspired his
fantastic 2015 album Hand. Cannot. Erase.
“Often over the years, I’ve written about things
that I find difficult to understand, and in a way,
writing about them has been my way to try to
understand. Joyce Carol Vincent’s story is a classic
example of that. Firstly, how can someone want to
be so invisible? And then secondly, how can someone
disappear from view while living in the heart of
one of the [busiest] cities on the planet?
“Those things are difficult to comprehend, in a
way. And as you say, it’s a very different world to
the one I live in, where pretty much everything I
do is done in public, like any professional musician.
“Having said that, there’s not a lot of my personal
life out there. There is an element of protecting
that inner world too. But obviously I do have that
professional face, which has to be very visible. In
fact my career depends on kind of, trying to be
visible… It is something I’ve had to learn, and to
come to terms with, this idea of being a frontman,
being a showman, being a self-publicist, which are
all things that are necessary for the job that I do…
“Of course, part of me completely understands
Joyce Carol Vincent, and that, not wanting to step
outside your front door. You only have to turn on
the news and see what’s going on in the world to
understand how someone who was perhaps a little
bit more fragile could have that impulse to kind
of retreat completely from the world, and want to
become invisible.”
Though Wilson is ‘able to sell out the Albert Hall,
either solo or with his long-established band, Porcupine
Tree’, the Guardian noted in 2013, he ‘could
nevertheless stroll down any British high street
unrecognised and unmolested.’ I suggest to him
that that situation might suit him quite well.
“Yes, it does, but there’s also the other implication
of that, that actually I have been pretty much
ignored by the mainstream my whole career.
That is frustrating, because obviously being in the
mainstream brings you a wider audience, more
record sales, more ticket sales, and it has been a real
struggle to build my career up to this point.
“But you’re right, there is also the positive aspect,
which is that my privacy is maintained. I can walk
around my home town and no one knows who I
am. And I think probably you’re right, that suits
me, yeah.” Steve Ramsey
Mon 25 Jan, Brighton Dome Concert Hall, 7pm
....48....

comedy WORKSHOPS
.........................................
Jill Edwards
‘For goodness sake, be original’
Stand-ups are in public, failing or winning all
the time. It’s an insane thing to do, if you think
about it. But when they win, it’s great. I think that’s
the thing - there’s nothing like a whole room full of
people laughing at your jokes.
The main thing that professional stand-ups
spend their time doing is travelling. I’d say approximately
90% of the job is being on trains. You
could travel for five hours on the train, do 20 minutes,
and go home again. It’s quite an isolated life.
Who knows why people are passionate about
the things they’re passionate about? But if you
want to be a stand-up, you have to be absolutely
passionate about it, because it’s a really hard path.
It’s the best job in the world, if it’s your job, and it’s
working. But it’s increasingly hard to be a stand-up.
I’ve been teaching it for over 20 years. Previously
I’d been a professional comedian on the comedy
circuit, as part of a double act. When I started teaching,
there were a few bits and pieces going on, but
nobody was doing a proper formal stand-up-comedy
course. I started asking comedians what they wished
they’d been told, rather than just having to find
it out for themselves, before they started gigging.
And I asked promoters what they wished that new
comedians knew before they asked them for a gig.
Unexpectedly, really, as it was such a new thing, it
just took off.
I don’t think it boils down to the basic things
you need to know. It’s a 12-Saturdays course, three
hours a week. So maybe what you need to know is
that there’s a lot more to it than you think. A lot of
people say, ‘gosh, this is harder than I thought it
was going to be’. Well, of course it’s hard, otherwise
there would be nobody working in the banks and
shoe shops.
One of my biggest bits of advice would be: for
goodness’ sake, be original. A lot of new acts
just do pretty much the same jokes about the same
things everyone’s heard 100 times before. For me,
stand-up is standing on stage, being yourself, telling
people how you see the world. It’s a real view - bring
people into your view of the world.
No, I never wish I was doing stand-up again.
I love teaching. It sounds mad unless you’ve been
on my course, but I really love watching people’s
‘inner comic’ coming out; people beginning to get
it; telling their first joke that’s really funny; someone
that’s really quiet and unconfident doing my New
Act Night at the end of the course and being amazing
and everyone clapping and laughing. There’s
something transformative about it, whether they go
on to be stand-ups or not. It’s a great pleasure to be
part of that journey. I’m only teaching comedy, but
it feels like I’m doing something good. SR
Jill Edwards Comedy Workshops are based at the
Komedia, Brighton. jill-edwards.co.uk.
....49....

cinema
.........................................
LOVE
Exploring the sentimentality of sexuality (in 3D)
The first thing to say about Love, Gasper
Noé’s brazen and bold new film, is that it is
the most sexually explicit film to have secured
the British Board of Film Classification’s
approval. This defining feature will no doubt
dominate its critical and commercial reception
on release, as well as its lasting legacy, or
eventual notoriety.
However, what is vital to note is that this is
far from being a work of pornography. Where
that genre’s primary intention is to solicit
sexual arousal and/or masturbatory gratification,
the sex – or rather, lovemaking – on
display here is neither gratuitously titillating
nor, at any time, outside very specific relationship-related
parameters. Indeed, it is that
relationship – passionate, tempestuous, tragic
– that remains at the heart of the piece. It is,
therefore, worth keeping very much in mind
that this work is entitled ‘Love’, not ‘Sex’.
As with earlier work by this uniquely imaginative
director, in particular Irreversible (2002)
and Into the Void (2009), this film quickly establishes
a formal aesthetic that is all its own.
Deliberate formal compositions dominated by
consistently framed medium close-ups anchor
a viewing experience that is very well served
by the use of the 3D format, which provides
an engaging depth of field in, mostly, interior
shots and, specifically, scenes of sexual
congress. This use of 3D is by no means a
gimmick; instead, it allows viewers’ immersion
in the ‘real’ lives of the protagonists, and
is especially effective in ensuring that the
physicality of the lovemaking is experienced
as fully as may be possible via the cinematic
medium. These scenes are filmed with precision
and integrity, and the perfectly attuned
....50....

cinema
.........................................
accompaniment of Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain
or Dirge by Death in Vegas, amongst others,
complements moments of pure rapture.
Here’s the gist: a young American in Paris,
Murphy (Karl Glusman), a budding filmmaker,
meets and immediately falls for
Parisian Elektra (Aomi Muyock), an aspiring
artist. Theirs is a naïve but sincere love, made
especially powerful by unbridled passion and
desire. When post-coital conversation turns
to questions of ultimate sexual fantasy, both
are pleased to discover that enjoying a ménage
à trois is high on the list. The appearance
of nubile young neighbour Omi (Klara
Kristin) serves this purpose perfectly, and an
enchantingly portrayed seduction ensues.
Unsurprisingly, things take a dramatic turn
for the worse, but none of this is a plot spoiler
as the film opens with Murphy waking up
two years later with Omi by his side and a
crying infant, cheekily named Gasper, in the
next room. Our misguided hero bemoans the
life that fate has served him, and the core of
the film remains throughout his abject regret
and paralysis at the insurmountable loss of
Elektra, now missing without trace.
In short, and as Murphy declares at one
point, being a filmmaking novice and mouthpiece
of Noé himself, this is a film about the
paucity of movies out there that interrogate,
problematise and celebrate the sentimentality
of sexuality. This is a brave attempt to
do just that, and in large measure it works
magnificently. Yoram Allon
Check the Picturehouse website for screening
details
....51....

FREE
EXHIBITION
BODY, MIND AND MEDITATION
IN TANTRIC BUDDHISM
Until 28 February
Tuesday–Sunday until 18.00, Thursdays and first Fridays until 22.00
183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE Euston, Euston Square
wellcomecollection.org/secrettemple

literature
........................................
Devotion
Alchemy of literature, spirituality and science
Devotion takes place in a future
that feels entirely plausible;
set ten years after the death of
Richard Dawkins, atheism is now
de rigueur and religious fundamentalism
is treated as a mental
illness. Ros Barber’s latest novel
presents the reader with a rewarding
and inspiring challenge,
tackling some of the most daunting
subjects, such as religion, the
roles of 21st-century spirituality
and quantum physics, choice and
probability.
When Barber and I speak, she
explains how these topics feel interconnected and
how they evolved to introduce further themes.
“I’m interested in the place where quantum science
and 21st-century spirituality meet”, she says: this
relationship created the outline and “grief and
mental illness became tangled in the story because
breakdown is such a common doorway to either
spiritual awakening or religion.”
Each of the characters, in some way, experience
grief and subsequent mental illness. Dr Finlay
Logan, the central character and a criminal psychologist,
is investigating the case of April Smith,
who faces trial for blowing up a bus full of atheists,
which she believes she did in God’s name. Logan is
at the time coming to terms with the death of his
daughter. April is also grieving, but for her loss of
self due to a great trauma. Jude, Logan’s wife, feels
both the loss of him as he battles with grief and of
herself in their all-consuming relationship.
These realistic characters serve to keep the book
within the framework of some kind of reality. Barber
explains, “it is no surprise” that the everyday
becomes central because “once the
characters have become real, I just
more or less observe them.” This
grounding allows Barber to explore
the “inner life that fascinates.”
The complex inner lives of these
characters are best articulated
through their individual experiences
of ‘The Process’. Introduced to
Logan by consciousness expert Dr
Gabrielle Salmon, ‘The Process’ is
purported to give the user a spiritual
experience which some believe
to be a conscious awakening and
others to provide a connection to
God. Logan suggests April for treatment, hoping
it will make her speak and when he sees the way
it frees her mind, he is tempted to undergo ‘The
Process’ himself.
Here the book departs from a more typical narrative;
Barber fulfils both Logan’s and the reader’s
curiosity by writing what would happen to Logan
if he underwent ‘The Process’ and if he didn’t. To
Barber this was “logically connected… to the quantum
physics experiments described in the book;
probability waves of atoms which can apparently
exist in two places at once,” leaving the reader to
decide Logan’s fate.
However, it is not merely the topics and open ending
which make this book a fascinating read but the
writing too. The lyrical prose lifts the seemingly
heavy subject matter. It is through her use of language
and in particular her exploration of the inner
narratives of characters that Barber is able to so
diligently explore these issues. In her own words,
these are the places that “only fiction can reach.”
Holly Fitzgerald
....53....

art
........................................
John Napier
Set designer par excellence
When I meet John Napier, back in November,
he is working on the show of his life. That’s
not to say it’s the most epic in scale of his
theatrical designs, or likely to be seen by the
largest audience, or awarded (another) Tony
or Olivier. It is literally the show of his life.
Stages; Beyond the Fourth Wall, on at Towner
in Eastbourne until January 31st, will include
costume designs and 3D pieces based on his
five decades in theatre design, as well as the
sculptures that he’s created in parallel.
I visit John at his studio in Polegate – a huge
industrial unit where he’s drawing together
and meticulously staging this careful edit
of over 50 years’ work. Not an easy task, as
he’s been responsible for some of the most
memorable stage sets and costumes in theatre;
among them the horses in Equus, the barricades
in Les Misérables, the helicopter in
Miss Saigon, the outsized junkyard in Cats, and
the high velocity wheelie world of Starlight
Express. The space is full of fascinating objects;
drawings, models, costumes. Objects in every
scale, some recognizable and narrative, like the
exquisite horse head dresses from Equus, others
purely abstract and sculptural, like his huge
bronze castings. I begin to understand why
– when I ask if he describes himself as an artist
or a theatre designer – he answers ‘imagineer’.
John began his career in the 1960s. Extremely
Photo by Peter Prior
....54....

art
........................................
Photo by Julian Napier
dyslexic, he found an outlet for his imagination
in art and, at the insistence of his art teacher Mr
Burchall, went on to study fine art at Hornsey
College of Art and theatre design at the Central
School of Arts and Crafts, under Ralph Koltai.
He took his love of sculpture into the theatre
realizing ‘that scenery did not have to be painted
backcloths, instead, abstract objects that filled
the space’ and went on to create sets and costumes
for some of the West End and Broadway’s
longest-running shows as well as for the Royal
Shakespeare Company, Glyndebourne, and
the New York Metropolitan Opera. He also
designed for Disney, created and co-directed the
spectacular Siegfried & Roy Show in Las Vegas,
and worked on Steven Spielberg’s film Hook.
Awards, accolades and fellowships followed.
All the while, John has been recording his
productions through fine art, making sculptural
objects and paintings; some, he tells me, based
on plays, others on texts, but always with an
interest in the human condition. Model boxes
of theatre designs are used to give the company
and players an understanding of the environment
they will be working in, and John has
created similar objects for Stages, encapsulating
his creative process. The show, I can reveal, is a
fascinating insight into the marriage of imagination
and technical ability, of art and theatre. A
multi-dimensional scrapbook of an imagineer.
Lizzie Lower
Towner, Devonshire Park Road, Eastbourne, until
31 Jan. £5/£3.50 concession/under 18s free
johnnapierstages.com
....55....

A Creative
New Year!
Phoenix Brighton’s unique
range of daytime, evening
and weekend arts courses
for adults at all levels
• Illustration
• Printmaking
• Fine art
• Life drawing
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• Digital art
• Sculpture
• Jewellery
• Photography
• Feltmaking
• Machine embroidery
• Artists books
• Gallery education
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art
.....................................
focus on: Kate Jenkins
Tinned sardines in box frame, 25cm x 21.5cm, £250
Tell us about your knitted sardines. They formed
part of the wall display at an exhibition I did this year
called Kate’s Plaice the Stitchmongers, where I set up
a whole knitted fish counter. I wanted people to be
able to come and buy things like at a real fish counter,
so I was dressed as the fishmonger in a hat and
an apron and I would wrap the fish up in paper and
sell them to the customers.
How long did it take you to knit an entire fish
counter? I started in January and finished in October…
but I was working on other projects too!
I started by making a list of all the fish I was going
to make, so that when I got bored of knitting
one thing I could move onto something different. I
never counted how many fish there were altogether,
but I’d imagine over 1,000. Then there were the
slices of lemon, and the parsley…
Have you noticed a growing trend in knitting
and other traditional crafts? Lots of people say
to me ‘knitting is coming back into fashion’ but
I’ve been a knitwear designer for about 22 years,
so in my world knitting has always been in fashion.
But I think because of the internet and YouTube
crafts have become more accessible – people can
find things that they wouldn’t have known were
going on.
Do you prefer knitting fish to knitting clothing?
I enjoy both; the art side is my fun time, but
I think one influences the other. When I get tired
of one I do the other. If I spent all my time knitting
fish I’d be a very boring person… You need variety
in what you do to keep things fresh.
We’re used to knitted things being comforting
and tactile, it’s unusual to see them behind
glass. It gives them a different energy and people
see them in a different light when they’re framed.
I’ve always said it’s art to me whether it’s on a
clothes hanger or in a frame in an art gallery.
What’s your top sardine recipe? I like to mash
them with chilli flakes, spread on toast with slices
of tomato on top, then put them under the grill. RC
cardigan.ltd.uk
....57....

design
................................
Andy Budd
‘User experience’ designer
Andy Budd, founding partner
of leading UX design company
ClearLeft, creates websites for
the likes of Penguin Books and
Channel 4. I didn’t clock that
Andy has over 40K Twitter
followers before I interviewed
him, which is good, I might
have been intimidated.
Andy started in tech at the
turn of the century, which he
says was fortunate. “[When] I
started the web was horrible,
so no-one noticed how bad I
was, but as I got better and as
the web got better, the barrier
to entry has got much higher.”
His design and technology blog, andybudd.
com, began when the medium was the reserve of
geeks. It became one of the highest-traffic blogs
in the UK. Then in 2006, Andy wrote CSS Mastery,
a handbook for web developers. “I ended up
selling about a million copies, and at one stage,
only for a week, it was outselling Harry Potter…
I’ve still got the .gif somewhere.”
After speaking together at SXSW ten years
ago, Andy started Clearleft with partners Jeremy
Keith and Richard Rutter. The experience
inspired them to launch dConstruct, now the
longest-running tech conference in the UK held
in Brighton each September, and more recently
UX London, both of which Andy curates.
“Quite a lot of people will go ‘oh, that’s a really
clever strategy,’ but that’s not our approach,” says
Andy. “A lot of people coming into the design
market these days have a kind of mercenary view:
we need to build our brand and to do this we’ll
do x, y and z. We set up because we love what we
do. We love the internet, we
love design, we love helping
people, and that’s why we run
the events.”
But what is UX design anyway,
and how does it differ
from plain old web design?
“A user experience design
agency is a bit like an architect
for websites,” says Andy.
“This isn’t disparaging, but a
lot of design is more ‘interior
design’: it’s look and feel. We
focus more on the conceptual
and behavioural levels.
We try to solve interesting,
complex problems…
“We’re interested in psychology and human
behaviour, ultimately, how can we help people,
maybe through motivation, maybe through taking
the pain away… All the techniques that good
UX designers can use can equally be abused by
people trying to sell you stuff you don’t want
through marketing. I have an immediate aversion
to doing anything that’s marketing focused.”
As a blogger, I wonder if there’s one piece of advice
Andy gives to individuals wanting to make
their online presence friendlier. “I’m kind of oldfashioned
now,” he says. “I come from a generation
where the web facilitated genuine conversation
and people sharing their passions just for
the free benefit of others. It was the Commons.
I personally believe that the best advice is to talk
about stuff that you’re interested in, in an impassioned
way, not for any kind of goal other than
its intrinsic value. If the stuff you’re sharing is of
value to others, then that will come back to you,
one way or another.” Chloë King clearleft.com
....58....

ighton maker
................................
Isobel Smith
Bunraku-style puppeteer
Why did you become a puppeteer? It came
about in quite a peculiar way; I was given a book
voucher for my fortieth birthday and I had been
working really hard, so I decided to escape for a
couple of hours to Borders. I spotted a book on
puppetry, took it home and made my first puppet.
I was from a sculptural background and so I
thought, who’s actually going to move this puppet?
It’s not going to be me… But some of my
friends decided to book me a slot with my puppets
in a talent night so I just had a month to learn
how to do it.
What sort of puppets do you make? They’re
very loosely based on Bunraku – a Japanese style
of puppetry. Rather than having strings attached
like a marionette, they have batons which you can
use to move the head and different body parts. After
reading the book I trained with Green Ginger,
a puppetry company in Bristol, on their ‘Toastie’
professional development scheme for puppeteers.
I make puppets from all sorts of materials, carved
wood, papier-mâché, cloth and latex. When I
teach at Phoenix I use Sculpey clay which is a
great material for beginners.
Do you make up stories for them too? When
I put on shows, I’m less concerned with the narrative
and more concerned with the feelings the
puppets can convey. They can tap into the subconscious
and kind of slow down time – a little
puppet can hold a lot of time and space. I do love
stories, it’s just when it comes to my own practice
I’m not so keen.
What are the logistics involved in putting on
a solo puppet show? You can only really have
one puppet at a time, because you need one hand
to control the head and one to move the body, so
there are a lot of dead or floating or under the
sea or unconscious characters in my solo shows. I
like putting on shows myself because I work quite
instinctively and change things about quite a bit.
When I do shows with other puppeteers I feel like
I have to work in a more formal way.
Does each puppet have one personality or can
they take on different characters? Most of them
are just one character but I have one, a little girl
puppet called Violetta, who’s become a sort of actress
– she has to step into whatever role I need
her to be. And then there are some puppets which
just don’t work out. There was one in particular
which looked fine when I’d finished her but as soon
as I started to move her she just looked stupid. I
gave her lots of chances; I even tried making her
into a sort of Rapunzel character with all this hair
wrapped around her, but in the end she had to go.
Interview by Rebecca Cunningham
Isobel will be teaching two puppetry courses at the
Phoenix Gallery in 2016; phoenixbrighton.org
....59....

trade secrets
......................................
Zapp Laser Studio
Farewell Tweetie Pie
What treatments do you offer?
Our main focus is on laser
tattoo removals, but we also do
skin rejuvenation treatments
which stimulate collagen
formation and treat fine lines
and wrinkles, pigmentation
and acne scarring. I’ve always
worked within the beauty
industry, but over the last five
years laser has been what I’m
passionate about doing.
How does laser tattoo
removal work? It uses
‘picosecond technology’; our
machine is able to shatter the
ink into tiny particles which
the body can remove through
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smaller particles than any other machine, we can
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Is there a big market for tattoo removals in
Brighton? We’ve only been open since September
and we’ve already had far more clients than we
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with tattoos, but we’ve even had people come
from as far as Southampton because we’re the only
people south of London who have Picosure – the
machine that we use – which is really in demand.
The main difference with this machine is that it
uses two separate wavelengths: one can treat all
different coloured inks, and one can treat trickier
colours like reds, oranges and yellows. Lots of
other machines can only treat some colours, so the
client has to travel around to different clinics.
What are the most common reasons for people
wanting tattoos removed? People who have
had names tattooed on them and they don’t want
to have to explain whose name
it is, especially if it’s an ex. For a
few people it’s because they’ve
had something quite meaningful
done, which can be too difficult
for them to talk about when
people ask. Then we get a lot of
older clients who got a tattoo a
long time ago, and even though
it’s quite a simple image they just
don’t want it anymore. Another
really popular thing is fading of
a tattoo: if the ink is too dark to
cover over, we can fade it so that
they can get another tattoo done
to cover it up.
Are there any risks involved?
There is always some kind of risk
with laser treatments, but we’re very thorough
in our consultations beforehand. The customer
always needs to have a patch test done at least 48
hours before any treatment. We go through the
do’s and don’ts and talk to them about aftercare.
Is January a fairly common time for getting
old tattoos removed? Winter in general is busy
because it’s better to get a tattoo removed when
you’re not in the sun all the time. It needs to be
protected under a bandage, so it’s easier to cover
up under winter clothes.
How much does a treatment cost? Depending
on the size of the tattoo, it can range from £100
to £475, but for people who need more than one
session we offer discount packages.
Rebecca Cunningham interviewed Ellie Parker
Zapp hope to work with the Macmillan Horizon
centre in the next couple of months to offer free
removal of radiation tattoos for cancer survivors.
30, The Drive, Hove. zapplaserstudio.co.uk
....61....

THE FLOWER SCHO O L
B R I G H T O N
Day & Evening Workshops
Wedding Floristry
Bespoke Floristry Parties
Contact Vicki on
01273 563363 / 07867 544218
www.theflowerschoolbrighton.co.uk
info@theflowerschoolbrighton.co.uk

the way we work(ED)
This month we sent Adam Bronkhorst to meet some locals who have undergone
a drastic change in career. We wouldn’t say they’re ‘old dogs’, but they have
definitely learnt some new tricks. We asked each of them what New Year’s
resolutions they have made for 2016.
adambronkhorst.com | 07879 401 333
Dieter Hachenberg, @HachenbergD
Used to work as a project and programme manager at the BBC;
now a life coach and mountain bike guide.
“I don’t really make New Year’s resolutions, but what I say to my clients is that it’s
about living the breadth of your life, not just the length.”

the way we work(ED)
Julia Crouch, @thatjuliacrouch
Used to be a graphic designer; now writes psychological thrillers.
“My New Year’s resolution is to write two books in 2016 instead of one.”

the way we work(ED)
Jane Fairman, @hedgewitchsuss
Previously worked in advertising; now a forager,
selling foods made from foraged ingredients.
“My affirmation is to embrace change as a positive thing.”

the way we work(ED)
Simon Nicholson, handelsbanken.co.uk
Used to be a landscape gardener; now the bank manager of Handelsbanken, Hove.
“I want to cycle to Paris.”

the way we work(ED)
Vicki Gilbert, @FlowerSchoolBtn
Used to work in corporate training and development; now teaches floristry.
“My New Year’s resolution is to go and see more live music!”

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Food & Drink directory
advertorial
The Better Half
The Better Half pub has
put the heart and soul back
into one of the oldest public
houses in the city, just off
Hove seafront. There’s a
superb wine and spirits list and some great ales
and ciders on offer, as well as a hearty and wholesome
menu to enjoy, making the best of local
ingredients. The Better Half is relaxed, friendly
and easy-going, making all feel welcome and
comfortable when you visit.
1 Hove Place, Hove, 01273 737869, thebetterhalfpub.co.uk
Pelham House, Lewes
A beautiful 16thcentury,
four-star
town house hotel
that has been exquisitely
restored
to create an elegant
venue. With beautiful
gardens, a stylish restaurant and plenty of
private dining and meeting rooms it is the perfect
venue for both small and larger parties.
pelhamhouse.com
Saint Andrew’s Lane, Lewes, 01273 488600
Terre à Terre
Forget dry, it’s all about
Try January at Terre à
Terre. There are new
and local spirits on the menu alongside fantastic
cocktails and organic wines, as well as the return
of ‘Buy our own bottle’ on Mondays and Tuesdays
till March 29th. This means your wine will
cost retail / off licence price. No need to bring a
bottle, it’s hassle free and corkage free. There’s a
fully organic off-licence list (T&Cs apply). Look
out for surprise feature truffles and dishes too.
Purezza
If you are keen to get
your January off to a
good start, why not try
out Purezza? It’s 100%
plant-based Italian food, meaning it’s not only
good for you, it’s good for the planet too. We
offer a large selection of organic and Fairtrade
coffees, pizzas, salads and sandwiches. Not only
is everything dairy free, most of our food is gluten
free too. You can dine in, take away or order
online via purezza.co.uk
71 East Street, 01273 729051, terreaterre.co.uk
12 St James’s Street, 01273 945055, purezza.co.uk
Temple Bar
After our recent transformation
we’re proud to serve
a fantastic selection of British
craft beer and authentic Indian street food
from award-winning Curry Leaf Cafe. Our new,
cosy first-floor booths are perfect for a private
celebration or finding a table big enough for
a bunch of you on a busy afternoon. The ideal
place when you’re after a pub with a great atmosphere
and friendly staff - all a stone’s throw
from the beach, Churchill Square and Hove.
121 Western Road, 01273 721501, thetemplebar.pub
Twenty One
Wines
We are a small family run
independent wine merchant
based in the Lanes, providing a comprehensive
selection of quality wines, spirits and beers from
around the world. We distinguish ourselves by
having tasted and chosen each wine in the shop,
so we are really well placed to suggest wines
meeting the needs of our clients, or even something
completely different to what they would
normally drink.
21 Prince Albert St, 01273 776096, twentyonewines.com

drink
........................................
Helmston
Liquid health
“I feel well already, two sips in,” says Rebecca, a glass of ‘greenwych’ juice
in her hand. The juice has been made in front of us in a silent centrifugal
juicer, and it’s made of cucumber, spinach, mint, apple and lime. You
could say it’s a healthy juice. John Martyn is playing through the speakers. We’re in Helmston, whose
publicity postcards bear the slogan ‘healthy folk food’ and I’ve got my own juice in front of me, a ‘greenman’
with wheatgrass, lime, green apple, ginger, alfalfa and watercress. It comes in a large Ikea tumbler
with a red and white Humphrey straw (Ed’s note: missed the seventies? Google it).
Situated just off Trafalgar Street, in Pelham Street, Helmston is one of the tiniest public spaces I’ve been
to in Brighton (bar the odd telephone box) and one of the most colourful, too. The menu is written in
multi-hued summer-of-love script on a blackboard, refulgent round objects decorate the walls, and there
are some amazing looking pink ‘bon bon’ cakes on the counter. But we’re not here for the cakes, because
this is the January edition.
As I approach my juice, having spent five minutes photographing it, Nina Simone is singing I’ve Got Life
(aka the Müller ad), and I can’t think of an apter song. I can taste what Rebecca means as I suck the tasty
juice through the straw… is it my imagination, or can I feel vitamins coursing through my veins? Got my
arms, got my legs… got my liver. And it’s feeling mighty refreshed. Alex Leith

food review
...........................................
Polpo
Venetian tapas joint
I arrive at Polpo
half an hour before
Pauline pitches
up, so I get a good
chance to check
out the décor. And
I must say it’s fairly
splendid: they’ve
sourced wallfuls of
shiny, brick-shaped,
reclaimed tiles, the
ceiling looks like it’s
been wood-panelled,
and (hallelujah) there isn’t a single naked light bulb
in sight.
I’ve been inordinately excited about Polpo arriving
in Brighton. It’s a highly rated chain of Italian-style
tapas eateries, and this is the first one to be opened
outside London. Polpo means ‘octopus’ in the
Veneto dialect, and the Polpo chain is very much
styled on the sort of places where the locals - and
not the tourists - dine in Venice, which are called
‘bacari’ (singular ‘bacaro’). They’ve done the place
up pretty well, though it’s a lot bigger than any
bacaro I’ve ever been to (and, having lived in the
Veneto region, I have actually been to a few).
I spend ages on the menu, which is printed on
brown parcel paper, while swigging at a well-made
Martini spritz. Pauline makes a grab for this when
she finally arrives (did you not get my text; I told
you I don’t have my phone on me today so don’t
be late; oh yeah) glugs half of it down, raises her
eyebrows in appreciation, and orders herself one.
Then, because she’s a good judge of food, and
I don’t fancy a fight, I offer her the chance to
choose all six dishes I’ve been advised is the normal
amount for two people to share. Her eyes light up.
Really?
Here’s what she
goes for (note no
£ signs, as passé as
adjectives, it seems,
on the modern
menu): artichoke &
speck crostini (4),
chicken liver crostini
(4), meatballs with
polenta (7), rabbit
pappardelle (9), cod
cheeks, lentils and
salsa verde (8) and swordfish tartare (9). To drink,
a 2013 Riva Leone Barbera (26). These arrive in
roughly that order, apart from the wine, which
comes first, and has blackberry notes.
The amount of rabbit we get in the sauce leaves us
feeling slightly swizzed and the lentils, we agree,
seem a little chewy, but the other dishes are, in
their different ways, all bloody delicious. I would
definitely recommend raw swordfish, a first, for me.
And the meatballs, which are softish-centred, and
have a tang we take to be of cheese, are stupendous.
As is the flank steak and porcini cream (10),
which we have as an afterthought, before finishing
with Affogato al caffe (4) Tiramisu pot (5) and two
Nardini grappas (7 a pop).
Pauline has what you might call a healthy appetite:
she’s the one person I can take to a restaurant
without being made to feel greedy, which makes up
for her blunt etiquette and the frequent financial
disasters that generally render her unable to pay
her way. This time we both leave the joint well
sated, which is just as well; I finish the evening
extremely content, but 110 quid poorer. AL
Polpo, 20 New Rd, 01273 697361
....71....

food review
...........................................
1847
A very modern vegetarian
As you probably know
by now, Brighton’s
newest vegetarian restaurant
is named after
the year the Vegetarian
Society was founded.
In my opinion, that’s
169 years in which
restaurateurs - with
the exception of the
likes of Terre à Terre
and Food for Friends - have pretty much been
asleep on the job when it comes to catering for
said society’s members. In a city with hundreds
of eateries, it rarely takes more than 60 seconds
to scan the menu for the one, or possibly two,
vegetarian choices, and there’s so much more to
a meat-free diet than risotto alle verdure and one
hundred ways with halloumi. Note to chefs: we
vegetarians love food too.
Praise be then for the arrival of 1847 at the bottom
of North Road. The latest in a small chain of
‘modern vegetarian’ bistros, the Brighton branch
offers sophisticated and inventive vegetarian and
vegan dishes that have the feel of fine dining
without the price tag (two courses are £19.50 and
three £25).
With so much choice, it takes me a full five
minutes (and much concentration) to decide what
to start with. Eventually I settle on squash and
feta, the cheese whipped into an airy mousse and,
along with the squash, served on a bed of crispy
fried kale sprinkled with crunchy, toasted pumpkin
seeds. The strong flavours and intriguing
textures bode well for the rest of the meal. Rebecca
chooses a crispy egg - a Scotch egg without
the scotch – the yolk oozing into the bed of pearl
barley and celeriac, and
is equally as pleased
with her choice.
On to the mains.
Mine is called, simply,
‘cabbages’ – a Brussels
sprout frittata with
sautéed savoy vadouvan
and cauliflower velouté.
It’s delicious and my
favourite type of dish:
one that unashamedly celebrates the flavour and
versatility of vegetables, in this case elevating the
humble brassica to the star of the show. Rebecca
goes for ‘fish’ and chips* - make that one hundred
and one ways with halloumi – which on this
occasion is fried in a ginger ale batter and comes
served with triple cooked chips, lemon curd and
pea puree. We order a side of caramelized cauliflower
with harissa yoghurt; another homage to
veg. Room is somehow found for a third course
of an unexpectedly Christmassy confection called
chestnut pie and a slate of three local cheeses accompanied
by homemade chutney. The whole lot
is washed down with a delicious bottle of Alandra
Branco (£20.70), a Portuguese white chosen from
a carefully selected, and predominantly vegan,
wine list.
You’re going to have to make the effort to go to
1847 – it being at the very far eastern reaches of
the North Laine and all – but I highly recommend
that you do. Whether you’re herbivore or
more omnivorous in your tastes, I doubt you’ll
ever have tasted cabbage this good or eaten a fish
made from cheese. Lizzie Lower
103 North Road, 01273 677776, by1847.com
*no fish were harmed in the making of this dish
....73....

Photo by Lisa Devlin, cakefordinner.co.uk
....74....

ecipe
..........................................
Fig, goats cheese and
salsa verde on sourdough
Black Radish on Portland Road was opened by Jayne Austen and her partner
Beverley Austen-Goacher as a place to find interesting produce and unusual
ingredients, championing local suppliers and micro-producers.
We never intended on opening a café; it was just
going to be a produce shop. We started making
takeaway salads as a way of getting people to taste
our products in a way they might not have tried
before. Then winter came and we graduated to
making soup. It meant that we never had any
waste, because if we had a lot of one thing coming
in, we could create a dish around that ingredient,
so if we had a ton of carrots one day, it was
easy to make a big pot of carrot soup. And it’s a
far easier way of creating a menu, because you’re
being guided by the food rather than the other
way around.
Frazier Ives joined us a few months ago and we
started to serve more food to eat in and different
add-ons. He has worked as a chef for years,
training with The Ginger Fox and progressing to
work in the kitchens of other local restaurants like
Hotel du Vin and Plateau. Now he’s taken a bit of
a backseat from the 15-hour shifts and works with
us full time.
Before I opened the shop I was working as a
garden designer. In a way it’s not that much of a
change, because I’m still designing where things
are going to go, and what’s going to be growing
each season. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss
just being outdoors surrounded by nature.
The whole point of the shop is to be able to support
artisan producers making really small-scale
stuff and to provide a place for it to be retailed.
We’re really about British food, and going back to
the way it should be. Behind every product there’s
a story, somebody who’s left a job in London to
grow their own food, or someone who’s come up
with a new idea and started making it at home.
Some of our relishes come from a producer in
Cornwall; she’ll give me a call and ask, ‘do you
need any more relishes? Because I know a surfer
who’s coming up to Brighton for the weekend and
I can send some with him.’
The real test, though, is whether we like it or not.
Everything on the shelves, we’ll have munched
our way through - one of the perks of the job.
For this recipe we use fresh figs, sliced into wedges.
The Ash Pyramid goats cheese comes from
Nut Knowle Farm in Horam and is crumbled over
the sourdough toast. All of the bread we serve
comes from the Flour Pot Bakery; they’re based
on Old Shoreham Road so they couldn’t be closer.
They make everything by hand and all of their
bread is made using natural starters.
The salsa verde we make in-house. We use a
mixture of green herbs. The core ingredient is
the mint, but then you can use whatever you
have – for this one we’ve added parsley, coriander
and dill. Then you’ll need olive oil, lemon juice,
crushed or minced garlic and a bit of mustard.
Chop everything by hand and mix it all together,
then drizzle over the bread. As told to Rebecca Cunningham.
Photo by Lisa Devlin, cakefordinner.co.uk
....75....

food
........................................
Rootcandi
Vegan tapas
Where to eat when you’re in a group of six with differing
dietary requirements? Half of us are vegetarian, one of us
is vegan, some of us are gluten-free and all of us are pretty
health-conscious (most of the time). We settle on Rootcandi, the vegan tapas restaurant above Iydea on Western
Road, as a place that will meet all of our needs.
Dishes are offered in three sets: ‘Stanmer’ is Modern European-inspired, ‘Queens’ is Pan-Asian and ‘Preston’
is South American, each designed to be shared between two. We order one of each, with sides of fondant
potatoes, mulled red cabbage and chestnut pâté. It’s just before Christmas, hence the festive options on the
menu and hence the copious volumes of wine ordered. We start with a rioja – this much I remember – which is
vegan-friendly, of course.
The food arrives on elegant tapas trees and we dig in before identifying which is which. At first we are politely
sampling from each dish. ‘Isn’t the cassava delicious?’ ‘You must try the butternut tempura’. By the end we –
well, I at least – have a fork in one bowl, fingers in another and are already eyeing up the last piece of marinated
tofu, wondering if it’s acceptable to pinch the last ‘mozzarella’ ball or if it’s necessary to offer it around first.
We are the last to leave, noticing as we do that they’ve boxed up their leftover food and put it outside the door
with a few cups of coffee for the homeless. We all agree that we’ll be coming here again. RC rootcandi.co.uk
........................................
Edible Updates
Brighton’s Best Restaurants award
Though we have heard it on the grapevine that Mexican
street-food specialists Wahaca are earmarking a prominent
city-centre site for their latest restaurant, there’s
little else to report on the new-eatery-in-town front. But
we do have some exciting food-related news to report.
In fact we’re very proud to have been asked to be the media partners for a new annual restaurant award,
Brighton’s Best Restaurants, set up by prominent food journalists Andy Lynes, Patrick McGuigan and Euan
MacDonald. The latter runs the 60SecondReviews.com website, which all three contribute to.
Andy, who writes on food and travel in the nationals, was on the voting panel for the incredibly successful
‘World’s 50 Best Restaurants’ annual award in its first five years, which is the inspiration for this venture.
A panel of about 100 chefs, restaurateurs, journalists, bloggers, broadcasters and influential foodies have been
invited to vote for their favourite restaurants and nominate their ‘top chef’, ‘top welcome’ and ‘top barkeep’.
To qualify, restaurants must be situated within the Brighton & Hove city limits, and must be a full-service
restaurant (rather than a café or takeaway) offering dinner at least part of the week.
The top 20 restaurants (in order), along with the winners of the individual awards will be announced at a ceremony
at Brewdog on Grand Parade on February 22nd. We’ll be reporting on the results in our March issue.
....77....

we try...
......................................
Blink experience
Dining in the dark
“Hi, I’m Kate,” says the pleasantly welcoming
voice to my right. “And I’m Amy,” says the voice
in front. “Here we’ve found this bowl of funnyfeeling
little balls. Put your hand in front of you
and you’ll feel them.” I do this. “Wow!” I say.
We have all been blindfolded, then led into the
dining room (in the basement of Al Duomo), and
sat at a table, by a gentle guide. I’ve come with
a friend, but we’ve been split apart. I’m part of a
group of 50 or so people who are taking part in a
new concept, The Blink Experience, being tried
out for the first time. I sense and hear someone
being sat down to my left. “Hi I’m Alex,” I say, in
as welcoming a voice as possible…
The Blink Experience is a blindfolded dinner, and
much more besides. I’m taking part in return for
writing it up: the others have paid £35 for their
tickets. We’ve been promised a four-course meal,
and purposefully given very little information
about what to expect the evening to be like. The
next couple of hours are to be among the most
extraordinary in my life.
I’m not going to let you know the exact order of
events: I don’t want to ruin the surprise should you
want to participate in a future ‘Experience’. But I
will let you know some of the things I learnt.
1) It is remarkable how well you get to know
someone when you can’t see them, but are in their
company for a significant period of time, and how
you put your visual judgements to one side when
you have no vision.
2) Food is much tastier when you can’t see what
you’re eating; it’s true what they say about the
other senses becoming more finely attuned when
one of them is impaired.
3) Some people cope much better than others
when thrust into very odd situations.
The four courses – all healthy-tasting finger food
– are served, and I wash mine down with several
glasses of wine. In between courses we are hushed
and given a poetically phrased announcement. We
are reminded: ‘most importantly, don’t be a dick’.
There are suggestions made to us: between
courses two and three it is hinted that we might
feed one another; between three and four that we
dance (myself and Kate are gently sat down again
when we try to do this standing on our chairs).
Sometimes somebody suddenly disappears from
our table, to be replaced by someone new. Happily,
I’m allowed to stay put.
Afterwards we are led into another room, and told
we can remove our blindfolds. Seeing Kate, amid
dancing guides and a unicorn, is quite a strange experience:
I had got to know her voice so well, and
now she has a face! Walking into the real world
outside, with my original companion, is, frankly,
quite odd. Then I realise that it’s the preceding
couple of hours that have been truly weird… but
strangely educational. Alex Leith
theblinkexperience.com
....78....

coffee
...........................................
Coffee Guy
Small Batch’s Alan Tomlins
Colombia used to be the
second biggest coffeeproducing
country in the
world, with the government
body that regulates
the industry, the FNC,
specialising in the production
of consistent but not
spectacular-quality coffee,
under the brand Café de Colombia. The country
has dropped to fourth in recent years due to the
increase in production in Indonesia and Vietnam,
but fortunately this has spurred an increase
in quality and diversification in Colombia.
For example, instead of mixing together highquality
and mid-quality beans from different
parts of their farms, farmers are starting to
sell their high-quality beans or single varieties
separately… and that’s the sort of product we’re
interested in buying.
To support farmers in making this change,
specialty roasters like ourselves have started to
offer a consistent price for coffee rather than
one based on the market price, so the farmers
needn’t worry about the sort of fluctuations in
income that are normally associated with the
coffee market. This in turn allows the farmers to
invest in the infrastructure and labour needed to
produce more high quality coffee with the confidence
that we will pay the same high, consistent
price next year.
With all this in mind I went to two different
regions of the country in November to check
out a few farms and co-operatives. The regions
in question were Quindío, in the middle of the
country, close to Bogotá, and Nariño, in the
south, near the border with Ecuador.
In Quindío I met a young
farmer called Gabriel, who
was producing some great
natural-process coffees and
also has a micro-brewery
producing craft beer on his
farm. Gabriel is experimenting
with fermenting
his coffee in champagne
and beer yeast. It was very early in the process,
but there could well be something there. Watch
this space.
Nariño, in the Northern Andes, near to the
Ecuadorian border, is very rural, and full of
smallholding farmers growing subsistence crops
as well as coffee. I went to see a co-op there in
a village called Ancuyá, and my visit coincided
with the monthly meeting of the farmers, so
I got to discuss the challenges they faced to
produce high quality coffee.
Finally I visited a small farm called La Espada
y El Guamo, where the owner, Franco David,
is producing small quantities of exceptional
coffee. His farm is a real family affair, and I fell
in love with the place, drinking great coffee in
his kitchen and checking out his meticulously
cared-for plantation: Franco’s production was
only seven bags this year, but I really hope this
will grow in the future. Look out for this great
coffee arriving in the UK in February.
We’ll certainly start buying much more Colombian
coffee, so expect to see more of it on sale
soon: it’s a particularly good country to buy from
because there are so many micro-climates there,
there are fresh harvests throughout the year,
which means we can use fresher beans. And that,
of course, means tastier coffee.
....79....

we try...
...........................................
Hut Therapy
Bed and (wholefood) breakfast
‘Miso soup, for breakfast?’ I wonder, watching
Gilly Webber stir the steamy, seaweedy
broth that I’m used to seeing a bit later on
in the day. Gilly is the host at Hut Therapy,
a Bed and Whole Food Breakfast run from
her home in East Chiltington. I’ve arrived
on a brisk winter morning to sample her
macrobiotic cooking.
Macrobiotic, she explains, means ‘big life’
and stems from oriental principles of the five
types of energy: tree, fire, ground, metal and
water. Tree energy comes from foods which
grow upwards, so the leeks in the miso soup
she’s making, or the barley which the miso
is made from. Fire energy includes foods
which grow outwards, like mushrooms, and
ground energy comes from those which
grow close to the ground, like pumpkin or
squash. Metal energy covers foods which
grow under the earth, like root vegetables.
Water energy really speaks for itself.
We sit down to our first course; the soup is
accompanied by sauerkraut rolls with a tahini
and white miso dip, and some steamed
greens. I’ve quickly become an energy spotter
and am keen to identify the types of energy
found in every single ingredient in the
meal. The carrots, of course, give us metal
energy, while the kale, I think, is tree. But
what about the seaweed? My first thought is
tree energy because of the shape, but then it
does grow under water, so perhaps it’s water
energy? It turns out it’s both.
Gilly goes along with my guessing game for
a while, but really this isn’t what her cooking
is about. “It’s about the balance,” she
....80....

we try...
...........................................
explains, “about coming into your body, and
knowing which foods you need.” She has
been eating this way since suffering ill health
several years ago, a period of her life which
made her re-think what she was eating and
what she needed to be well. It’s not all about
cutting out sugar, or dairy, or gluten, like
many current health crazes, but rather about
gaining a sense of which foods you need as
you go about your life.
Our second course is a millet porridge
cooked with apple and topped with toasted
pumpkin seeds, which I chose a few days ago
from a menu of delicious-sounding options.
Gilly explains that the millet is ‘grounding’
and believes that even without knowing why
we choose certain foods, subconsciously we
are selecting those which give us the energies
we need. I’m not sure that I could have
known last week, when I chose the millet,
that on this particular morning I was going
to need grounding. Still I really enjoy talking
to Gilly because she is keen to share with me
what she has learnt through her own experiences,
but she’s not looking to impose her
ideas onto me. I think she can tell that I’m
naturally sceptical, but it’s a learning process.
I think that if I had the chance to stay for
an entire weekend, I might come out as convinced
as she is.
Rebecca Cunningham
Hut Therapy, 01273 890779
Photo by Rebecca Cunningham
....81....

we try...
......................................
Synchrofitness
Waving, not drowning
“Why don’t you try doing the oyster?” says Nigel,
my synchro-fitness instructor for the evening, an
hour into our session. I’m trying this move where
you’re lying flat on your back in the water, ‘sculling’
your flat-palmed hands underneath you, to
keep afloat. ‘The oyster’, he demonstrates, from
his poolside position, involves moving your arms
in a circle behind you and into the air to meet the
tips of your toes, which have simultaneously been
raised into the air themselves. You then sink like a
stone. Sound complicated? Try attempting it.
I’m in St Luke’s Swimming Pool in Queens Park,
having a one-off, just-me taster session with
Nigel, which means there’s not much ‘synchro’
to proceedings. This is something I am heartily
grateful for… it’s hard enough trying to master the
techniques I need to learn on my own, let alone
trying to do them in time with other people (think
Lance-Corporal Jones to the power of Lance-
Corporal Jones).
The first technique in question, which is involved
in 90% of the rest of what we do, is called the ‘egg
beater’. It involves rotating your legs, below the
knee, alternately, with your left leg going clockwise
and your right leg going anti-clockwise. It is
the underwater version of patting your head while
rubbing your stomach, and it is how synchronised
swimmers tread water without bobbing up and
down. It is a trick I find myself unable to master,
though I do work out an alternative, which might
be dubbed ‘the idiot Cossack’.
This lack of basic technique makes it difficult for
me to complete the routine that Nigel is expecting
me to complete, in time with Brenda Lee’s Rocking
around the Christmas Tree (it is December). This
involves doing various arm movements, under the
water and in the air, in time to the music, including
an eight-stage lassoing movement, to finish
things off. I might add that I find dance routines
hard enough on the dance floor: co-ordinated,
in-time-to-the-beat arm-and-leg movement isn’t
one of my fortes.
All of which must make proceedings fairly comic
for the young lifeguard, who has nothing to do,
poor girl, apart from watching me flail around in
the water. “It must be like watching The Generation
Game,” I shout up to her, at one point, then realise
from her blank look that she is far too young to
have watched the show.
Nevertheless, I feel that said flailings vastly
improve in the hour that I’m in the pool, and
Nigel, who keeps extremely upbeat throughout
the session, is incredibly encouraging, given the
material he’s working with. I manage, after a fashion,
to get through the whole routine, and move
into horizontal position, in order to do that oyster
thing. And so I hold my breath, and swing my
arms behind me, and point my toes into the air,
and I bet it looks rubbish, but it feels magnificent
as I sink, like a stone, like I’m meant to. Yay.
Alex Leith
synchrofitness.com / 07453 292 788
....82....

we try...
...........................................
Hoop dreams
Learning to dance... with a hoop
“Hi, I’m Rebecca. I can’t hoop” is essentially
the way I introduce myself to Emilie, a hoopdance
teacher and performer who is giving
me a taster session at Bird Studios on New
England Street. I’ve read on her website that
‘everyone can hoop!’ but I’m worried, partly
that I’ll embarrass myself and partly that I’ll
prove her wrong.
We start with a few hoop-based stretches.
Choosing the right hoop is really important,
I learn, because the smaller, lighter hoops require
much faster movement to keep them
spinning. Emilie has brought a selection of
hoops, which she makes herself, in a variety
of sizes and weights, and gives me a neon
pink one to start out with.
She shows me how to start: with the hoop
around my waist, leaning against the small
of my back. “Then just give it one fast, flat
push!” she demonstrates, her own hoop spinning
around effortlessly as I prepare myself. I
have a go, the hoop wiggles around a bit, past
my hips and then clatters onto the ground. I
have a few more goes. I still can’t hoop.
Emilie doesn’t seem concerned. “It’s the
wrong hoop,” she says, passing me another
one, “try this instead.” I already like the new
hoop more, because it’s grey and yellow, it
suits me better. It’s a bit heavier than the last
one which, she explains, keeps it spinning
around more easily. “It’s just about finding
the one that matches your natural rhythm.”
I try again, getting the hoop in position, giving
it a good, fast spin, and the new hoop
makes a world of difference. I manage to
keep it rotating for upwards of eleven seconds,
which is already a personal best. I’ve
naturally gone for a right-hand direction
(anti-clockwise) which Emilie says isn’t actually
related to being left or right handed,
but most people have a natural preference.
She also tells me to try out different standing
positions, like with one foot forward or back,
and moving my arms to where they feel comfortable,
and most importantly, not to look at
the hoop. It’s really hard not to look at something
that you’ve been told not to look at,
but Emilie shows me how much difference it
makes to your posture and how much harder
it is to keep hooping, so I try my best.
By the end of the session – about 40 minutes
in total – I can hoop for ages. Entire minutes.
I can spin around while I hoop. I can walk
while I hoop. I can hold a conversation while
I hoop. I. Can. Hoop. Rebecca Cunningham
thejoyofhooping.com
....83....

we try...
...........................................
Smoke-cessation hypnotherapy
Getting help to kick the habit
As I near Seven Dials, I realise I haven’t really
noticed the cigarette I’ve just smoked while
walking up Chatham Place, so I sit on the
bench outside the Polish grocery and light up
another one.
I savour every drag this time, because, if what’s
going to happen over the next hour or so is
successful, it will be my last. Ever. Hypnotherapist
Liz Davies is going to attempt to
persuade me to give up.
I’ve smoked, off and on, for 35 years. Until
Christmas 2014, I’d given up for three years,
but I foolishly started again. I’m starting to
really feel it in my chest, so I’m determined to
give up again… I just need a little help.
Liz lets me in, and leads me to her living
room. We’ve talked before, but just
on the phone: she’s quizzed me about
my smoking history, what I’ve liked
and disliked about the habit, and why I
want to give up.
After a brief chat I’m encouraged to
lie down (an extension to the armchair
I’m sitting on is wheeled up for my
feet, and pillows brought for my head)
and Liz asks me to close my eyes, and
visualise walking down a flight of stairs,
and relaxing, and walking further down,
and relaxing more, and so on until a point
when she invites me to try and open my
eyes, and I can’t.
Am I in a trance? Not exactly… but it
is easy to ward off extraneous thoughts
as Liz gets into her spiel. Her voice is
very clear.
She goes through what I take
to be a stock monologue about the dangers
of smoking, every now and again throwing in
something that I’ve told her about my personal
problems with the habit. Some of it is fairly
graphic stuff about the detrimental health
effects. Some of it is congratulatory, as she lets
me know that I am now a non-smoker. This all
lasts 45 minutes.
At the end of this period, she counts from five
to one, and invites me to open my eyes. I am
suddenly fully awake. I am aware of what’s happened
while I’ve been lying down, but it feels
like waking from a long sleep. Liz tells me that
she has, in effect, persuaded my subconscious
mind, which has been hoodwinked into
believing smoking is a positive thing for
me, that in fact it is quite the opposite.
She tells me that she’ll send me an mp3
recording of the session, which I should
listen to later, and to let her know
how I’m getting on. I tell her I’ll only
publish this piece if I’ve still given up
when the deadline comes round*. As
I walk down Vernon Terrace towards
home I realise that at this point, after
leaving a house, I’d normally have lit
up a cigarette, and gratefully sucked
the smoke into my lungs. Happily, I
feel no urge. Alex Leith
*The hypnotherapy session took place
on October 14th. We went to press on
December 17th.
Liz Davies: synergy-wellbeing.com/
liz@synergy-wellbeing.com/
07967 596641
....84....

we try...
...........................................
Tantrum spa
Letting off steam
“He never answers his phone or
replies to emails…”
I take a deep breath… and blow
up a balloon, onto which I write
all the things that make me cross
about my esteemed editor (EE).
Then I draw him. Then I burst
the balloon with a cocktail stick
and wipe the smile off his face.
If that seems harsh, wait to see
what I’m going to do the others!
I’m attending a Tantrum Club.
It’s a new thing and the aim is, rather than carting
suppressed rage around with you, you let it all out.
Friends, family and colleagues might disagree
but Katie Phillips, self-love mentor and tantrum
instructor, says it’s good for you.
“Ignoring emotions leaves them trapped, making
you unhappy, depressed and leading to physical
ailments such as neck and shoulder tension, acne
and worse.”
Katie is leading the 90-minute tantrum class at
Ockenden Manor in Cuckfield, part of a ‘tantrum
spa package’ that includes swimming, saunas, hot
tubs and various other treatments to ease away
pent-up stuff. We begin by writing down all the
things that get to us.
“It’s about finding a channel for your emotions in
a safe, contained environment,” says Katie, who,
following the balloon exercise, encourages us to
scream, shout, stamp, punch and kick the stresses
out of our system – all to the apposite soundtrack
of Rage Against the Machine.
I dread to think what the people in the spa area
are thinking, but sod them. I’m in defiant mood
and Katie is preparing to hand out baseball bats!
“Does anyone want goggles?”
she proffers safety glasses and
I wonder if we’re going to be
doing the full Michael Douglas
in Falling Down.
But there’s no danger of flying
convenience-store masonry
here; we’re going to take our
frustrations out on a beanbag,
albeit one we humanise. “Shout
at them. Swear at them. Let
them know why they are ruining
your life,” Katie urges.
She’s all honey-coloured hair and smiles but she
can be scarily persuasive.
I thwack my beanbag with abandon, assuming
kneeling position to get closer to the object of my
anger. Across the way, I catch sight of another
woman bashing away, totally demented.
It’s exhausting, but curiously cathartic. I wind
down with a swim and a soak in a hot tub before
a suitably spa-y lunch of avocado and mozzarella
on rye bread. My fellow tantrumees sip soups
and munch salads and one bites into the braised
ox cheek with a ferocity that suggests she has not
fully exorcised all her emotions.
After lunch there are massages to be had, floatation
tanks to attend and a range of face and body
buffs on offer. I leave feeling calm and floaty and
enormously well disposed towards EE. Until he
demands my copy and gives me a wholly unrealistic
deadline. I take a deep breath, blow up a
balloon and begin to draw his face on it….
Lizzie Enfield
A day at the Tantrum Club, which is held monthly,
costs £125 (01444 416111, hshotels.co.uk).
....85....

choir
...........................................
Soul of the City
Win while you’re singing
“Do we do the Os before we do the dums?”
comes a deep voice from the bass section.
Meanwhile, the altos need more lift and slide
to their ‘roy-a-a-ls’, and everyone needs more
bounce to the ‘gold teeth, Grey Goose, trippin’
in the bathroom…’ section. These are just
a few of the finer points to be ironed out in an
intricate rendition of Lorde’s Royals before it’s
sung, in many harmonised parts, to a sell-out
audience of 500 at All Saints Church in Hove.
It’s a Tuesday evening in December and I’ve
come to watch the final rehearsal for the Soul
of the City choir. Their end-of-term Christmas
show is days away and there’s the whole
programme to polish. Choir Leader Vanessa
Thomas spares me a few minutes to explain
their success.
How long has the choir been singing together?
This Christmas gig will mark our 6th
anniversary. There are around 150 members in
Brighton and 80 in Hassocks with the youngest
member being 21 and the oldest 83. In Brighton
we have around 30 men with 10 in Hassocks
(so more are always welcome!) We sing a real
mixture - mainly pop, some soul and the odd
gospel song - in three and four-part harmonies
and, if I’m feeling ambitious, up to seven parts.
Do you need to be able to sing to join? No,
and there’s no audition. You just need to love
to sing. Most people think they can’t, so I like
to show them that they can. As adults we’re
afraid of not being perfect straight away but
you’re safe in a big choir. It’s fun and people
are friendly so it’s a great way of feeling the fear
and doing it anyway.
What’s to love about singing in a choir? I’ve
always loved singing myself but I had no idea
how much impact it would have on other people.
It’s great for building confidence, making
new friends (we head to the pub after rehearsals)
and it’s been proved that singing is good for
your health. Studies show that the heartbeats
of people singing together synchronise. It also
exercises your brain, like a crossword puzzle. To
sing in harmony you’ve got to remember your
part, words and timing. It’s surprisingly physical
too; like running or dancing, it gets everything
going. And it makes you laugh and smile.
Simply, what’s not to love… I could go on for
ages about this.
Listening to a choir makes me cry. Why is
that? Singing is a great way to express yourself
and an emotional release. Often in life we’re
told to ‘be quiet’, ‘sit down’, ‘behave’ and music
gives us permission to express feelings and
emotions, no matter what they are. Doing that
in a group amplifies that experience by a million.
It’s so cathartic. Lizzie Lower
The choir meets at St Paul’s School, St Nicholas
Road on Tuesdays 7.30pm - 9.00pm. The new
term (and taster session) starts on 5th Jan
soulofthecitychoir.com
....86....

health
........................................
Dynamic Meditation
In-the-dark catharsis
In a small room in the
basement of Revitalise
in Hove, at 9.30 on
Sunday mornings, there’s
a meditation class that’s
far removed from comfy
cushion, glassy eyed, crosslegged
Facebook memes.
I say ‘class’, but the hour
session of Dynamic
Meditation follows the same structure each week and
involves no instruction unless there are newcomers
who aren’t familiar with the format.
With the lights off, and a download of frantic beats
underway, there’s 10 minutes of ‘chaotic breathing’,
powerful inhalation and exhalation through the nose.
Then comes 10 minutes of ‘catharsis’, expressing
whatever emotions arise after that forceful breathwork.
There’s yelling, roaring, laughing, and all
manner of physical movement going on. 10 minutes
of jumping up and down and shouting ‘Hoo!’ follow,
whereupon the rhythms stop and participants freeze
or lie on the floor for 15 minutes. The preceding
half hour of getting rid of bodily-held tensions has
been the preparation for this state of relaxation. This
is the meditation bit. The final 15 minutes is spent
dancing to a soundtrack of Indian music, and some
impromptu singing often ensues.
Dynamic Meditation was devised in the early 1970s
by the then Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, an Indian
guru notorious for being given 93 Rolls Royces by
his orange-clothed followers. He changed his name
to Osho, died in 1990, and his books take up several
yards of most spirituality and self-help sections.
There’s an equally vast quantity of words decrying
the cult tendencies of those early followers, but
there’s not the slightest
sniff of cult here.
‘I first did dynamic
meditation in Australia
in 1985’ says Michael
Hoy, a hugely affable 58
year old, who organizes
the Hove sessions. ‘I
was seeing a therapist
in Sydney, and she suggested
going along. A lot of psychotherapists were
recommending their clients try it.
DM has been a lifeline for Michael and many others
over the years, and the safe space he’s created at
Revitalise draws in a range of folks keen to venture
down the road less travelled.
“For me, the first three parts are all about preparation
for the meditation,” he says. “When the silence
begins you can stay inside watching and gradually
identify more with ‘the watcher’ and see the egoic
mind as separate. In the Western world, most people
have very suppressed emotions. This acts as a massive
hindrance to any meditation practice, some of which
simply cause more suppression because people feel
that they must act like the Buddha when in fact they
are sitting on a volcano of unexpressed emotions.
Dynamic Meditation is a radical method to allow
Westerners to experience meditation quickly in our
very busy world. It works by helping people to get in
touch with their emotions by releasing and integrating
them. Then they can experience the true silence
which comes when the egoic mind is briefly switched
off and reach out and touch the face of God.”
Andy Darling
meetup.com/Dynamic-Meditation-Brighton-Hove-
Meetup
Pic above: official Osho picture of Dynamic Meditation in India
....87....

dance
...........................................
Three Score Dance Company
(In that you have to be over 60 to join)
I became obsessed
with the idea of joining
the Three Score
Dance Company and
was so upset when I
realised that - at 59
- I was too young.
Luckily, I was to turn
60 within the year,
and so I was accepted.
Members auditioned
and were accepted
based not just on their dance ability, but on how
much they wanted to be there.
I had very little dance experience when I
joined. Hardly any of the company did. Dancing
together has been fun and scary. We performed a
piece called Plans in Brighton station last year and
everyone stopped to watch, mesmerised. That is,
everyone except one lady, who marched into the
centre of the performance and announced ‘Never
mind the plié’s. I’ve got a train to catch.’ It’s become
something of a company catch phrase.
The founders Saskia Heriz and Christina
Thompson had both, independently, been inspired
by Company of Elders [the Sadler’s Wells
over-60s company] and had separately approached
South East Dance to explore the possibility of
funding. They put them in touch with each other
and provided initial funding. So the project began.
The 20 original members are still more or less
the same, as very few people leave. I think we’ve
lost four and gained two in four years. That creates
a problem as there are very few spaces for new
members.
We also have an outreach project in day centers
and residential settings, and have recently focused
on people living with dementia. And we have
an annual summer school led by StopGap Dance
Company involving
learning-disabled
adults. We’re currently
looking for
sponsorship to expand
these projects.
I’ve developed a
deep affection for
the other dancers.
We’re people of the
same vintage, we
have shared memories.
Special friendships develop out of dancing together
and there’s an unsaid collective goal. Dancing
unlocks emotions – happy and sad. Life events
are expressed when you dance. I’ve watched people
get younger. Taller and younger.
When I started dancing, it gave me a surge of
ambition that I still feel. Ambition for what the
company can achieve as well as what I can achieve
physically. And then you realise that you’re a long
way from your ambition but slowly, incrementally,
it comes. Dance also exercises the brain. We were
lucky enough to work with a young dancer from
the Hofesh Shechter Company and I was amazed
at how quickly we picked up the choreography.
Dance has changed me. I’m braver and more
physically able. The more I rediscover my body,
the more I want to move. It’s also given me a
more optimistic outlook on life. Sometimes
I feel like doing a hop, skip and jump as I’m
walking down the street, and sometimes I do.
Lizzie Lower was talking to Gus Watcham
Three Score Dance Company is supported by
Brighton Dome with funding from Chalk Cliff Trust.
Outreach partners include Physical Activity Team
(B&HCC) & Grace Eyre Foundation.
threescoredance.co.uk for classes email: classes.
threescoredance@gmail.com
Photo by Victor Frankowski
....88....

football
......................................
The Albion: behind the scenes
Dr Rob Galloway, crowd doctor
When I meet Dr. Rob
Galloway, Albion’s Crowd
Doctor, in the Media
Lounge at the Amex, he’s
eating and laughing with
colleagues. We shake
hands and I immediately
like him: his warm and
reassuring personality is
exactly what everyone
likes to see in a doctor.
Coming here I envisioned
the usual, slightly dry
interview where, seated at a table, he would answer
my questions. Instead, he offers to show me around
the stadium, taking me beyond its many ‘authorized
personnel only’ doors. He walks very fast, saying
hello and gifting a smile to everyone along the way. I
get the feeling that everyone loves him here.
“The most vital thing for me is to be friendly with
my colleagues. If you treat them with kindness and
respect they’ll be happy to go the extra mile for you
when you need it. I’m very lucky: we’re one big and
very close-knit team, with no fixed hierarchy, which
speeds up the procedure. The NHS has a lot to learn
from us,” he jokes.
I enquire about his football faith: “I’m originally
from East London so I’m a Leyton Orient fan,” he
says, “but I’ve been living in Brighton since 2001, so
obviously I’m a big Albion supporter now.”
As Crowd Doctor, Rob is the head of the first aid
team in charge of treating the occasional ill or injured
supporter: “The Amex is a top-class facility. We
have pretty much everything we need here – and the
best equipment possible as well – so patients don’t
need to go to the hospital.
However, to come across
something really serious is
quite rare. What I’m most
proud of, no doubt, is the
fact that since I’ve been
working here we’ve had to
treat three supporters with
cardiac arrests and all of
them recovered completely,
which is astonishing once
you weigh the odds of that
happening.”
I inquire about what challenges, if any, he encounters
in his job: “The biggest one is probably the fact that
patients want to be treated quickly in order to go
back to watching the game,” he smiles.
He’s eager for me to witness as much of everything
as possible, so he introduces me to everyone and
shows me each of the four first aid rooms, as well as
the equipment stocked in them. I don’t even have to
ask him how the first aid procedure works because
he’s already telling me: “A steward will alert the control
room, then they’ll contact us and we’ll intervene
as needed, depending on what the situation requires.”
He’s still speaking when his pager rings. “Someone’s
sick. We have to go.” I try to excuse myself since I
don’t want to be in the way, but he insists, so I get to
experience everything first hand. And even though
I feel slightly out of place and like I’m invading the
patient’s privacy a little bit, I can attest that Dr. Galloway’s
professionalism and expertise appear to be of
the highest quality. Albion - and away - supporters
are in very good hands.
Interview by Giacomo Vezzani
....89....

Cycle, Keep Active and Save Money
New to cycling? Keen to cycle again?
Want to know how to fix your bike?
FREE cycle training and cycle maintenance courses
are now available. To book and find out more visit:
www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/cycletraining
or call 01273 296753
This initiative is delivered by Brighton & Hove City Council
and funded by the Department for Transport.
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near Avignon 5 mins to village sleeps 4
Available for rental 2016 WiFi Lewes owners
ali@hahlo.demon.co.uk
www.roussillonholidayhome.co.uk

we try...
........................................
Bike Maintenance
‘The first rule here is no jargon’
I love cycling. I do
it most days. What
I love less is when
something goes
wrong. In particular
when it goes
just a bit wrong;
wrong enough to
ruin my journey
but not so wrong
that I don’t feel a
bit embarrassed
about bringing my
bike into a bike
shop and asking
somebody to fix it. I was once told off by a man in a
bike shop for having fixed a puncture with electrical
tape (I know, but it was an emergency – and to my
credit the repair had lasted long enough for me to
forget that it was there when I brought the bike in)
so I know that it’s about time I learnt to do these
things properly.
I’ve booked myself onto a bike-maintenance course
run by Changing Gears on Lewes Road. The courses
are funded by the Department for Transport through
the Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF) with
the aim of encouraging more people to cycle, and to
improve road safety, so they are free to anybody over
14 who lives, works or studies in Brighton and Hove.
Andy, who is leading the course this afternoon,
explains: “People in workshops often use a lot of
jargon and it can be quite intimidating,” so the first
rule here is no jargon. We start by going through the
basic checks which, he tells us, we should carry out
every time we get on our bikes. These are called the
ABCs – B and C are easy to guess, A is a bit trickier,
but I won’t give
away the answers.
It quickly becomes
apparent that I’ve
cycled here on a
completely flat
tyre (oops) which
brings us on to the
next part of the
session: repairing
a puncture (properly).
My bike has
super-skinny tyres
and it’s a tough job
to get them off the
wheels. Andy shows me that the rims have a well
through the middle, and that by letting all of the
air out and pushing the tyres into the well, I can get
more room to scoop the tyre levers underneath and
manoeuvre it out. Once he’s shown me, he undoes
his work and puts them back as they were. That’s
another rule, he says: “I’ll show people how to do
something, but then I’ll always put it back so they
can learn to do it themselves.”
To spare our existing inner tubes, we are given a
ready-punctured one each to practise finding the
hole and repairing it. Getting the tyres back on is the
toughest bit. I struggle along for quite a while and
I become aware that we’re nearing the end of the
course and that I’m the last one left to finish the task.
Andy steps in to help, either finding it quite difficult
himself or pretending to for my benefit. I’m just
relieved that they’re back on. “You know what I’m
going to do now,” he says, then he levers the tyres off
and hands the wheel back to me. Rebecca Cunningham
changinggears.org.uk
....91....

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Salt Therapy treatments
Asthma Eczema Flu Sinusitis Tonsilitis
Rhinitis COPD Bronchiectasis Hayfever Eczema
Tonsilitis Ear InfectionCoughs Asthma
Book your first FREE
appointment today
) 01273 917912 8 www.saltcave.co.uk / brighton@saltcave.co.uk
372-374 Portland Road, Hove, BN3 5SD
/SaltCaveBrighton @SaltCaveBtnHove

family health
........................................
Salt Cave
Breathe easy
What is a salt cave?
It’s a treatment room
which recreates the
microclimate of a
natural salt cave.
People have been
sitting in salt caves in
Eastern Europe for
thousands of years – it
goes back as far as the
Ancient Greeks – so
it isn’t anything new.
The salt-enriched air
loosens mucus in the lungs and clears the airways. It’s
antibacterial and reduces your IgE levels too, giving
your immune system a boost. We have two caves:
one for adults and one for kids. The adults’ cave is
very peaceful and quiet; people will usually have a
nap in there because it’s so relaxing. The kids’ one
has lots of toys for them to play with and they can
watch videos to keep them entertained, so they are
two very different environments.
What made you interested in opening one?
A friend had asthma - not very badly, she used to
do a lot of hill walking – but suddenly it got much
worse. Her breathing became very laboured and she
had to hang up her walking boots. The Salt Cave
in Edinburgh opened and after five sessions there
her breathing had changed completely; she was
able to throw away one of her inhalers and she took
up walking again. I’d never heard of the treatment
before, but I visited some of the other caves around
the country. Each one I went to, I met people with
similarly inspiring stories to tell.
Which health conditions can salt therapy help?
Asthma; eczema; allergies; any upper respiratory
problems, like sinusitis;
bronchiectasis; and
COPD, which affects
the lungs. It’s not a cure
– it’s never going to cure
asthma or COPD – but
it can hugely improve
the quality of life for the
person and prevent the
recurrence of symptoms.
The salt cave can be
used from six months
of age, and if you get
children in early you can help prevent the cycle of
steroids and antibiotics that comes with some of
these conditions. It can also help if you’re starting to
get a cold, and it’s very good for snoring because it
clears the nasal passages.
How long does treatment last? A session is an
hour and some people have two or three sessions a
week whereas others will come in once a week – it
really depends. We’d suggest coming in frequently
at the beginning to give it a boost. I always say to
people, ‘don’t expect to see an improvement straight
away’ because the effects of the treatment go on for
up to 12 hours, but for some people an hour does
make a big difference.
Is this an alternative to medicine? I see us as
working alongside traditional medicine; my experience
tells me that people can reduce their use of
steroid inhalers as part of coming to a salt cave, but I
would never advise anyone to stop using their other
medicines. I respect that people know their own bodies
– much better than I do!
Rebecca Cunningham interviewed Julie Dunn
372-374 Portland Road, saltcave.co.uk
....93....

family
................................
Hilary Burt
Spotty Dog Tutoring
What’s your background?
I qualified as a
teacher in 1986 and have
been working with the
primary age group ever
since. I moved into private
tutoring when I became
exhausted with full-time
teaching; I loved being
around children and seeing
them progress, but it was a very challenging
job to give a class of 30 children what they need
educationally. I had often come across this mysterious
word ‘dyslexia’ and wanted to find out more,
so I studied for the Postgraduate qualification in
Dyslexia and Literacy at the Dyslexia Institute.
How do you identify dyslexia in children? I do
not assess for dyslexia. An educational psychologist
does this and their report is very useful for me as
a tutor. Dyslexic difficulties are on a continuum –
some people have it severely and for others it is
mild – so a child might have trouble with reading
and spelling but be good at maths; they might be
a fairly strong reader but be a very poor speller. I
am not so interested in whether a child has dyslexia
or not. If they are falling behind at school because
of literacy or numeracy skills, hopefully I can help.
Does dyslexia affect other aspects of the child’s
learning? The main fallout with dyslexia is confidence
and self-esteem. If a child feels they are
‘stupid’ - children still come to me using this word
- then it can permeate into other areas. It is very
important that the child feels they are good at something
– that might be maths, science, sport, dancing
or music. It doesn’t take away from the fact that
they need to improve their reading, but it means it
doesn’t swamp their life and ‘disable’ them.
What signs should parents
look out for? If
your child is unhappy at
school, dig a little deeper.
Is it a friendship issue? Is
it because they are falling
behind? Is it because they
don’t feel they’re doing
well at school? Some children
hate reading – this
could be because the books are too difficult; or the
subject matter is not interesting to the child; or
because they actually have problems decoding the
words. Literacy difficulties could be due to subjects
being taught too fast.
What methods do you use to help the child
overcome their difficulty? I use multi-sensory
teaching methods, humour and regular rewards,
like certificates, stamps and stickers, and educational
games which move through a clear set of
steps so the children can see their progress. My
students are often the ones that are left behind
simply because other children are faster or louder
or more demanding. With me they can go at their
own speed and ask all the questions they want.
You also use film making; what does this involve?
The film making came about because I
needed to find a ‘way in’ for students who were really
switched off to learning. I discovered a whole
world of ‘Brick Films’ on YouTube – stop-motion
animations made with Lego. It’s a very involved
process needing enormous patience and creativity:
they need to think through the story, write a story
board with pictures, make the backdrop, decide
where to put the camera. Every child who’s made a
film has loved it! Rebecca Cunningham
spotty-dog-tutoring.co.uk
....94....

Photos by Dominic Alves
bricks and mortar
...........................................
Earthship
Off-grid housing
In April 2000, a maverick American eco-architect
called Mike Reynolds gave a talk at the Brighthelm
Centre. He’s the guy who came up with the
‘Earthship’ concept, for self-sufficient buildings.
Someone in the audience got up at the end and
said ‘I want to build the first Earthship in England!
Anybody who wants to help, come talk to me.’
That’s how the Low-Carbon Trust got started.
And, indeed, after some hassle with planning and
permissions, they did build England’s first Earthship,
in 2003, in an isolated spot about ten minutes’
walk from Stanmer House. I join one of the regular
public tours, led by a hippyish, enthusiastic American
called Jon Kalviac.
The Earthship, he explains, has no connection to
the national grid, or the water or gas supply, or
the sewer system. It’s a “completely autonomous
building”. Its electricity comes from solar panels
and a wind turbine. It runs on filtered rainwater,
which first feeds the taps, then is reused for the
indoor plants and to flush the toilet. The southfacing
walls are basically huge windows; this means
the north wall and floor can absorb the sun’s heat
during the day, and let it out at night. So they get a
pretty constant temperature, of about 20 degrees.
The walls are made of old car tyres, stuffed with
compacted earth - “the only walls you build with
a sledgehammer”. Because tyres are thicker than
bricks, and less likely to sink into the ground, they
didn’t have to build a big concrete foundation, thus
saving loads of carbon. And the result, Jon says, is
“like castle walls. They’re not going anywhere.”
It cost £330,000 to build, but much of that could be
saved the second time round, Jon adds. This being
the first Earthship in England, they had to fly team
members to America to learn how to build them.
And they were slowed down when the Environment
Agency objected to this novel use of old tyres.
By that point, Jon tells us, “we [already] had a crew
of builders on the ground, being paid.”
“England is a really difficult place to do anything
different. There’s really strict laws around planning.
There’s an image of beautiful twee countryside
England, it’s like the buildings have to look just so.
After this project, I was expecting like, imminently,
10 more, or 100 more. But it just hasn’t happened.
“Old building methods, bricks and mortar, are
like a boulder rolling down a hill for a long time.
A father teaches his son bricklaying, and that’s the
way to do it. And this momentum of history… it’s
going to take a lot to stop this boulder.
“But our project here - every local architecture
firm came down with their whole office for the first
few years. I could see their mouths hanging open,
as this American guy who obviously didn’t have
their credentials, was teaching them about what
ought to be happening with buildings. So I think
we influenced local architecture in a huge way.”
Steve Ramsey
lowcarbon.co.uk/tours
....95....

LOW COST FAIR TRADE WELLBEING
About Balance
14 East Street, Brighton, BN1 1HP
*Enter through V-bites or at Little East Street
before 9:30 or after 19:00
info@aboutbalancebrighton.com
www.aboutbalancebrighton.com
Find us on Facebook
07852 127231 / 07948849419
㜀 㜀 㠀 㘀 㔀 㔀 㜀 㤀 㤀 㠀
䤀 一 䘀 伀 䀀 䈀 伀 䐀 夀 ⴀ 䠀 䄀 倀 倀 夀 ⸀ 䌀 伀 ⸀ 唀 䬀
圀 圀 圀 ⸀ 䈀 伀 䐀 夀 ⴀ 䠀 䄀 倀 倀 夀 ⸀ 䌀 伀 ⸀ 唀 䬀
倀 䔀 刀 匀 伀 一 䄀 䰀 吀 刀 䄀 䤀 一 䤀 一 䜀 䤀 一 䄀
倀 刀 䤀 嘀 䄀 吀 䔀 Ⰰ 䘀 唀 䰀 䰀 夀 ⴀ 䔀 儀 唀 䤀 倀 倀 䔀 䐀
匀 吀 唀 䐀 䤀 伀 䤀 一 䌀 䔀 一 吀 刀 䄀 䰀 䠀 伀 嘀 䔀
∠ 䘀 刀 䔀 䔀 䤀 一 䤀 吀 䤀 䄀 䰀 䌀 伀 一 匀 唀 䰀 吀 䄀 吀 䤀 伀 一
∠ 䠀 䤀 䜀 䠀 䰀 夀 ⴀ 儀 唀 䄀 䰀 䤀 䘀 䤀 䔀 䐀 䄀 一 䐀
唀 一 䐀 䔀 刀 匀 吀 䄀 一 䐀 䤀 一 䜀 吀 刀 䄀 䤀 一 䔀 刀 匀
The Big Debate: ‘Should the
EU be more business friendly?’
We’ll be taking a closer look at the issues around staying in or coming
out of the European Union at our next Big Debate, and discussing
some of the following questions and issues:
• What does the EU have to offer
businesses right now?
• What are the economic arguments
for staying in/coming out of the EU?
• How does the EU need to change
to improve growth, create jobs
and enable businesses to flourish?
Chaired by Frank le Duc, expect a
lively and informative discussion
with our keynote speakers Caroline
Lucas, who has been the MP for
Brighton Pavilion since 2010 and
Daniel Hannan, a Conservative MEP
for the South East of England.
Come and join the debate and make your views heard.
Friday 15 January, 3pm – 5pm Brighthlem, North Road, Brighton BN1 1YD
Design by Excell Design
#BigDb8
Thank you to our sponsor

ighton in business
.............................................................
Happy New Year. No doubt you’ve got plans to
improve in every way. Whether it’s your body or
your business that needs a detox you’ll not have to
look too far to find the right people to help.
If you’re not sure where to begin, WorkLife Development
are a new ‘people profiling’, coaching
and training service for businesses and individuals.
They’re making the kind of assistance previously
reserved for top executives accessible to anyone.
How do they do it? By the appliance of science,
using clever stuff like the ‘FIRO-B profiling tool’.
Originally used to predict how high-performance
military teams would work together, it’s designed
to help you identify what you want and how to get
there. [worklifedevelopment.co.uk]
If you’re planning to be better informed in 2016,
the Brighton & Hove Chamber are hosting
a Big Debate on 15th, focusing on the business
issues around staying in or coming out of the EU
with keynote speakers Caroline Lucas MP and
Daniel Hannan MEP. Register for free at businessinbrighton.org.uk
If it’s your body that you need to do better by, the
city offers myriad opportunities to mend your
ways. Just a stone’s throw from the sea, About
Balance are making holistic health and therapies
accessible to all. They offer affordable classes and
treatments from inspiring practitioners by offering
those practitioners affordable space to work in.
Clever. If you’re a therapist or teacher looking to
develop your practice, without all the expense of
hiring your own space, get in touch. [aboutbalancebrighton.com]
Brighton-based New Leaf Nutrition have
plans to bring out the best in you on a threeday
retreat at Brantridge Park in Balcombe.
Join them between 10-13th March for a gentle
detox programme. Expect expertly chosen and
prepared foods and juices, daily yoga practice and
wellbeing workshops including cookery, Qi Gong,
meditation, mindfulness & relaxing treatments.
[newleafnutrition.co.uk]
But enough about you. If your New Year’s resolution
is to do more to help others, then you might
want to consider dedicating your efforts to a local
charity. The Rockinghorse Children’s Charity
is the official fundraising arm of our very own
Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital. They collaborate
in all sorts of ways with local businesses
and, whilst you’re helping them raise funds for
cutting-edge and lifesaving medical equipment,
they can really assist you in upping your warm and
fuzzy quotient (aka Corporate Social Responsibility).
You can join their pre-arranged events or
come up with your own. To find out more, call
01273 330044, or email their Head of Fundraising
analiese@rockinghorse.org.uk.
Finally, and in need of no improvement whatsoever,
our congratulations to all the winners of the
27th annual Sussex Business Awards, announced
last month. To name but a few who went home
with awards, Brighton & Hove Buses were
recognised as the Most Sustainable Business, Ridgeview
Wine Estate as Small Business of the Year
and, Rockinghorse Chief Executive, Ryan Heal,
as the individual who made the biggest contribution
to Sussex charity. Well done and keep up the
good work. Lizzie Lower
Photo at the Sussex Business Awards by Julia Claxton
....97....

inside left: st dunstan’s, 1967
...................................................................................
Brighton-based photographer Roger Bamber took this photograph – of a war-blinded veteran
running the 100-yard dash at St Dunstan’s Sports Day in June 1967 – long before he moved to
the South Coast. “There wasn’t much point in having a finishing line, so the runners were aiming
for the sound of the megaphone,” he remembers. “This ended up being used in the half-page
‘Vision’ slot of the then-broadsheet Daily Mail. You could tell from the way he’s running that this
chap was going to win the [time-trial] race.”
Roger has often exhibited the picture and it was chosen as part of a Brighton Fringe show in
May and June last year. “One day in June I was in my car driving to Shoreham, having been at
the show in the morning, and I was called up by Finn Hopson, the organiser, to ask if I could
possibly come back. Which I did: it turns out that a lady who had been to the exhibition had
recognised the runner!”
Here the story gets even more incredible. “It just so happens that this lady was a friend of the
runner’s wife, who was actually in Brighton visiting her at the time. She had rushed out to find
her friend, brought her back to the exhibition, and I had the great pleasure of meeting her. Her
name was Pat Fulling, and she told me his name was Captain Jack Fulling, and that he’d been
blinded in Malaysia in 1953, on service with the 22nd SAS Regiment. After leaving St Dunstan’s
he had become a physiotherapist, a job he excelled at for 40 years, despite his disability.” The
Fullings had moved to Argyllshire, where Pat still lived. “It was a great and unexpected pleasure
to meet her,” says Roger. “She’d seen a clipping of the photo in St Dunstan’s at the time, but it
was a big surprise to see it again. I gave her the picture, of course.”
....98....

eeze up
to the Downs...
kids go
free!
See ‘Breeze’
leaflets for details
You can now breeze up to Stanmer Park and
Devil’s Dyke by bus seven days a week,
and up to Ditchling Beacon at weekends.
For times, fares, leaflets and walk ideas, go to
www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/breezebuses
or call 01273 292480
Or visit www.traveline.info/se
to plan all your journeys.
5747

“SOME OF THE BEST RESULTS IN THE COUNTRY”
CHANNEL 4 NEWS
OPEN MORNINGS
PRE-PREP & PREP 23RD JANUARY
COLLEGE 30TH JANUARY
(11+, 13+, 16+)
(3+ TO 10+)
COUNTRY LIFE SCHOOLS INSPECTORATE 2015 GOOD SCHOOLS GUIDE
BRIGHTONCOLLEGE.ORG.UK PREPADMISSIONS@BRIGHTONCOLLEGE.NET 01273 704343