Viva Brighton Issue #38 April 2016

Open

Mornings

Saturday

14 May

10am-12 noon

Lancing Prep at Hove

The Droveway, Hove

East Sussex BN3 6LU

01273 503452

hove@lancing.org.uk

Registered Charity No. 1076483

Lancing College

Preparatory Schools

www.lancingcollege.co.uk

Lancing Prep at Worthing

Broadwater Road, Worthing

West Sussex BN14 8HU

01903 201123

worthing@lancing.org.uk

Registered Charity No. 1155150

vivabrighton

Issue 38. Apr 2016

editorial

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The theme of this issue is ‘home’, and most of the exploration we do

in #38 goes on within four walls: the interior of the Pavilion; the living

rooms of interior designers; the mind of an architect, and so on.

We call in the services of a decluttering agent, and a door-to-door

personal trainer.

If you’re lucky enough to have a home in this city, you have every

right to indulge yourself in working out how to make it as pleasant

an environment as possible, and we hope this issue will give you some ideas on that score.

But don’t forget the homeless: statistics suggest that there are an average of 41 people sleeping

rough on Brighton’s streets every night. And also – and this is another big local issue of

our times – those who can’t afford to live in the city they were brought up in, or work in,

because house prices and rents here are so high.

In #38, we also pay a visit to the homeless refugees in Calais, most of whom have been forced

out of their faraway countries by the ravages of war, who are desperate to get into the UK.

This is one of the big international issues of our time, and it’s happening on our doorstep; as

one aid worker put it: ‘once you see it, you can’t unsee it.’

Plenty to chew on, then. Remember that ‘home’ is a human right: we hope you’re reading this

magazine in a place you feel at home in. Enjoy the issue…

The Team

.....................

EDITOR: Alex Leith alex@vivamagazines.com

DEPUTY EDITOR: Steve Ramsey steve@vivamagazines.com

ART DIRECTOR: Katie Moorman katie@vivamagazines.com

PHOTOGRAPHER AT LARGE: Adam Bronkhorst

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Rebecca Cunningham rebecca@vivamagazines.com

ADVERTISING: Anya Zervudachi anya@vivamagazines.com, Nick Metcalf nickmetcalf@vivamagazines.com,

Hilary Maguire hilary@vivamagazines.com

PUBLISHER: Lizzie Lower lizzie@vivamagazines.com

CONTRIBUTORS: Alexandra Loske, Amy Holtz, Andrew Darling, Bethany Hobbs, Ben Bailey, Chloë King, Di Coke, Jay Collins,

Jim Stephenson, JJ Waller, Joda, Joe Decie, John Helmer, Lizzie Enfield, Martin Skelton, Nione Meakin and Suzanne Harrington

Viva is based at Brighton Junction, 1A Isetta Square, BN1 4GQ

For advertising enquiries call 07596 337 828. Other enquiries call 01273 810 259

Every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of our content. We cannot be held responsible for any omissions, errors or alterations.

GREAT

VALUE

©2016 Gullane (Thomas) Limited.

©2016 HIT Entertainment Limited.

At Alfriston just off the A27 near Eastbourne Call 01323 874100 www.drusillas.co.uk

contents

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Bits and bobs.

8-25. Millicent Fawcett’s ‘bold and

dangerous’ speech, our folk-artloving

cover designer, JJ Waller in

Millionaire’s Row, plus the latest

competition corner, toilet graffito and

Joe Decie strip.

38

Photography.

27-30. Rob Orchard set out to photograph

every pub in Brighton, to find

out if there are really 365 of them.

Columns.

33-37. John Helmer walks competitively;

Amy Holtz fishes intrepidly;

Lizzie Enfield ignores sell-by dates,

studiously.

57

My Brighton.

38-39. Local architect Nick Lomax,

on his favourite buildings in

Brighton. And the i360.

In town this month.

41-53. Organs, DJ sets, wartime

watercolours, tattoos, protest

songs, and a careful recreation of

an Abbey Road session.

Art and design.

55-63. Becky Blair’s post-diagnosis

paintings and Maddy Wilson’s

dynamic lampshades. Plus flowers,

art supplies and self-employment

tips for creative types.

....5 ....

contents (cont)

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The way we work.

65-71. Adam Bronkhorst photographs

five of Brighton’s interior designers, and

gets a look at their own homes.

95

Food and drink.

72-79. Brilliant food at the unambiguously

named Very Italian Pizza, wine

tasting via the intentionally misspelled

Tabl, and a Vietnamese Big Bowl.

67

Home.

80-85. We visit the Calais

refugee camp, talk to an interior

designer and declutter both

house and head.

Health.

87-91. A dedicated Albion away

fan, a home-delivery personaltraining

session, and a ‘bloody’

Brompton.

Property.

93-95. The lowdown on the

housing market with Paul

Bonett, and an eco beach house

on Shoreham Beach.

79

Inside left.

98. Saturday Afternoon, 1953, at

the Goldstone Ground.

....6 ....

this month’s cover artist

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This month’s cover is a vibrant, multi-layered

pattern extravaganza, courtesy of illustrator

Camilla Perkins. Camilla uses a combination of

hand-drawn elements to create her bold patterns,

which are then digitally manipulated to form the

final images. She says, “I tend to use acetate that I

have painted on and then scratched through with

a knife, so it creates a hand-printed texture but

in less time.”

The dolls’ house idea gave her four rooms worth

of wallpaper, carpets, furniture and flooring to

play with, plus a starry night sky, a hilly backdrop

and a visiting leopard… we’ll come back to

him. Her patterns are inspired by “old pieces of

clothing that I find in antique shops, or visiting

fabric shops like The Cloth House in London,”

and she’s especially drawn to African, Indian and

Scandinavian folk art.

Camilla has been chosen as one of this year’s Pick

Me Up selects, hand-picked by a panel of industry

experts to have her work showcased at the graphic

arts festival which opens at Somerset House on

the 21st. “I’m really excited to be in Pick Me Up

....8 ....

camilla perkins

..........................................

this year,” she says. “It gave me the perfect

excuse to work on a project that I

had wanted to do for years! It’s a combination

of primarily fashion-based

prints and original paintings portraying

various African subcultures.” She chose

to focus on African prints because, she

says, “I love the bright colours and organic

shapes. They have an amazing

ability to tell a story and to both look

modern and ancient at the same time.”

If you have a scroll through some of

Camilla’s work (camillaperkins.com)

you’ll notice what a diverse range of

subjects she illustrates: animals, people,

food, portraits, scenery… “I like to include

a bit of everything!” she says. “I

really enjoy fashion editorial-style portraits

with lots of bright clothing and

pattern, but I find it hard to know when

to stop. I think I’m becoming more and

more ambitious with how much I can fit

in the space!”

Exotic animals pop up frequently, and

sometimes in places they shouldn’t be,

like outside our dolls’ house. “I always

include animals in my work,” she says.

“They’re just another excuse to add pattern

really. I think subconsciously it was

inspired by all of the stories I heard as a

child of wild cats living on the Downs.”

After Pick Me Up she has a few projects

in the pipeline – nothing she can talk

about yet – but she does have plans for

a new personal project, she says: “Think

Indian drag queens…”

Interview by Rebecca Cunningham

camillaperkins.com

....9 ....

Brighton & Hove High

junior School gDST

THE

GOOD

SCHOOLS

GUIDE

Reg charity no 306983

Open Day

Early Years & Junior School Open Day with

a Victorian themed art competition on display

Saturday 14 th May, 9:30am-12 noon

Radinden Manor Road, Hove BN3 6NH | rsvp 01273 280200

juniorenquiries@bhhs.gdst.net | www.bhhs.gdst.net

please see our website for competition details

its and bobs

...............................

spread the word

on the buses #12

millicent fawcett (Route 12 & 25)

We’ve had some exotic locations in this column

before, but this one will be hard to beat. Darren

Arthur took his February Viva with him on a recent

trip to Sri Lanka, and snapped it on an air

taxi seaplane flight from Colombo to Dalawalla,

near the South Coast. “The views were amazing,”

he said, which goes without saying. Then…

“there were four other people on the flight… and

two of them got engaged during take off!” Now

that’s what we call romantic. We love getting

your pictures of Viva on tour, so if you’re off anywhere,

don’t forget to pack the latest issue, and

send your snaps to photos@vivamagazines.com.

Illustration by jonydaga.weebly.com

On March 23, 1870,

the 22-year-old Millicent

Fawcett gave

a speech at Brighton

Town Hall. Its title

was ‘On the electoral

disabilities of

women’, and it attracted so much interest that there

were, reportedly, ‘hundreds of persons failing to

gain admission’.

Holding such a meeting was ‘regarded as a most

terribly bold and dangerous thing’ around that

time, her biographer Ray Strachey noted. ‘Women

hardly ever spoke in public’. Her husband was MP

for Brighton, and ‘several members of his Election

Committee were aghast at the proposal, and

thought I should injure his prospects of re-election,’

Millicent later wrote.

‘She was perfectly aware that some persons would

think it was a strange and somewhat irregular proceeding,’

her husband told the audience. But she

eventually decided it could ‘help the cause in which

she takes such a deep interest.’

So, after apologising for ‘my total want of experience

as a lecturer’, she set out the 13 arguments

used against women having the vote, and deconstructed

their logic at length, one by one, receiving

‘loud and continued applause’ at the end. She had

been on the podium once before, but this was ‘my

first speech of any length in support of Women’s

Suffrage,’ she later wrote.

Millicent went on to become one of the key figures

in that movement, leading the non-militant Suffragists

for many years. She lived long enough to see

women given equal voting rights, almost 60 years

after her first speech on the subject. She died in

1929. Steve Ramsey

....11....

its and bobs

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jj waller’s brighton

“Millionaire’s Row is as close to a real life Stella Street as it gets,” writes JJ Waller,

who’s been down Hove way, and found that it’s not all a bed of roses in the back

garden of the rich and famous. More cans and cones, in fact. This playful shot

offers, he proffers, “a cheeky glimpse ‘behind the scenes’.”

....13....

its and bobs

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di coke’s competition corner

This month our practical competition prize

is a lovely spring cleaning bundle from Bert’s

Homestore. To enter this month’s challenge,

show us a treasured item in your own home.

Share a photo along with a brief description

on Twitter, Instagram or the Viva Brighton

Facebook page using the #VivaBrightonComp

hashtag. Alternatively, email your entry to

competitions@vivamagazines.com before 30th

April 2016. The most charming or unusual item

will feature in the June issue and its owner will

win a bundle of cleaning equipment, including

a feather duster, cloths, brushes and a utensils

tin. Terms and conditions can be found at

vivabrighton.com/competitions.

Established in 2005, Bert’s has created a unique

retail experience combining all kinds of fabulous

things to kit out your home. Selling a vibrant and

inspired mix of cookware, home accessories, gifts

and retro toys, Bert’s are committed to sourcing

exciting products from both the UK and across

the globe. Visit Bert’s Homestore in Kensington

Gardens, Western Road and George Street - and

find them tweeting from @BertsHomestore.

competition winner

In the February issue we asked readers to share

their signature dish. Our winner Anna Birch shared

a photograph of her Southern Italian Spaghetti

Carbonara. “Cook pancetta, pine nuts and sultanas gently

in a good amount of olive oil. Cook and drain the spaghetti,

then put back into the saucepan. Add a beaten egg, then stir

to coat the spaghetti with the egg, which will cook with the

heat of the pan. Finally, stir through the pancetta, pine nuts

and sultanas. Being Italian I never weigh the ingredients, I

tend to just throw it all in!”

Anna wins dinner for two from Al Duomo, delivered

by Dinner2go.

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.

....14....

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a finishing touch.

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Brighton BN2 6DX

01273 624 488

nuffieldhealth.com/hospitals/brighton

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+ Health Checks + Physio + Gyms

Joe decie

...............................

....17....

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its and bobs

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Pub: the round georges

The demographic of Craven Vale,

the council estate on the hill rising

up to the Racecourse, is rather

different from that of neighbouring

Baker’s Bottom, the network

of Victorian and Edwardian streets

surrounding Brighton College.

I’m guessing that when Punch

Taverns took over the Sutherland

Arms, back in 2005, and decided to

rebrand the place as ‘The Round

Georges’, a wine bar, they were

aiming to attract more customers

from the latter area, where fourbedroom

houses go for north of

five hundred grand, and fewer from

the former. But that isn’t quite what

has happened.

I’ve just moved into a house next

door to the Georges: I’ve never

had a more local local. And it hasn’t

taken me long to realise that the

two managers of the pub (Katie and

Stuart, who’ve been there six years)

have done a pretty good job of making

it a place that appeals to both

sets of neighbours (the wine bar

incarnation was short lived).

They do a wide range of decent

food, but there’s no sense that this

is in any way interfering with the

proper business of the place, which

is drinking, and chatting. They

have a television which shows all

the big televised football and rugby

matches, and another, smaller one

in the more modern wing of the

pub. There’s live music at the week-

end, often of an offbeat nature: in February the Jam Tarts (all

70 of them) performed. Prices are decent, the beer is well kept.

The result? A proper boozer, serving a wide range of people.

The pub was purpose built in 1878, to serve the newly laid out

Sutherland Road, and adjoining streets. Until the fifties, the

area north of the pub was an extensive system of allotments:

you can imagine the holders enjoying a well-deserved pint after

a hard morning with the spuds. Extensive internet research on

my part has found out little more than that in the 40s they used

to sell a decent arrowroot biscuit there. In the 80s and 90s the

Arms had a really bad reputation as being a ‘rough’ pub: it was

closed down for 18 months before its latest reincarnation, and

name change.

Is it good or bad to have such a great boozer next door? I guess

it’s all about moderation. The term ‘public house’ has never

rung more true: I reckon it’s going to start to feel like an extension

to the living room. Alex Leith, painting by Jay Collins

Painting by Jay Collins

....19....

its and bobs

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Secrets of the pavilion:

All that glitters is not gold: Silvering in the Royal Pavilion

As we have seen in previous issues of Viva

Brighton, George IV embraced the use of new and

expensive pigments in the Royal Pavilion, creating

sumptuous and exotic colour schemes. He embellished

these with the lavish use of gold and silver

- not just in the form of tableware and precious

metal objects, but as a surface finish in general.

While gilding (the application of gold leaf to

surfaces) was relatively common, the use of silver

leaf applied to wall decorations such as printed

or stencilled wallpaper, cornices and mouldings

or as a wood finish is very rare in historic

interiors. The simple reason for this is that silver

tarnishes quickly and can’t easily be polished or

repaired. We see it in the Pavilion as a shimmering

background, often interpreted as mother-of

-pearl by contemporaries, of Robert Jones’ large

Chinoiserie paintings in the Banqueting Room, on

the many silvered bells hanging from the canopies

in the same room, and even on the large dragon

which appears to be holding the chandelier. Like

the bells, this dragon was carved from wood, then

silvered and eventually glazed with one or more

layers of translucent paint.

Silvered and glazed carved ornaments are also

present in the Music Room, designed by John

and Frederick Crace. The best impression of the

unusual effect of this use of silver can be seen in

the dragons and snakes on the west wall by the

windows, where a fire in the 1970s destroyed the

original carvings, and the ornamental figures had

to be re-created. We might have lost the original

creatures, but we have gained the vision of how

they would have shimmered shortly after the room

was finished in 1823.

Silver is also a major design element in the

1822/23 scheme for the Saloon, which is currently

being restored. Here, Robert Jones designed not

only a wallpaper stencilled with silver leaf but

he also part-silvered the cornices and mouldings,

often using silver and gold leaf on the same

ornamental feature. This remarkable combination

of gold and silver on wood or plaster, together

with the silvered wallpaper and part-silvered

furniture, would have made the room appear much

The silver background of one of Robert Jones’ paintings (above) and the dragon (below) in the Banqueting Room

© Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove

....20....

its and bobs

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Silvered wallpaper in the Saloon


brighter than previously thought. The original

silver wallpaper from 1822 tarnished rapidly, as

did a reproduction installed in the early twentieth

century. The picture above shows parts of original

wallpaper which survived behind the doorframe,

the equally blackened 20th-century replacement

and a sample of the proposed replacement in the

current restoration scheme.

There are a number of 18th-century examples of

silvered interiors in continental Europe, but they

are extremely rare in Britain. In no other British

interior from the early-19th-century was silver

used so lavishly on ornamental features and wall

decorations. There is only one building where

silver is used boldly and playfully on a similar

scale: the Chinese Drawing Room at Temple

Newsam in Leeds. The silver decorations there

are slightly later than those in the Royal Pavilion,

but there is a direct connection between these two

interiors, which might partly explain the similarities:

George IV, when Prince of Wales, gave

several rolls of Chinese wallpaper to Lady Irwin of

Temple Newsam in 1806. Years later the wallpaper

was used by Lady Irwin’s daughter, Lady Hertford,

with whom George had an affair. She began

redecorating the Chinese Drawing Room in 1822,

incorporating the Chinese wallpaper and later

using silver lavishly on the cornices and borders

of the wall panels. It is likely that Lady Hertford

was inspired by either the recent silvered decorations

at the Royal Pavilion (even if she had only

heard of them) or by earlier silvered elements in

the Circular Room of George’s London residence

Carlton House, where the walls were “entirely

covered with silver, on which are painted Etruscan

ornaments in relief, with vine-leaves, trellis work.”

Alexandra Loske, Art Historian and Curator, The

Royal Pavilion

Alexandra Loske will give a talk about silver at the

Music Room of the Royal Pavilion on 14 April 2016

at 12pm. Free with admission.

brightonmuseums.org.uk

Silvered bell with red glazing from the Banqueting Room


....21....

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

...............................

magazine of thE month: human being

‘Home’ is a state of mind rather

than a place, I think. I remember

an incident in Carlos Castenada’s

books in which the protagonist

is taught by Don Juan, the Yaqui

[Native American tribe] man of

knowledge. One evening, after

the ingestion of many substances

and crawling around the floor of

a small wooden shack, Don Juan

tells him he will find home in one

small space where he will feel at

ease. And he does.

We have lots of mags about houses and decoration

and they are all lovely. We’ve used them for

inspiration in our own house. But however nice the

spaces are that we create, they don’t guarantee the

feeling of ‘home’. This month, we started to stock a

magazine new to us. Human Being comes from the

States. We all liked it from the moment it arrived

and on the day I’m writing this review, people have

come into the shop, picked it up and said ‘Oh, this

feels good.’

Human Being feels like ‘home’.

It’s challenging but comfortable,

varied but coherent, and lovely

to hold. It’s also about the kind of

things that feel like home. Yes, it’s

about fashion, architecture, design,

shops and crafts like so many

other mags. But Human Being

delivers by being very… human.

As its editorial says ‘There is no

longer wisdom in isolationism.’

So the interviews with writers,

artists, illustrators and others

show the real person and not the pre-written press

release person; the shops and homes feel like places

we might actually like being in and the workplaces

feel like we might want to work there. They have

names like Commune and Neighbourhood.

It’s difficult to say exactly what home is and it’s difficult

to say why this beautifully produced magazine

is as good as it is. But everyone seems to like

it and feel at home with it. That will do, won’t it?

Martin Skelton, Magazine Brighton, Trafalgar Street

pechakucha night, may 25

We first got involved with PechaKucha in May last year, and Viva

members are still part of the team, led by the graphic artist Woody,

putting together the quarterly event. PechaKucha has been nomadic

under our tenure, holding nights at the Velo Café, the Yellowave

Clubhouse, Silo and the Nightingale Room at Grand Central. The

latter venue proved so perfect for the format – a range of speakers

using the 20x20 format (20 images, each automatically showing for just

20 seconds) – that we’re staying put there, at least for next edition. The

theme of that edition, on Wednesday May 25th, will be ‘Getting Around’; as we go

to press we haven’t got our final line-up, but in the mix is an architect, a drag artist and travel photographer.

In all there will be ten presenters. The last four shows have all been sell-outs, so if you’re interested book

now at pechakucha.org/cities/brighton.

....23....

Good luck

and thank you…

…to all our fabulous runners taking part in the

Brighton Marathon and BM10k, raising vital funds

and awareness for Chestnut Tree House,

the children’s hospice for East and

West Sussex.

Join Team Chestnut

If you already have your own place in the 2016 Brighton

Marathon or BM10k, it’s not too late to join our team!

As part of Team Chestnut you’ll receive:

• Running vest

• Fundraising pack

• Amazing support from our cheer teams

• Post-race reception

• Facebook support group

Get involved

There are lots of

other ways that you

can support Chestnut

Tree House. Why not

volunteer, fundraise, visit

our shops, donate, or play

our lottery?

Find out more today

01903 706355

events@chestnut-tree-house.org.uk

www.chestnut-tree-house.org.uk

Registered charity no 256789

its and bobs

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charity box #1: chestnut tree house

Name: Chestnut Tree House children’s

hospice.

Age: 13!

What does the charity do? We

provide specialist care to children

with life-shortening conditions

and support for their families, both

at the hospice and families’ own

homes across Sussex.

Why was it opened? Originally

the Chestnut Tree Trust was set

up to support the local palliative-care network; the

Trust and St Barnabas hospice for adults worked

together to provide similar care for children as well.

What ages can come? Newborn up to 19 years.

What’s done to take pressure off the parents?

We provide a homely environment, where parents

can play with their children in the play area, or have

a rest, leaving the child in the care of a nurse.

What facilities are available? There’s a hydrotherapy

pool with a ceiling made using NASA

technology, meaning it won’t collect

condensation, so the room doesn’t become

damp and slippery. We also have

a multi-sensory room, music room

and beautiful gardens where children

and families can enjoy a break and

spend some precious time together.

How busy are you? Each year we

help 300+ families across Sussex.

How much does it cost to provide

the care you do? £3.5 million a year;

we don’t charge for our care and rely almost entirely

on fundraising, as less than 7% of our costs

are covered by government funding.

How can people get involved? By fundraising, donating,

taking part in one of our hospice events, visiting

our charity shops, taking on one of our challenges,

volunteering or playing our weekly lottery.

Thank you to everyone who is involved in helping

Chestnut Tree House in any way – your support really

does make a difference! Bethany Hobbs

charleston centenary competition

Charleston farmhouse by Vanessa Bell

2016 marks the centenary of Bloomsbury in Sussex, and you can win two

tickets to join the celebrations on the 20th of May at 12pm, with literary

luminaries such as Claire Tomalin, Carmen Callil, Christopher Hampton.

and Virginia Nicholson.

E-mail hello@vivamagazines.com or tweet #Charleston100 @VivaLewes by midday

on the 1st May. The winner will be drawn from a (suitably bohemian) hat. See our

website for T&Cs.

toilet graffito #15

Sing it, sista. There’s no doubt that some of the best bands are girl

bands (The Bangles, Wilson Phillips, Banarama, The Slits, and... er...

The Nolan Sisters) so this toilet truism goes out to all our home girls.

But where is it and, more importantly, who wrote it? We like to think it

was Beyonce. Last month’s answer: The Hope & Ruin

....25....

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Call us for a quote or to discuss your transaction to see how we can be of

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Email enquiries@chrismasogden.co.uk

Opening Hours: Mon-Fri 9am-5pm

photography

..........................................

Rob Orchard

Photographic pub crawler

The pub, our home away

from home. In 2011 one

man set out to investigate

the statistic that Brighton

has one pub for every day of

the year; what he discovered

through his photographs was

an ever-changing series of

establishments that embody

so much of what Brighton

is about. We spoke to Rob

Orchard…

What spurred you to

start your documentation?

When I first moved to

Brighton in the early nineties

someone told me that there

was a pub for every day of the

year, and ever since I wondered if it was true or

not. Fast forward to the start of 2011 and I bought

myself a second hand Olympus Trip on eBay. The

first thing you do when you buy a second-hand

camera is run a film through it to make sure it’s

working properly, so I needed something that

there were at least 24 of that were fairly accessible,

and that’s where the pubs came in.

Was there a lot of research involved, or was it a

case of going out on foot and discovering new

places? There was an awful lot of research - One

of the first things I found was that there wasn’t a

definitive list of pubs online. There were websites

which had a lot of omissions and not even Google

Maps was a reliable source, so I took a lot of the

overlapping information and made myself a big

spreadsheet where I could record not only the

name and address but also previous names and if

I’d taken a photo of the pub

already. It was very satisfying

to see it filling up, and to

make a plan for which pubs

I’d visit next. Then at the

weekends I’d head out on

my bike with my list and

my camera and try and see

if there were ones that I’d

missed. The biggest surprise

was how many I knew about

before I put the list together.

Maybe that’s not actually

something to boast about!

It’s amazing to see how

many of the pubs you shot

have already closed or

changed names. It seems

like you could almost start again in a couple

of years? I reckon there are at least 50 that have

changed since I finished the project in 2012, from

a fresh lick of paint all the way up to a complete

refurbishment and name change, so things are

definitely ripe for revisiting. Craft beer’s definitely

making its mark on Brighton now, and it’s good

that some will be saved thanks to being designated

as an Asset of Community Value. Brighton always

changes, that’s part of the reason I love it, so

maybe I’ll do a tenth-anniversary edition.

Finally, what’s your favourite home away from

home? Without hesitation, The Basketmakers

Arms. I’ve even got my own glass behind the bar.

Rob was speaking to Jim Stephenson of Miniclick.

Posters of all the pubs are available from Rob.

flickr.com/rob_orchard

miniclick.co.uk

....27....

photography

...............................

....28....

photography

...............................

....29....

photography

...............................

....30....

VALUATION DAY

Jewellery and Watches

Thursday 21 April

10.00am to 4.00pm

Bonhams jewellery specialist will be in the Brighton and Hove

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column

...........................................

John Helmer

Quantified

Illustration by Joda, jonydaga.weebly.com

Kate looks me up and down. “Are you going

for a run?”

“No, I just think this track-pants-and-woollyhat

thing is a good look for me. I’m going to

start wearing it to meetings.”

Outside, the cars are rimmed with frost.

I stagger down the hill to the park and

complete a half-circuit before the screaming

pain in my lungs causes me to slow to a walk.

An eye-watering gust of icy dawn air has me

reaching for my handkerchief just as a mother

comes towards me with her pre-school infant.

“Mummy, why is that old man crying?” says

the child.

I walk back up the hill and boil myself an egg.

“How many steps?” says Kate.

I consult my wrist. “I’m going to

have to go for a walk later”.

I ran all the way round that bloody

park, and the Fitbit only gave me

three-thousand-nine-hundred

poxy steps. This will leave me

seriously short of the 10,000

recommended by the American

Heart Association as my daily

quota, a number Kate seems to

cruise past with revolting ease

every day.

Kate and I both have Fitbits

(other brands of torture device

are available), and of course they

now rule our lives – especially

as she is so competitive about the

whole thing. Just because she is a

florist and has a blue-collar job,

rather than having to sit at a desk all day and

bang out tosh like this.

Later, I am sat in my study banging out tosh

like this and contemplating with gloom a

comparison of our weekly Fitbit stats (all

badges and smileycons for her, patronising

encouragement for me) when the 12 year old

comes in. Regarding me with a look of doeeyed

adoration she wraps her arms around my

neck and sits on my knee.

“How much this time?”

“I need to get some flour to bake brownies,

and sweets for Lola’s birthday tomorrow...”

She names a sum every bit as eye-watering as

the gust that had me blubbing in the park.

“I will give you the money on one condition.”

At dinner that night, she tells the rest of the

family about the evil bargain I have offered,

and which she loudly rejected: “he tried

to bribe me to wear his Fitbit round the

shops so he could get more steps and beat

Mummy!”

“That’s disgusting, Dad! It’s like the way you

buy your followers on Twitter.”

“I don’t buy my followers on Twitter: I have

simply automated some of my processes

and pay a small monthly fee to license the

software that—”

“—Buys you followers.”

From the corner of my eye I notice Kate

checking her Fitbit. “What?” I say, a bit

tetchily.

“Fourteen thousand, four hundred and

eighteen.”

“Just fuck off.”

....33....

column

...........................................

Amy Holtz

The truth is, I’m a Minnesotan

On the road, in Minnesota,

in Casey’s General

Store, my father-in-law

(Brighton through and

through) puts a cup that

holds 32 ounces of hot

liquid below each of the

coffee dispensers for

about 30 seconds each.

“Look at this - toffee,

hazelnut, French vanilla.

Fantastic!” He dubs his

creation a ‘Mochachacha’,

to the bemusement of the lady at the till.

Up north, in the wilderness, at Walmart, my

partner visits the hunting section while my

father-in-law does a recce of every section like

it’s Disney World. I ask the salesperson where

the Twinkies are while gauging the magnitude

of my accent. Since getting off the plane, it’s

veering from Martin Freeman towards Frances

McDormand. I stack several boxes under my

arms - no one judges here.

In Aisle 13, my partner picks out a sturdy fishing

rod, in a whimsical red, and turns to choose

the line that will haul up the unlucky fish. He

lingers near the ones thick as rope.

“30lb line?” my dad says. It’s his diplomatic

voice but we’re all thinking the same thing. So I

just say it. “Whaddya think you’re gonna catch

in the lake - Moby Dick?” My father-in-law

joins us with some beef jerky, a box of Junior

Mints and a hat with an eagle on it.

Out on the boat, my partner hasn’t caught anything

larger than a mouthful. This doesn’t stop

him from crafting the next

headline in the Park Rapids

Enterprise: ‘Skilled angler

from Brighton, England,

snags huge, menacing monster

in Third Crow Wing

Lake.’ FIL offers whiskey, a

purchase he’s proud of, despite

its previous residence

in a suspect liquor store in

Akeley: bottom shelf. Ancient

Age bourbon comes in

a plastic bottle, wears a coat

of dust - a self-fulfilling prophecy.

My partner is tutting. If he doesn’t catch

anything, he’ll remind me that he’s missing

two, maybe three Albion games for this. When

he’s away from home, it’s this that hurts the

most. When Zamora returned to the fold, he

and his father shared man-hugs and sporadic

dewy-eyed reflections of past goals - touching

stuff. But he’s in my neck of the woods now; I

demonstrate this by pulling up my own huge,

menacing monster.

The sun is nearly down, and some nimrods have

parked their boat nearby, with a soundtrack of

hip-hop. My dad tuts. My partner tuts. My father-in-law

tuts. I pretend not to hear and sing

along under my breath; it’s a sunfish, not a lake

monster. He looks happy, unlike my partner,

and I have second thoughts about eating him.

“Better keep him,” my dad says, starting up the

motor. “Or we’ll go hungry.” He turns to the

wheel but I think I hear him muttering “30lb

line.”

....35....

column

.............................

Lizzie Enfield

Notes from North Village

Illustration by Joda, jonydaga.weebly.com

“Is that vintage?” my 16 year old asks, using the term

with which she refers to anything over a year old.

Shopkeepers in Brighton have made a fortune out

of her willingness to pay over the odds for anything

in retro packaging with a whiff of another era.

At home, it’s a different matter when it comes to a

jar of cinnamon I am about to use.

“The Sainsbury’s logo isn’t like that any more,”

daughter points at the lettering. She is right; the

supermarket has rebranded itself since I bought it.

“What is the sell-by date?” she eyes me suspiciously.

It is 1994, but I withhold this information. Sell-by

dates are a source of contention in our home.

I have reached an age when I can no longer read

them without glasses, so I don’t. She is at an age

when any slight aberration from the norm is deeply

humiliating and a mother who keeps food past

its sell-by date is a total outrage.

“They’re only guidelines,” I say. “If the food still

looks all right it doesn’t matter.”

I remind her that when my parents-freezer broke

in the great storm of ’87, we found (and ate) meat

that had been there since ’79. Nobody died.

“Sell-by dates were invented by supermarkets to

make you throw away good food and buy more.

Apparently they stockpile spices for years in Asia,

before they get anywhere near a Sainsbury’s jar.”

A friend who runs a restaurant told me this, so I

think there is probably some truth in it.

“I had a friend who was in India and, sick with

hepatitis and craving something western, bought a

bag of crisps from a kiosk – 20 years past their sell

by date. She was fine.”

“Gross!” Daughter is now opening the fridge.

“Everything in this house is old and mouldy.”

She takes the lid off a packet of soft cheese. There

is a tiny bit of mould on top. It could be worse:

one of our neighbors told her son to eat the “burnt

bits” of his porridge, without fussing, only later to

find they were mouse droppings.

“You can scrape that off,” I tell her. “Is it for your

packed lunch?”

“Yes, but I don’t eat mouldy food,” she says, moving

through the contents of the fridge. “Or fizzy

yoghurt.”

The young are always so principled when it comes

to food.

“And I need to take something for the homeless

assembly. It has to be tinned.”

“Tinned food lasts for ever,” my husband pipes up,

as daughter begins scouring the cupboards.

“Do you remember the tin in your aunt’s house

from 1955? It was the same age as me, but there

was nothing wrong with it.”

“Uggh,” daughter looks at us both and I’m not sure

if she’s referring to the food or her parents when

she says: “Everything in this house is so past its

sell-by date.”

....37....

Photo of Nick in his library at home, by Adam Bronkhorst

....38....

interview

..........................................

mybrighton: Nick Lomax

LCE director; involved in the design of the Jubilee Library

Are you local? I was born in British Home Stores

in Churchill Square. At least in the space where it

is now: my parents lived in Grenville Place in the

network of houses that were knocked down to build

the shopping complex. We were there until I was

five, then we moved to Hurstpierpoint.

Why and when did you come back? In 1986. It

was for practical reasons, as both sets of my children’s

grandparents lived in Sussex. And Brighton

is on the end of the train line, and I was commuting

to London at the time. That meant getting a seat on

the way up, and not running the chance of falling

asleep and missing the stop on the way back.

Do you think Brighton has changed much since

then? You know what, I don’t think it has. Not in

the way that serious cities with more ambition have,

like Liverpool, and Manchester, and Glasgow. We

lack ambition here.

When you say ‘we’… I don’t just mean the

Council. Many of the people here, too. People think

of Brighton as a pretty cool, trendy sort of place,

but a surprisingly large proportion of the population

are [small c] conservative. There are a lot of

nimbies. The whole of the UK is obsessed with old

buildings, actually. I don’t see why old and new can’t

sit together. They make that happen pretty much

everywhere else in Europe.

Which Brighton buildings do you admire? I like

the variety and contrasts... the traditional and the

trendy, the Lanes and North Laine, the cathedrallike

St Bartholomew’s and the village-like parish

church of St Nicholas. I like the scale of the architecture

in the Regency Squares, and the scale of the

engineering like the railway station, the viaduct and

the Madeira Drive arches.

Anything post-war? The Basil Spence buildings

in the University of Sussex; Brighton College additions

by Eric Parry, Allies & Morrison and Rem

Koolhaas.

What do you think of the i360? I was quite opposed

to it, mainly because I wasn’t sure of its business

plan. Now it’s been built, let’s hope it works…

let’s make it work.

When did you last swim in the sea? In Brighton?

About 50 years ago. For me the sea is about the

ever-changing light and colour; no two days does it

look the same. I love looking at it, but that doesn’t

mean I want to get into it. I keep fit by cycling

around on my Brompton. I don’t even need a lock

for it, because it folds up and goes wherever I go.

Can you recommend us a good restaurant? Le

Nantais does good traditional French food. I like

the Ginger Man, and Plateau. And Terre à Terre and

Food for Friends are brilliant vegetarian restaurants.

Are you a pub man? No, I’m not. But my daughter

has recently introduced me to the joys of gin, and

The Office in Sydney Street has a great selection.

What is the city lacking? A new art gallery, on top

of what we already have. We need a philanthropist

to leave us a collection and the money to build the

gallery. And a local council that would support it.

More generally, we need to improve the standard

of debate here. New ideas tend to get shot down

without being properly discussed.

Where would you live, if not Brighton? I can’t

think of anywhere else I’d like to live in the Englishspeaking

world. I admire cities like Barcelona and

Lisbon, but I wouldn’t like to live anywhere I didn’t

speak the language… and I’m not a linguist.

Interview by Alex Leith

....39....

local musicians

..........................................

Chris T-T

Protest singer, inter alia

Chris T-T is an indie rocker, a writer, radio DJ

and protest singer. He’s playing this month at the

99% Festival – a two-day mix of music and talks

organised by the People’s Assembly to tie in with

the national anti-austerity demo on April 16th. We

asked him about the overlap of politics and music.

Has your music moved away from indie rock

towards a more folky sound over time? Yeah to

an extent, though I still juggle the two. The Bear

album two years ago was pure alt-rock, with a deliberately

1990s sound, so I still adore that music.

But I probably most yearn to be accepted under

the ‘folk’ umbrella if only because that allows a

lifelong gigging career, which was what I always

wanted to do.

Tell us about the new album you’ve been

working on… It’s called 9 Green Songs and it’s

out 3rd June. It’s my 10th solo record and my

fourth album with Xtra Mile Recordings. It’s

kind of a bleak, sarcastic ecology record, although

it does veer into straightforward protest and I

think it’s my most radical collection of songs for

a long while. I walked into the studio with what I

thought were folk-protest songs – but they turned

out more varied, intense and alternative than I’d

planned. Alt-rock, punk-folk, spoken word and

piano ballads.

Do you think marches are still a useful way to

protest? I’ll be marching on the 16th – but I’m

growing ever more skeptical of the value of polite,

well-stewarded British protest marches. They feel

like a pressure valve. Social media activism often

feels the same, although online campaigns to do

a specific positive good (like Arts Emergency) are

fantastic. When it doesn’t physically hurt people,

I’m more impressed and moved by moments of

smart, transgressive direct action (and disheartened

by the lack of it right now).

Has ‘protest music’ made a resurgence in

recent years? Well, clearly, art is no longer the

delivery device for the counter-culture as it was

in the 20th century. Today, that counter-culture is

delivered entirely via web coding. But that’s got

nothing to do with actual protest music, which

in my opinion is in the middle of an incredible

renaissance and is everywhere, including at the top

of the charts.

You performed solo at the Theatre Royal’s

Green Party fundraiser last year – how was it

for you? That was a fun, chaotic night, I loved it

but more for the atmosphere. I love being with

comedians backstage – they’re the best to hang

out with for showbiz gossip and disgusting stories,

far better than musicians, who mainly talk about

guitar pedals and lawyers.

Are you an activist who makes music or a

musician who sometimes sings about politics?

Absolutely, without hesitation, a music maker who

sings about politics. Even when the material is

overtly ‘political’, my approach is too pessimistic

and self-questioning to be ideal for simple rabble

rousing. I’m not on-message – my heart isn’t on

my sleeve throughout a live gig – like, say, Grace

Petrie or Joe Solo or Thee Faction. I believe in art

too much, I think. Interview by Ben Bailey

Chris T-T is appearing alongside Fable, The Meow

Meows, Attila the Stockbroker, POG and others at

the 99% Festival, The Synergy Centre, Sat 16th &

Sun 17th.

....41....

local musicians

..........................................

Fear of Men

New album looming

Fear of Men’s 2014 debut

saw the Brighton indiepop

band break out of the

local scene and go on to

support the likes of The

Pains of Being Pure at

Heart around Europe and

the States. This month,

fresh from SXSW Festival,

they’re back on tour with

a new album on the horizon. We spoke to Jess

Weiss and Daniel Falvey ahead of their show at

the Prince Albert.

What sort of music do you make? Daniel: Some

people call us dream pop and that seems like as

good a description as any.

Has all this touring influenced the new material?

Daniel: When we were touring the last

album I was thinking that I wanted the songs to

hit harder live. I wanted to really feel the bass and

drums shake the stage so we focused on making

the individual sounds stronger and not hiding

things with layers.

Jess: Loom kept us on the road for about a year,

then we had a year of writing and recording so it

feels great to be playing shows again now.

The recording of your first album saw you

sleeping between jobs in an underground studio.

Was it different this time round? Jess: Yeah,

Loom was quite a stressful experience. Fall Forever

has had its own challenges, but it was recorded

at Brighton Electric in the first studio we’ve ever

been in with a window. It definitely had a different

feel to Loom, and wasn’t as claustrophobic.

Working with electronic instruments and laptops

meant we could work in a variety of places which

was quite freeing. We still

put in a lot of all nighters

though!

Why do bands often use

more electronic sounds

as they go on? Daniel: I

guess it’s because you get

curious about the different

textures and sounds that

electronic instruments can

give you. It’s a way of expanding your palette.

Jess: Guitars are relatively cheap. Pedals and

synths are harder to get hold of.

Do you mind being compared to bands like

Orange Juice or The Smiths? Daniel: The

Smiths are a band we hugely look up to, just in

terms of being a pop band that are interested in

using literary references, but we’ve never modelled

ourselves on any particular band or genre.

It seems like anxiety was a big theme on the

first record – has that changed? Jess: The

themes of the first record are continued on Fall

Forever, because that’s who I am as a person, but

there is also quite a strong thread of independence

running through the newer tracks.

Is the band still a DIY outfit? Jess: Absolutely.

We commissioned 3D artists with the specific idea

for the cover and Dan still does the design. Videos

are a close partnership with directors, or we make

them ourselves.

Are there any other plans in the pipeline? Daniel:

Lots more touring. Our album is released on

June 3rd and we’ll be releasing singles and videos

in the run up to it so we will be very busy!

Interview by Ben Bailey

Prince Albert, Sun 10th April, 7.30pm, £6

....42....

local musicians

..........................................

Ben Bailey rounds up the Brighton music scene

SAFE TO SWIM

Sat 2nd, Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar, 7pm, free

Did you ever see

Nirvana clowning

around on Top of

the Pops? As well as

being a brilliant two

fingers to phoney pop, it’s a reminder that grunge

was more fun than people remember, despite all

the drugs and depression. Brighton four-piece Safe

To Swim have released two singles so far, both of

which capture the combination of ennui and goofiness

that defined a lot of music back then. The band

have earned some national press and small festival

slots off the back of their catchy guitar-driven indie

rock, arguably on account of the influences. If there

was any doubt, the 90s associations are cemented

by the clips of Wayne’s World and Bill & Ted in the

band’s video to last year’s Forget Life. Repeat. It’s like

the slacker equivalent of Rickrolling.

SPECTRUM: RECORD STORE DAY

Sat 16th, Brighton Dome Studio, 12pm, £8

The clocks have just gone

forward, but you’d be

forgiven for thinking the

opposite when you see

the amount of vinyl being

carried home on Record

Store Day this month. As usual Resident Records

is the hub of activity, but the Dome are joining in

with a morning seminar and a full day of bands

including Tigercub (pictured), Gang, Della Lupa,

Yumi And The Weather, Calico and Normanton

Street. Attentive Viva readers will know all these

bands due to their appearance on these very pages

over the last year. It’s a perfect chance to hear a big

wedge of Brighton’s best new music all in one go.

BAD BAD WHISKEY

Sat 16th, Round Georges, 6pm, free

Mixing the stripped-back sound

of skiffle with the amped-up

noise of rock’n’roll, Bad Bad

Whiskey have been causing

spontaneous dancing in Brighton

pubs since 2009. Powered

by a rattle-snare drummer and a

string-slapping upright bassist,

the trio is led by Citizen Lane – a wax-haired hep

cat who’s been DJing around Kemptown for just

as long. Though there’s an element of tongue-incheek

tribute to the band’s blend of rockabilly and

blues, they also have plenty of genuine love – and a

sure talent – for the music. It’s knockabout, raucous

and impossible to sit still to.

ELLIE FORD

Fri 22nd, Bleach, 8pm, £7

Musicians occasionally have a

hard time avoiding the temptations

of self-indulgence

when they play something as

impressive as the harp – as if

the novelty of the instrument will compensate for

any amount of noodling. It’s safe to say Ellie Ford

doesn’t have this problem, perhaps because she’s

an equally accomplished guitarist and singer. This

gig is the launch of her debut album, The Other

Sun, the making of which saw her holed up in a

countryside studio near Bexhill for many months.

Having emerged blinking from the depths of a

painstaking but decidedly old-fashioned recording

process, she’s now taking the results on tour with

her band. The single from the album is a lush and

buoyant folk ballad with a unique arrangement. If

it translates well to the stage, this will be a treat.

....43....

AN ENEMY

OF THE PEOPLE

by

HENRIK IBSEN

in a version by

CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON

Hugh Bonneville returns to Chichester

in Ibsen’s thrilling play directed

by Howard Davies

£

TICKETS

FROM

22 APRIL - 21 MAY 01243 781312 cft.org.uk

music

....................................

The Secret Life of Organs

James McVinnie, sonic explorer

Organists are often jokingly referred to as

megalomaniacs, because they’re in charge of

this huge volume of sound. It’s a very solitary

instrument, in a positive sense. You have ultimate

control and... it’s huge fun. It’s the sheer scale, the

sense of variety and delicacy and power at your

fingertips.

It’s pretty hard, as instruments go. It’s probably

the hardest instrument, just because you’ve

got to coordinate your feet. People often say ‘how

do pianists learn to play with both hands?’ You

know, with the organ you’re playing at least a

quarter, if not more, of the music with your feet

as well, so you have to have total independence of

limbs, basically.

When I worked at Westminster Abbey, my colleagues

and I had to practice the organ at night,

because it’s open for tourists during the day... so

you kind of learn to have slightly nocturnal practicing

habits. And you get to be in these amazing

spaces after hours, which is quite thrilling as well.

The organ was the most advanced piece of

machinery before the industrial revolution,

along with the clock. When the Victorians came

along, and also the equivalent engineers in Europe,

they extended and enlarged the instrument

so that they’d be able to play music that would

rival the symphony orchestra.

The piano and violin were domestic instruments

in the 19th century, hugely popular,

basically every house would have a piano. The

organ, traditionally, would be confined to church,

and then, in the 19th century, big civic places like

town halls. Those organs were designed to bring

orchestral music to the masses as well. But people

don’t have organs at home really, unless they have

lots of money and space. So yeah, there is a huge

wealth of great music for the organ, but just proportionally

for the instrument, there’s less of it.

In the last ten years, or last five years really, I’ve

noticed that there’s been a huge upsurge in interest

in the organ by composers from a classical

music background who are not necessarily from

the church music world, and also people like Tom

Jenkinson, who’s better known as Squarepusher,

who’s very much not from the classical music tradition.

Tom is someone with a huge cult following

in electronic music, but he happens to have

had a lifelong love of the organ as an instrument,

and has always wanted to write organ music, so

this is a kind of consummation of that.

I think people associate the organ with

predominantly church services and hymns

and, you know, music which maybe isn’t terribly

inspiring, and perhaps goes hand in hand with being

played badly by someone who doesn’t really

know what they’re doing… [but] it’s an amazing

instrument, with huge resources and huge scope

for exploring sonic possibilities, and it’s interesting

that it’s captured the imagination of so many

people from non-classical music fields.

As told to Steve Ramsey

The Secret Life of Organs features James McVinnie

playing music by Philip Glass and Tom Jenkinson,

and a set by Australian improvisers The Necks. Fri

8th April, Sussex University Meeting House, 7.30pm

Photo © Magnús Andersen

....45....

National Theatre of Scotland /

Live Theatre

Our Ladies of

Perpetual Succour

Tue 17 – Sat 21 May

Catholic schoolgirls go wild as the choir

trip to Edinburgh goes badly wrong in this

blisteringly funny musical play

Blast Theory & Hydrocracker

Operation Black Antler

Sat 7 - Sat 28 May

Assuming the role of an undercover offi cer at

a protest meeting, you are given power and

control. How will you use it?

Spymonkey & Tim Crouch

The Complete Deaths

Wed 11 – Sun 15 May

Spymonkey perform all 75 deaths in the

works of Shakespeare – sometimes messily,

sometimes movingly, always hysterically

Work Write Live

Develop your creative-writing skills at our

award-winning workshops

Coming Soon:

Short Story in a Day - 23rd June

10 week Introductory course - Starting

3rd October

10 week Intermediate/Advanced

Course - Starting 5th October

Work Write Live Brighton

@WorkWriteLive

http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/businessand-community/work-write-live

brightonfestival.org

brightonfestival

brightfest #BF2016

tattoo convention

....................................

The Point of No Return

An inky adventure in Borneo

“It wasn’t the heat,” says Tom, on the difficulties

of filming in the Borneo jungle. “It was the

humidity, which was around 95%. The air was so

moist, sweat had nowhere to go. You turned into

a soggy sponge.”

Brighton-based filmmaker Tom J Kelly was with

tattooist Fade FX, filming the documentary Borneo

Tattoo - The Point of No Return, about the

hand-tap tattooing techniques practiced by the

Iban tribe, and the terrible effects that deforestation

is reaping on the Sarawak area of the island

where they live.

“The Malaysian government are very strict about

people filming anything about deforestation, so

I had to use a small camera that would pass as a

tourist one, and travel as light as possible,” says

Tom. “At one point my radio mic overheated and

stopped working. I put it in front of the fan for

four hours: luckily that did the trick.”

Another problem was the budget. “We had

£3,650, thanks to Skin Deep sponsoring us, and

a kick-starter campaign. But this didn’t even

stretch to paying for accommodation. And the

natives were very savvy about asking for money

to do interviews. A lot of tattoo tourists go out

there because some of the Iban tattooists have

become celebrities in that world. So they know

the value of their time.”

Tom and Fade spent some time in the Sarawak

capital, Kuching, then a week in an Iban tribal

village. One of Tom’s jobs was sorting the truth

from myth. “The tattooists have got used to

telling a souped-up story for the tourists. I had

to say ‘guys, it’s time for the true version. This is

your chance to tell your real story.’”

A big part of that story, which made up “about

25% of the footage” was the devastating effect

that government-endorsed deforestation is having

on the area. “The river running through the

village used to be clear; now it is brown. Fish

have become scarce.”

The tattoos are hand-tapped using two sticks

with nails on the end, and Fade, who fronts the

documentary, learnt this technique years ago in

the same place we are visiting. “It looks like it’s

going to be very painful,” says Tom, “but apparently

it is less so than a machine, as there is less

trauma to the skin.”

The tattoos, it turns out, were a very integral

part of Iban culture before the area was colonised

by Christian missionaries in the 50s. “The

oldest generation had them, but their children

didn’t. The next generation on was starting to

get interested in them again.

“The marks all have different significance; a

certain mark on the hand, for example, means

you have taken another man’s head. Another

mark shows you have travelled to another village.

Generally speaking, the more tattoos you have,

the richer and higher class you are.”

Alex Leith

The premiere of The Point of No Return will start

off the Brighton Tattoo Convention, Brighton

Centre, April 30th. kellyimages.co.uk

....47....

music

....................................

Norman Jay

“My strength is my knowledge”

Norman Jay MBE was born

in 1958, in Notting Hill,

then a “run-down slum”, to

Nigerian immigrant parents.

The now-swanky district

of London still plays a big

part in the DJ’s life: his

Good Times Sound System

attracts an estimated 15,000

revellers each day of the

Notting Hill Carnival.

As well it might: Norman

is one of the most influential and well-respected

DJs of our time, who has been described as the

‘guardian of the sound system’ as well as the

‘father of House’. And soon he’s coming to Hove.

“Brighton’s always been good to me,” he says,

down the phone, from his Acton home. “All that

culture: the Mods, the Rude boys… I played

there at the height of the rare-groove scene [a Jay

coinage] in 87-88; I’ve played funky acid jazz; I’ve

played neo-disco. The people there are very cool,

very open to new sounds, always have been.”

This time he’s playing at the Funk the Format

Festival, in Hove Park, on May 29th, before

headliners Soul II Soul hit the stage. FtF is the

adult-version follow-up to Funk the Family (now

in its second edition, in the same space on the

28th), brainchild of local music journalist and DJ

Lucy ‘Elle J’ Small.

Norman’s father was a great lover of bluebeat, ska

and calypso from the Caribbean, and Motown,

Stax and jazz from the States. Brought up on this

eclectic mix of black music, having been a “massive

enthusiast” of the mid-70s underground club

scene in London and the Home Counties, the

young man learnt his trade

playing at the Notting Hill

Carnival, as “no radio station

would hire a black DJ back

in those days, it was proper

apartheid”. He “learnt to

play every type of music,

for everyone: jazz, funk,

disco, early electro, hip-hop,

house, rave, drum & bass, I

played it all, because I loved

it all. The Good Times

Sound System plays music without prejudice.”

In the mid-eighties he started playing “in old Victorian

houses, which soon became too small for

the purpose, so I started playing in warehouses:

soon there were regular massive illegal warehouse

parties going on. This was the precursor to the

rave era, and the acid house explosion.” He was

one of the first DJs on Kiss FM, and became a

shareholder in the company, before leaving it

after Thatcher’s deregulation of the IBA.

As you can imagine, Norman - awarded the

MBE in the Queen’s Jubilee Year Honours list,

and extremely proud of it - has a massive vinyl

collection, but he no longer plays records at his

gigs. “It’s all digital now,” he says, “on MP3, and

memory sticks”. Not that he’s come prepared

with a play-list of any kind. “I’ve never needed

one. I’ve been an instinctual DJ for 40 years,

and it hasn’t failed me yet. I’ve learnt to play the

crowd, to defer to what they want, because it’s

them who pay my wages. I play what I know, and

my strength is my knowledge.”

Alex Leith

Funk the Format, Hove Park, May 29th

....48....

Faerie Festival

20th - 22nd May 2016

THE SESSIONS

Wed 6 Apr

UB40

Tue 3 May

YES

Sat 7 May

ADAM ANT

Sat 28 May

Pleasant Rise Farm, Alfriston, East Sussex

Tickets & Info: 07845 438340 or visit

www.magicalfestivals.co.uk

box office 0844 847 1515 *

www.brightoncentre.co.uk

*calls cost 7p per minute plus your phone company’s access charge

music

....................................

Abbey Road Sessions

The Beatles’ career... in two hours

STIG Edgren is the executive producer of The

Sessions, a new stadium show that faithfully recreates

The Beatles’ famous Abbey Road recordings right

down to the between-take banter.

The Sessions is my baby. I grew up with The

Beatles and the idea of it goes back almost 50 years.

I’d seen just about every Beatles show out there

and they’re all the same. I say that with respect –

they’ve been around for a long time and audiences

enjoy them. But I wanted to put a different spin on

it. I wondered what would it be like if the audience

was a fly-on-the-wall at a Beatles recording session

We capture the band’s whole career from

beginning to end with a suite - not a medley -

of songs to represent each album. Representing

their career in just over two hours is gut-wrenching.

I have sleepless nights when I have to cut songs.

Recording The Beatles [by Kevin Ryan and

Brian Kehew] is a 400-page catalogue of each

Beatles song and how they were set up for

recording. We referred to it a lot so we could set

up the studio exactly as it would have been for the

albums and make sure we were using the authentic

instruments and equipment.

We’re not making up a single word of what goes

on. The banter is taken right off the outtakes of

actual recordings. It’s Paul saying, ‘No, don’t play it

that fast’ or George Harrison saying, ‘What should

I do for Something? Should I say, ‘something in the

way…pomegranate?’’

Tomorrow Never Knows, from Revolver, is so

hard to recreate, especially when you have to

do it live every night. There’s all that background

sound and backwards tapes. But we tried it out last

week and it was really close.

Geoff Emerick was the band’s engineer for

many years and worked on albums including Sgt

Pepper and Revolver. When I asked him if he’d

like to be part of the show I thought he’d say no for

sure. But he loved the idea.

Geoff has provided so much insight. He’ll tell

the singers, ‘No your pitch isn’t right there’ or, ‘The

piano’s good but that solo needs work.’ He’s the guy

we all listen to because, hey, he was there.

We have 45 performers in total including two

for each Beatle. In many of The Beatles’ middle

and later years they double-tracked recordings and

used an orchestra and whatnot so it’s a way of recreating

that. When you hear this mix live in an arena

it’s a wow. You can feel the power of the Beatles’

music as if it’s being played live.

We had auditions in Liverpool, London, New

York and LA for the best Beatles performers

out there. What I discovered was that the guys

who naturally sounded most like them were all

from Liverpool.

George was the hardest to cast. One of our

Georges was the original George Harrison in the

Beatlemania Broadway show right back in the 1970s.

We found our Liverpudlian George busking on the

street when we were on our way to the official auditions.

He isn’t a professional musician but his sound

was just incredible.

This is the hardest music show I’ve ever

produced. Even touring with the Pope doesn’t

compare. I’ll work on a Papal visit for a year. I’ve

been working on The Sessions for six.

Which Beatle would I be? George Martin. The

fifth Beatle. That’s definitely my role. Nione Meakin

The Sessions; A live re-staging of The Beatles at

Abbey Road Studios, Brighton Centre, April 6th

....51....

Gigs In Brighton...

sunset sons

Monday 4th April

Concorde 2

Patent PenDing


The Haunt

tHe coral

Tuesday 5th April

Concorde 2

Black Peaks

Saturday 9th April

The Haunt

Black Mountain


Concorde 2

DaMien JuraDo

Tuesday 12th April

Brighton Dome Studio

Dan oWen

Friday 15th April

The Green Door Store

tHe Bluetones

Friday 15th April

Concorde 2

lake street Dive


Komedia

Hiatus kaiyote

Thursday 28th April

The Old Market

Mark lanegan


St George’s Church

We are scientists

Thursday 5th May

Concorde 2

artHur Beatrice

Tuesday 24th May

Bleach

Fort HoPe

Tuesday 24th May

Patterns

vintage trouBle

Thursday 30th June

Concorde 2

LoutPromotions.co.uk

tattoo convention

....................................

Greased Lightning

They may be hydromatic… but what have they got to do with tattoos?

For as long as cars have

been manufactured en

masse, certain owners have

been finding ways of modifying

them to be faster and

better than the standard

models coming off the

production line. But it

wasn’t until the 1930s that

a real scene of customisation

began to emerge,

in California. The dry

lake beds became a place for young car owners to

meet, form clubs and race, and participants began

modifying their cars to make them lighter and

more powerful. They fitted larger tyres on the rear

wheels, which altered the gear ratio, giving them

a higher top speed, and smaller tyres at the front,

which reduced the wind resistance - this gave

them the ‘raked’ look that is still synonymous with

hot-rod style. These weren’t hobby cars, they were

the cars people drove to work, so some of the modifications

only took place once they had arrived at

the lakes: headlights came out, windscreens came

off, any unnecessary weight was removed.

The scene came to a temporary halt with the start

of World War II and official dry lakes races ended,

but by the mid-40s racers were coming back from

the war with new ideas and new skills. They knew

how to build parts, how superchargers worked, and

many had new experience in aerodynamics. One of

the most iconic post-war innovations was the Belly

Tank Racer. A belly tank – sometimes called a drop

tank – was strapped to the body of a military plane

to carry surplus fuel, so by design it’s incredibly

aerodynamic, making it the perfect shape for the

body of a racing car. In 1949 Bill Burke and Don

Francisco’s Belly Tank

won the title ‘World’s

Fastest Hot Rod’ with a

speed of over 150mph.

As dry lake racing became

increasingly popular

again, the industry for

after-market parts grew,

laying the ground for

customizers to create

something unique. The

rift grew between hot

rods, which aimed for speed, and classic Kustoms,

which celebrated style. Early customizers removed

the badges and stripped away excess chrome,

headlights were ‘frenched’ or inverted, so that they

domed inwards, and standard parts were replaced

with higher-end fittings, so that the original

model was almost unrecognisable. These were the

foundation of the Kustom car scene which is still

popular today.

“Kustoms became popular over here from the

1950s when the American Hot Rod magazines

came to the UK,” explains Miles Sherlock. Miles is

the owner of JackHammer, a parts shop supplying

specialist parts for these type of cars, who will be

running The Lead Room, a Kustom car show at

this year’s Brighton Tattoo Convention. That does

beg the question: what do cars have to do with

tattoos? “There are a lot of 50s themes in contemporary

tattoo culture, but there’s much more

to it than that. It’s more the spirit of the thing.

Customizers build a car which reflects their own

personality and drive it around for everybody else

to see, much like a tattoo.” Rebecca Cunningham

Brighton Tattoo Convention, Brighton Centre, 30th

April – 1st May brightontattoo.com

....53....

Discounts for visitors arriving on foot, by bike or via public transport.

Find out how to visit and download free walking and cycling maps.

CHARLESTON.ORG.UK/VISIT

Supported by

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01273 621444

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art

.....................................

Focus on…Wolf Mountain, by Becky Blair

Acrylic on canvas, 90x90cms, £3,500

Why ‘Wolf Mountain’? Can you see a wolf’s

face in there? With its teeth rising? The image

of the wolf represents the disease I’ve been suffering

from, lupus. The disease will be with me

for ever, but the medicine I’m taking means I

am able to work again. I had to stop painting for

nearly a year… this exhibition [enter – The Wolf]

is the fruit of my work since I started again.

Is your work vastly different from how it was

before you were ill? I’m sure people will recognise

my mark, but yes, my work is very different.

Before, I consciously put no emotion into the

work – I painted scenes of people, or flowers, or

trees – now it is much more… contemplative. I

have discovered the confidence to be brave.

How so? Before I made paintings which sold

well. Now I’m willing to try things that are not

necessarily going to be so financially successful.

It was difficult, after twenty years of developing a

singular style, to change direction. I’m glad that I

didn’t just carry on where I left off.

What sort of things are you expressing in this

body of work? Since being chronically ill I’ve

developed a deeper sense of my own insignificance,

but also an understanding that we are allconsumingly

self-centred. Those two positions

are poles apart, but I can see, on the other side of

being poorly, that they are both relevant.

How do you know when a painting is finished?

I used to find that really difficult, but now

I go away from my paintings for a couple of days

and when I come back to them I know if they’re

finished or not. And I’ve realised that sometimes

an unfinished quality to the painting is a good

thing. I used to tend to spell things out too much.

Do you work in silence? No, I share the studio

and there is non-stop chatter. If not I listen to

Radio 4. It’s important for the thinking part of

your brain to be occupied, so the other part can

just get on with things.

Which painting would you hang onto your

desert island palm tree? A party scene, by Peter

Doig. Interview by Alex Leith

Enter - The Wolf, Gallery 40, 12th-23rd April

....55....

Handmade

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We create beautiful

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We also teach basic

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See website for details.

Workhaus, Unit 4,

18a Arthur Street,

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07988 164 640

@WolframLohr

wolframlohr.com

talking shop

.....................................

Cass Art

A big draw for artists

Who have your main customers been so far?

The bulk of our customers have been art students

and professional artists, who used to have

to go up to London to buy their materials. We’ve

had fewer amateur artists so far, but we’re hoping

that will grow over time. One of the things

which makes Cass Art unique is that everybody

who works in one of our shops is an artist, and we

all have different specialist areas; in this shop we

have a portrait artist who specialises in oil paints

and a textile designer who knows all about our

fabric products.

Which area do you specialise in? I do (very amateur)

watercolour. During the last year or so I’ve

been getting back into it. I did A-Level Art and

worked in architecture for several years. I live in

Lancing so I can go onto the Downs really easily

and sit and paint, or I’ll take photographs and go

back home to paint in the warm lounge.

Have you had a chance to try out any new

products since you opened? One of the newest

products we’ve ordered in are these watercolour

brushes, which are great. They can give off

broad strokes and thin strokes, and they have a

little reservoir of water, so the harder you squeeze,

the more water comes out. Some of them come

with the colour already in them, so when they run

out you can buy more paints and refill them with

whatever colours you like.

How is Cass settling into Brighton? Pretty well,

we’re sponsoring the central trail of Artists’ Open

Houses next month, and we’re hoping to partner

with Hove Plinth and Snowdogs by the Sea. In

the coming weeks we’re going to start holding

artists’ coffee mornings, where we’ll invite local

artists to come and talk about their work, like an

open forum. Different things work for different

people, so the idea is to give professional artists

the chance to speak and ask each other questions.

What do you do to cater for the large student

community in Brighton? We have two new student

ambassadors assigned to this store – and a

total of 48 across the country – who give us feedback

on what’s going on in the universities and

what types of products students are looking for.

And being an art student can be really expensive,

so we have a price guarantee which means that if

you can find our products cheaper anywhere else,

including online (apart from on eBay or Amazon)

then we promise to match them.

Rebecca Cunningham interviewed Stuart Bassett

21 Market Street, Brighton, cassart.co.uk

....57....

literature

......................................

Gem Barton

Creative advice

Gem Barton is author of Don’t Get a Job, Make

a Job, an appealingly-titled new book for students

and graduates. As a course leader at the

University of Brighton, Gem helps to manage

undergraduates’ anxieties on a regular basis, and

her own undulating path into work has provided

much to draw upon. In Gem’s words, “I’ve designed

t-shirts and been ripped off; I’ve written

for magazines and been ripped off… I just really,

honestly, want to make a difference.”

Part of the problem graduates face, Gem says, is

they expect to find employment in their precise

area of study. In Gem’s case, she mistakenly

thought gaining two degrees in Architecture

would lead to a career in that industry.

“I think universities are more considerate of

options now,” she says, “but not enough.” Instead

of focusing on how ‘employable’ our graduates

are, we should be thinking about how skills can

be put to use in a multitude of different ways. “I

don’t think we should be producing oven-ready

people for other people to cook,” says Gem.

It’s ironic that art schools, famously attractive to

outsiders, should churn out so many graduates

who are, as Gem sees it, inhibited by the need to

conform. The best way to mitigate the instinct to

run with the crowd is “an innate self-belief,” she

says, “but who has that at 21?

“I think it’s one of those things that we can try

to change from the inside - our personal level

of self worth - but there’s a much bigger shift

needed in society... There’s a kind of industrial

....58....

literature

......................................

preying upon the young, which can be great if

you’re that person who has got hunger and confidence,

but not everyone has.”

After her first degree, Gem took a joyless job just

because she was offered it. “I don’t want other

people to feel they need to do those things,” she

says. Also difficult was entering work during the

recession, which forced her to ‘go with the flow’.

Gem felt this was against everything she had been

taught, but “after a while, it kind of worked.” It’s

important to remember, says Gem, that “success

and happiness is something that you determine, and

quite an open thing. It’s not about getting a wellpaid

job; it’s about doing something you want to do.”

Don’t Get a Job, Make a Job is full of case studies

exploring how people from a variety of creative

industries made their dream job. “It’s not a how-to

guide,” says Gem, “because everyone will do it

differently, but there’s plenty of inspiration…

people who have got that extra bit of happiness

career-wise.”

I ask Gem whether she has a number one tip.

“Have belief that anything’s possible,” she says,

“because as soon as you restrict those possibilities

for yourself or anyone else, it becomes so

limiting… And don’t let anyone take the piss. All

graduates leave university with skills which I in

my mid-thirties and others in their forties and

fifties don’t have… You might need ‘employers’,

but they need you too.” Interview by Chloë King

gembarton.com

....59....

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

ighton maker

.....................................

Inky Shades

Screenprinted lampshades

Why did you start making lampshades? My

three loves are lighting, drawing and characters,

so my lampshades are really about putting those

things together. I studied Fine Art and Performance

at Central Saint Martins and alongside

that, I always worked in venues. One of those

was the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London,

which is almost 200 years old and has the most

incredible lighting. Lampshades kind of became

my own mini sets.

Where do you come up with the illustrations?

I like to sit somewhere outdoors and

draw people, or I’ll go to a venue and draw there.

Sometimes I’ll draw from a film, but it’s really

important that the film is moving; I don’t want

to do still life because it’s not representative of

real life.

How do you print your illustrations onto textiles?

I learned screen printing at Inkspot Press

– it’s a very physical practice, so as well as drawing

movement, I had to move a lot to transfer

my illustrations onto fabric. I really enjoyed it,

but when I left I thought, I haven’t got a screen

press – how can I do this at home? Then I realised

that you can create a screen using a dark

space, like a garage, and use sunlight to dry the

screen. Essentially, you’re using a photosensitive

emulsion and burning away the image you want

to print. Once the image is dry, you need to rub

it away – which I did using a hose outside.

Do you screen print all of your fabrics? Now

I only use screen printing for bespoke shades,

where people have asked me to. It’s a difficult

way of printing fabrics because if you need a

big piece of fabric, you have to have a very big

screen. I’m looking at using digital printing because

it’s far more practical and it’s a lovely way

of getting very beautiful colours which are much

closer to the original colours I’ve used.

How do you turn your fabric into a lampshade?

I select an element of the fabric that I

think works well - perhaps a particular section

of colour, texture or narrative. The fabric has

to be beautifully ironed, otherwise it won’t go

together perfectly and it won’t catch the light

in the right way. I learnt how to make a traditional

shade with a wire frame, which was much

more complex and time-consuming. What really

interests me is creating the fabrics out of my

drawings and bringing them to life using light,

so I prefer the immediacy of creating a modern

cylindrical shade. I just love to draw, and it’s a

pleasure and an honour when people appreciate

my work.

Rebecca Cunningham interviewed Maddy Wilson

@inkyshades inkyshades.com

....61....

The Authentic Indian Fire Bowl/ Barbecue

Designed In England

Handmade in India

www.kadai.com Tel: 01694 771800

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昀椀渀愀氀椀猀琀猀椀渀琀栀攀䬀椀琀挀栀攀渀䐀攀猀椀最渀攀爀伀昀吀栀攀夀攀愀爀䄀眀愀爀搀猀 ⸀ 吀栀椀猀瀀爀攀猀琀椀最椀漀甀猀

瀀爀椀稀攀爀攀昀氀攀挀琀猀琀栀攀漀甀琀猀琀愀渀搀椀渀最眀漀爀欀倀愀爀欀攀爀 ᤠ 猀栀愀瘀攀愀挀栀椀攀瘀攀搀猀椀渀挀攀

漀瀀攀渀椀渀最漀甀爀匀攀瘀攀渀䐀椀愀氀猀猀栀漀眀爀漀漀洀樀甀猀琀琀眀漀礀攀愀爀猀愀最漀 ⸀

圀栀礀渀漀琀倀漀瀀椀渀愀渀搀猀攀攀琀栀攀搀攀猀椀最渀椀洀瀀愀挀琀眀攀

挀愀渀愀挀栀椀攀瘀攀眀椀琀栀椀渀礀漀甀爀戀甀搀最攀琀㼀

㘀㐀 ⴀ 㜀䐀夀䬀䔀刀伀䄀䐀 Ⰰ 䈀刀䤀䜀䠀吀伀一䈀一アパート䨀䐀

吀䔀䰀 ⸀ ㈀㜀アパート㠀㜀㔀㠀㜀⼀㈀㜀アパートアパート㈀㤀㠀㈀㤀

䤀一䘀伀䀀倀䄀刀䬀䔀刀䈀䄀吀䠀刀伀伀䴀匀 ⸀ 䌀伀 ⸀ 唀䬀

圀圀圀 ⸀ 倀䄀刀䬀䔀刀䈀䄀吀䠀刀伀伀䴀匀 ⸀ 䌀伀 ⸀ 唀䬀

my space

...........................................

Viva Verde

‘Richardson Village’ florist

Why flowers? Flowers and design are both

things that I love. Our natural style here is very

relaxed, country and wild - usually I prefer to let

the flowers work themselves into an arrangement

- but I love having the chance to make a stunning

modern arrangement too. I am always trying to

find something a bit different; a new variety of

rose, an unusual succulent, and pots and gifts too.

How have you found the location, being a bit

off the beaten track? It’s a nice little community

here - some people call it ‘Richardson Village’.

Viva Verde has been part of the community for

ten years and most of the shops here have the

same ethos as us; you can buy locally-baked bread

made by artisan bakeries, locally-caught fish, and

organic fruit and veg.

Do you sell local flowers? We stock British

flowers as often as we can, dependent on the seasons.

At the moment we’ve got daffodils, anemones

and - my favourite - ranunculus, with more

to come as the weather warms up. Most of our

foliage comes from a local man called John, who’s

83 and still works as a tree surgeon. Alongside

the flowers, we have locally-grown plants, soya

candles made in Steyning, garden statues from

Windsor and some gift cards made by local artists.

I love visiting trade fairs in Europe too, looking

out for the latest trends in design which are

sympathetic to the feel of our shop.

Where do the rest of the flowers come from?

Lots of them come from Holland, where they

have the most amazing greenhouses, which are

controlled by computers. So they can decide, in

this greenhouse I need to grow 10,000 roses by

the 29th of May, and the computer works out

how much light to let in, how much water, and so

on. It’s very complex.

How long does it take for the flowers to get

from the greenhouse to the shop? It depends

on where you buy them. We get ours from a

Dutch supplier, they are cut on the Monday,

he buys them from the market on the Tuesday

and they are delivered and ready to sell on the

Wednesday.

How can you keep cut flowers looking fresh

for longer? You have to care for your flowers:

make sure your vase is clean and washed out with

hot water and soap before you put the flowers in,

the water should be shallow to keep the bacteria

level low, and you should wash the vase, change

the water and cut the stems every couple of days.

We’d expect anything we sell to last at least five

to ten days, but if you look after them well, they

can last even longer.

Rebecca Cunningham interviewed Lynnette Cash

4 Richardson Road, viva-verde.com

....63....

We make curtains and blinds. We supply and fit carpet, stair runners and flooring

AND we have the largest selection of fabric and wallpaper in Brighton and Hove!

23 New Road

Brighton

BN1 1UF

01273 605574

sales@mistersmith.co.uk

www.mistersmith.co.uk

Croft Road

Crowborough

TN6 1DR

01892 664152

info@mistersmith.co.uk

the way we work

This month, Adam Bronkhorst got to have a snoop around the homes

of five local interior designers, including a couple you might have

seen on the television recently... We asked each of them:

What’s your favourite colour?

adambronkhorst.com | 07879 401 333

Sarah Mitchenall, Black Parrots Studio, blackparrotsstudio.com

“Black - the mother of all colours - it holds all colours within, it’s stylish, sexy and dramatic.”

the way we work

Katherine Richards, Katherine Richards Design, katherinerichardsdesign.co.uk

“The colour I’m most drawn to is the colour of bluebells.”

the way we work

Oliver Heath, Heath Design Ltd, oliverheath.com

“I subscribe to a theory called ecological valance; universally we respond well to colours

we’ve had positive experiences of, like those we see in nature.”

the way we work

Annette Pisani, Pisani Designs, pisanidesigns.com

“My favourite colour would be cerulean.”

吀爀愀渀猀昀漀爀洀礀漀甀爀栀漀洀攀眀椀琀栀漀甀爀昀椀渀攀猀琀焀甀愀氀椀琀礀

匀㨀䌀刀䄀䘀吀洀愀搀攀 ⴀ 琀漀 ⴀ 洀攀愀猀甀爀攀椀渀琀攀爀椀漀爀猀栀甀琀琀攀爀猀 ⸀

琀 ⸀ ㈀㜀アパートアパートアパート㠀㐀㈀

攀 ⸀ 挀漀渀琀愀挀琀䀀戀攀氀氀愀瘀椀猀琀愀猀栀甀琀琀攀爀猀 ⸀ 挀漀 ⸀ 甀欀

眀 ⸀ 眀眀眀 ⸀ 戀攀氀氀愀瘀椀猀琀愀猀栀甀琀琀攀爀猀 ⸀ 挀漀 ⸀ 甀欀

Loft conversion,

extension, basement

or a complete house

remodel? Specialising in

transforming old properties

into warm, light filled,

spacious contemporary

homes, we’re happy to

chat through your project

with you.

Sue direct: 07815913058

www.scd-design.com

scd.

architecture interiors project management

residential

the way we work

Paul Nicholson, Chalk Architecture, chalkarchitecture.com

“Persimmon, a burnt rusty orange.”

drink

...........................................

The Philosopher’s Brew

Beer tasting at Bison

Glancing around the crowd at a recent ‘Meet the

Brewer’ evening at Bison Beer, I’m reminded that

beer isn’t just for beards. I meet a young Californian

woman (in Bison-yellow stiletto shoes) who

has plans to open her own brewery. She’s here to

imbibe the wisdom of Evin O’Riordain. He’s the

founder and revered master brewer at The Kernel

in Bermondsey (and erstwhile Philosophy academic

and Neal’s Yard cheese seller).

Evin is in an intransigent mood, steadfastly refusing

to be drawn on his favourite beer, brewer or

hop and disinclined to describe how his beers taste.

He’d prefer that we use our own taste buds, so we

sip our way through four beers from The Kernel,

with each beer accompanied by a delicious (and

cheese-themed) morsel from 64 Degrees. Seared

cauliflower with whipped cheese sauce; celeriac

with sumac and

salt-dried egg

yolk; wafers of

crisp rye bread with ricotta; and spiced ginger

cake with mascarpone. The beers are delicious and

distinct. The table beer is eminently drinkable (and

fortunately only 3.1% abv), the amber is almost

caramel in flavour and colour. The saison is pale

and sour, and the porter dark and complicated, like

expensive chocolate. Evin provides a philosophical

commentary.

You’ll have no doubt heard the plans for The Bison

Arms, and these evenings are just a taste of what’s

to come. With beers this interesting, and food to

match, there’s much to look forward to. LL

The next Meet the Brewer evening is with Crate on

28th April (£15). bisonbeer.co.uk

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....72....

Food & Drink directory

advertorial

Black Radish

If you’re looking for

something a ‘little bit

different’ and have

a passion for quality

food, visit Black Radish.

Organic fruit and

vegetables, handmade ice cream, fresh bakery

bread, it’s an artisan ‘food boutique’ with a

small but creative café serving dishes with an

emphasis on flavour. If you love food, you’ll

love Black Radish.

Terre à Terre

‘Big and Bravas, Brekkie in

a Bun, Sweet and Savoury,

Run Rarebit Run, Arepas,

Patatas a Scrunch and a Munch, Grapple our

Granola it’s time for Brunch!’

Terre à Terre is now open for ‘BrunchyLunchy’

daily from 10am–1pm, where diners can pick

from a selection of hearty brunch dishes from

‘Brunchy Rosti’ to ‘Big Muffin Butty Buns’ or

enjoy tea or coffee with a sweet side like Pastel

de Nata. Dishes start at £6.

149 Portland Road, 01273 723392, blackradish-organic.com 71 East Street, Brighton, 01273 729051, terreaterre.co.uk

Edendum

Edendum is a new

concept comprising

an Italian restaurant,

café and food shop. With its top-quality food

Edendum aims to offer a different Italian eating

experience, made of the authentic flavours

and culture of the owners’ homeland. Our

menu will give you a chance to discover some

traditional, but less known Italian recipes.

The Edendum Loyalty Card is now available

in store! Italian & genuine: better eat better.

69 East Street, Brighton, 01273 733800, edendum.co.uk

Market

Situated in the heart of

Brunswick village, Market,

now open nearly six

months, serves modern tapas, innovative small

plates (great for sharing), freshly landed fish

and a great choice of steaks and burgers. At

weekends you can also pop in for brunch and/or

Sunday lunch. Sit at the kitchen bar overlooking

the chefs, take a table or book their fabulous

private dining room and be cooked for by your

own private chef! Open all day every day.

42 Western Rd, Hove, 01273 823707, market-restaurantbar.co.uk

The Better Half

To advertise

here call Anya

on 07596337828

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

food

...........................................

The Big Bowl

Vietnamese fast pho

It might as well be monsoon season on Preston

Street as we sit in the window of The Big Bowl

eating big steaming bowls of hot and fragrant

Vietnamese pho. Outside, the Friday night diners

and bedraggled hen parties splash though the

downpour.

The small but perfectly formed restaurant is

bright, clean and green inside - much like the

summer rolls we order to start. Expertly rolled rice

paper stuffed with noodles, avocado, crisp lettuce

and coriander, sweetened by a chilli dipping sauce

(£3.95) and perfect for sunnier days. More fitting

for the weather are the earthy shiitake and tofu

crispy fried spring rolls, served with peanut sauce

(£4.25) and hot enough to steam up the window.

The dishes come fast and fresh from the familyrun

kitchen and the veggie pho (£6.95) soon follows.

A deep and flavoursome bowl of crystal clear

broth with rice noodles, vegetables, soya dumplings,

spring onions and coriander. Do-it-yourself

fresh mint and chilli on the side to tweak the

flavour. The noodles in the combo bun vermicelli

(£7.45) are buried beneath slivers of char-grilled

lemon-grass chicken, BBQ honey pork and beef

with salad, fresh herbs and sweet, hot and savoury

vinaigrette to pour over.

It’s the perfect place to grab a quick, healthy bite

but, since there’s no sign of a break in the clouds,

we wrap our hands around glasses of coffee sweetened

with evaporated milk and watch the wet hens

scatter in the rain. Lizzie Lower

54 Preston St, 01273 206422

WIN VIP TICKETS TO

FOODIES FESTIVAL BRIGHTON

Foodies Festival is back on

Hove Lawns 30th April – 2nd

May and we have three pairs

of VIP tickets to giveaway!

Get inspiration for summer

recipes from Michelin star

chef Matt Gillan and top local

chefs in the Chefs Theatre

and learn about champagne

and gin with a tasting class

in the Drinks Theatre

before feasting on the

Street Food Avenue.

Learn how to bake

with burlesque baker

Charlotte White and pick up

everything you need to pimp

out your larder in the Artisan

Producers Market.

There’s live music and

Chill-Eating competitions

and a giant Pimm’s Teapot

serving cocktails! A recipe for a

great day out with friends this

summer.

To enter email enter@

foodiesfestival.com

with your name and postal

address. Competition closes

20th April 2016.

....74....

food review

...........................................

Very Italian Pizza

Un ristorante molto italiano

Call me a snob, but

I wasn’t expecting

much from a place

with the name ‘Very

Italian Pizza’. I’d

never heard of it

until Bee, our latest

intern, mentioned

it in an editorial

meeting. “It’s very

genuine,” she said.

“All the Italians in Brighton go there… they grow

all their own food, on a farm in Naples… the pizzas

are amazing.”

And so I walk in the door, one Thursday lunchtime

in the first half of March, looking forward to

a nice pizza, but just a tad cynical. I’m met with

a visual feast: Sophia Loren smiling from a wall,

garlic cloves and dried peppers hanging from the

ceiling, a wall full of unfamiliar-familiar Italian

goods on sale on the shelf, blackboards announcing

today’s specials. Meanwhile Pino Daniele

sings his high-pitched pop through the speakers,

and that great smell of pizza cooking in a woodfired

oven pervades the air.

Pauline, my dining companion, is sitting waiting,

looking extremely happy. “It’s like being in Italy,”

she says, as if I haven’t already spelt that out.

She’s ordered a bowl of plump green olives, and

judging from the fact that there are more still untouched

in the bowl than there are stones in the

saucer in front of her, she hasn’t been there long.

It is just like being in Italy, though, which is

further exemplified by the fact that about half the

clientele are speaking the language around us.

I order some bresaola carpaccio to start, and have

a look at the pizza menu. Rule of thumb when

you’re reviewing

a pizzeria? Try the

margherita, or the

one which bears the

restaurant’s name.

The ‘VIP’ is the most

expensive on the

menu, at £12.50, but

once I see it, the other

37 choices haven’t a

chance: ‘mozzarella,

black truffle cream, porcini wild mushrooms and

sausage’. Pauline decides on a ‘quattro stagioni’.

I get chatting to one of the waiters. VIP have

been trading in Brighton for two years now;

the family who’ve started it up come from five

generations of food producers/vendors in Naples.

They do have their own farm, from which they

source most of their meat and dairy produce.

“Most Italian people who live in Brighton come

here at least once a week,” he exaggerates.

The bresaola, sprinkled with Parmesan and drizzled

in lemon juice, is a delight. My pizza (and I’m

a harsh critic when it comes to pizza) is nothing

short of sensational, with its puffy sourdough

base, its battle for taste-dominance between the

truffle and the porcini, and its hefty, tasty lumps

of sausage meat. I reluctantly agree to swap a

quarter of it for one of Pauline’s stagioni.

“They have swordfish on the specials board,” she

says, as we sip our macchiati, wondering how

they make espressi taste so good [enough Italian

plurals, sub-ed]. We’re far too full, obviously, but

there will be plenty of next times, however wary I

am of their name, which I’ll have to explain away

when I’m raving about the place. Alex Leith

19 Old Steine, Brighton

....75....

Photo by Lisa Devlin, cakefordinner.co.uk

....76....

ecipe

..........................................

Seafood paella

Melissa Melly opened her Spanish catering company, Vamos

Paella, after being inspired by the flavours and ingredients she

discovered while living in Murcia several years ago

One of the ingredients you’ll need later on is a

rich tomato sauce called sofrito, which you can

buy readymade in Spain but it’s harder to get

hold of here. I make my own by mixing some

olive oil, finely chopped red onion and tinned

tomatoes in a saucepan with some chopped

garlic and a little bit of salt and sugar. Cook for

about 40 minutes and then blitz in a blender.

To begin making your paella, first you’ll need

to heat some olive oil in a paella pan and flashfry

your squid, which you’ve prepared and cut

into triangles. Fry it until it’s got some colour

and season with a bit of salt, then remove it

from the pan.

Next add the tiger prawns. It’s important to use

head-on, shell-on prawns, because all of the flavour

is in the heads. I usually pull the heads off,

remove the antennae and put them back into

the pan with the rest of the prawns. Cook until

they get some colour and over a high heat, because

you don’t want to over cook them. Once

they’ve browned slightly, remove them.

Add a bit more olive oil to the pan, followed

by a red pepper and a green pepper, cut into

triangles. Again keep them on a high heat and

fry for maybe five minutes.

To the fried peppers, add chopped garlic, ñoras,

smoked Spanish paprika (pimenton dulce) and

saffron. Ñoras are Spanish bell peppers which

have been dried, and I usually buy these and

the other Spanish ingredients, like my pimenton

dulce, from Brindisa at Borough Market.

The saffron I tend to toast first and then grind

it. Fry all of these together for two minutes.

Add two or three ladles of sofrito to the paella

pan and then pour in the rice. I use Calasparra

rice, which you’ll see in white linen bags in the

shop, but you can use any good paella rice. As

a general rule, you’ll need about 100g per person.

Once you’ve coated the rice in the sofrito,

you can switch the heat off and leave.

About half an hour before you want to eat,

switch the heat back on and add the fish stock.

You can make your own stock, but there are so

many other flavours going on in the dish that

you can just use a bought stock, and it’s very

hard to tell the difference. Adjust the volume

based on the amount of rice you’re cooking.

At the same time add the mussels, and when

the stock comes to the boil, taste for seasoning

and cook for 17 minutes. This is a very precise

timing – when you can smell the burnt bit

forming at the bottom, that’s when you know

they’re done. About half way through, add the

cooked squid and prawns. Once the 17 minutes

is up, turn off the heat and cover the pan with

foil for five to ten minutes, to allow the rice to

absorb the rest of the stock. Then it’s ready to

serve!

As told to Rebecca Cunningham

Photo by Lisa Devlin, cakefordinner.co.uk

Ingredients and equipment can be found at Fish!

next to Hove Lagoon. Vamos Paella specialise in

cooking tapas and paellas for weddings, parties

and corporate events all over the South East,

visit vamospaella.co.uk

....77....

DRUNK

...........................................

Pop-up wine tasting

Great ‘tabl’ service

“We don’t use spittoons in our tastings, they’re not

French, so you’re going to have to push yourselves”

says Eddy, my sommelier for the afternoon. We are

at the Garden House, a charming little cabin in a

back garden near The Level, complete with exposed

beams and a log burner for the colder days. The

theme for the afternoon is ‘A Little Trip Round

Bordeaux Vineyards’. Our hosts, Eddy and Radka,

met when they both worked at Drake’s, and set up

the wine and food-tasting afternoons a few months

ago, using the pop-up booking platform Tabl. We’re

a mixed group, with a variety of wine aficionados,

foodies, hoteliers and me.

Eddy was born in Champagne and practically

weaned on the stuff, but he knows his wines from

Bordeaux inside out, and we try a good few, with a

commentary about each wine’s history and origin.

He manages to keep the group’s attention all afternoon,

even when we’re a few glasses down, when

polite smiles are replaced with raucous laughter and

slightly off-tangent anecdote swapping.

Each wine is beautifully paired by a (generouslysized)

capane from Radka including smoked salmon

with beetroot, duck paté with figs and pickled pear

and blue cheese - it’s all gorgeous.

Afterwards, there’s a quiz, of which I am one of the

two winners (the wine aficionado next to me didn’t

cover his answers), and we both get presented with

one of the beautiful bottles of wine, which I share

with the rest of the group. I leave well lubricated,

full and relaxed, feeling for all the world like I’ve

taken a mini-break to Bordeaux. Antonia Phillips

....78....

food

..............................................

Edible Updates

Neapolitan sourdough

pizza places

are, it seems,

like no. 25 buses.

First we got VIP,

then along came

Fatto a Mano, and

now we’ve got…

Franco Manca.

FM started in

Brixton Market

in 2008, with the

philosophy of

making pizzas from slow-risen (20 hours) sourdough,

made from a starter culture dating back to

1730, nicked, legend has it, by one of the owners’

mates from a bakery in Ischia. The punters loved

it: at last count there were 19 branches in London.

The first one outside The Smoke is opening

soon on Church Street, in the space Surf and Ski

has been in since time immemorial.

There’s plenty more to relate, if you’ll excuse

the breathless tone: try out Yardy Street Food in

the Marwood back garden, on Fridays (12-3pm),

curated by Jake, from Plateau... Don Olé at the

bottom of Trafalgar Street are worth walking

a mile to, for one of their tortilla bocadillos…

Curry Leaf Café has now got a kiosk at Brighton

Station… Look out for ‘cult café’ Milk and Cookies,

selling, um, milk and cookies… Boho Gelato

are about to open a second city-centre gelateria,

as well as their Pool Valley base, while Sprinkles

Gelato is going strong in West Street… Oh, and

don’t forget to book your tickets for the Foodies

Festival, from April 30th-May 2nd, with a host of

chefs and cooks (including 2015 Bake-off queen

Nadiya Hussain) and tasty stalls, local live music

and interesting beverages galore. That’s it, for

now. Buon appetito! Alex Leith

....79....

interior design

...........................................

....80....

interior design

...........................................

Mister Smith

A tale of two cities

How long has Mister

Smith been in business?

The company was

started over 50 years ago,

by my husband Ben’s father

and his grandfather,

and we took it over in

December 2014. Ben’s

been in the business for

about 18 years. He does

all of the measuring and

quotes for clients, whereas

I manage the marketing,

website and smaller

interior design jobs.

Which elements of the

interior do you provide?

Our Brighton shop

sells carpets and runners,

fabrics and wallpapers.

We can advise on where

to go for accessories, but

there are so many shops doing lighting and cushions

– that side of the market has become really competitive.

We only work on residential projects; if a

customer is wanting a bit of help with decorating

their home and they’ve come to a point where they

don’t really know what to do with it, we’ll go on a

home visit and pull together a bit of a colour scheme

for them. I can give them as much or as little help

as they need, but we encourage them to get involved

in the design process – it’s more fulfilling that way.

Do you ever get time to work on your own home?

For many years our friends would come round to

our house and look a bit disappointed or say, ‘oh, we

thought you were both interior designers?’ We went

from living in a one-bedroom flat to a five-bedroom

house where everything needed doing, so we spent

the first few years doing the structural work and

have only recently started doing up a few rooms. I’ve

painted the front room in

a beautiful charcoal blue

which is very calming, and

gone for a classic Cole &

Son wallpaper in the bedroom.

I’m bombarded by

colour and pattern every

day, so when I get home I

want everything simple.

Do you and Ben have

similar taste? He’s got

quite modern taste, he

likes Philippe Starck and

design pieces that make

a statement - we have a

large gold AK-47 lamp in

the front room which does

scare people a little. I’m

more classic; I like softer,

plainer prints and textures.

Which trends are especially

‘Brighton’? The

Brighton market tends to go for fabrics and wallpapers

that you can see a lot of design work has gone

into, where you can see it’s a genuine art piece. We

have another shop in Crowborough, and the nice

thing about having the two shops is that in Brighton

you get beautifully proportioned, tall town houses

which can take bold colours and seasidey looks,

whereas in Crowborough it’s big countryside homes

with traditional fabrics and classic wallpapers.

Which do you prefer? I love beach themes when

it’s summer - all pale linens and geometric shapes -

but in winter I love richer colours and the texture of

velvet. I try to steer people towards timeless designs,

keeping the larger pieces simple and neutral. That

way you can update your look each year with a new

statement wallpaper, a light or a cushion.

Rebecca Cunningham interviewed Saskia Smith

mistersmith.co.uk

....81....

䄀䈀䤀刀

愀爀挀栀椀琀攀挀琀猀

琀㨀㈀㜀アパート㜀㈀㐀アパート㠀㐀

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we try...

...........................................

Decluttering

Learning to let go

Photo of Rachel Papworth by Lizzie Lower

Last month in the office

we had a conversation

about ramekins. One of

the team had never heard

of them, but I have: I own

at least six. I haven’t laid

eyes on them for a couple

of years but I know they

are there. Somewhere

amongst the 50-odd other

bowls in my kitchen. I

think it’s safe to say I have

a bowl issue.

Bowls are far from being

the only item I own too

many of, so I enlist the help of Rachel Papworth.

Rachel is a professional organiser and

decluttering coach who’s built her business -

Green & Tidy - around the thing she loves to

do the most.

I’ve watched the video on her YouTube channel

so I know what to expect when she arrives

at my house, but the masterclass she gives me

in organising just one kitchen cupboard feels

life changing. She tells me her ten rules, which,

she says must be followed with some rigour. I

won’t list all ten here (they’re available online)

but they involve getting everything out of the

space you’re going to address and sorting every

item into one of seven categories, taking the

necessary actions accordingly. It’s a constant

stream of small decisions which - like anything

you practise - get easier and easier. “It’s brilliant

practice for the rest of your life” Rachel tells

me. “People who master it often quickly graduate

on to making big life changes as they get

better at making decisions”.

With a background in psychology, she sees clutter

as a symptom; “external clutter is always a

manifestation of internal clutter so dealing with

our physical stuff can

help us to address the

psychological stuff”

and her empathic approach

is pragmatic

not preachy. She

keeps me on task and

offers pearls of wisdom.

Do you know,

for example, how

to stop your tin foil

from becoming unruly?

Or which charity

shops accept electrical

items? Or who

accepts foreign coinage for charity? I do now.

The best bit about having Rachel there is her

infectious enthusiasm for the task. She actually

seems to enjoy sorting through a bowl of loose

change, safety pins, beads and other shrapnel.

The real key is creating an organising habit,

to prevent the piles of doom accumulating in

the first place, and Rachel runs online courses

and a decluttering club to encourage just this.

“There usually comes a tipping point” she says,

“where letting go of stuff moves from feeling

scary and impossible to being enjoyable… it

helps us to feel in control. When other things

feel out of control, it’s a great moment to tackle

a hell drawer.”

It’s a surprisingly cathartic process, addictive

even, and once Rachel leaves I dive into another

cupboard and then a kitchen drawer. It’s going

to take a while to address the flotsam and jetsam

of my life but I’m inching towards that tipping

point. One bowl at a time.

Lizzie Lower

Ten-week programme £100, face-to-face sessions

from £50/hour. For a free online masterclass

visit mygreenandtidylife.co.uk

....83....

calais crisis

......................................

Cal-aid

How to help the refugees

I spent Mother’s Day at the

refugee camp in Calais – my

children, who are 12 and 15,

didn’t protest my absence.

They’d seen the photos

from previous trips. “Just

go,” they said. I left them in

our warm cosy home with

a fridge full of food, hot

water on tap, a bedroom

each, sofas and laptops and

cushions and heating. All

the normal stuff of home.

Each visit to the refugee camp and the warehouse

that supports it can leave you feeling

very odd - coursing with simultaneous feelings

of elation and despair. Elation at the ingenuity,

dedication and resourcefulness of everybody

there, the visible love, the co-operation, the

eternal sunshine of the human spirit in even the

darkest places; and despair that such a place exists

at all, in our rich continent. A continent that

prides itself on human rights.

Despair that children younger than my own are

in the camp alone, unaccompanied, cared for

by a volunteer called Liz Clegg, who protects

them as best she can because no government

will. Despair that there are people living under

paper-thin canvas in bitter cold (it snowed that

weekend), who are always hungry (despite the

approximately 2,000 hot meals served every day

by the Calais Kitchens, cooked by volunteers

from the food donated by you - there is never

enough).

And huge despair at the latest decision by the

Calais local authority to backtrack on an earlier

decision to allow people to

stay on this unpopulated

ex-rubbish tip for as long as

they needed. Nobody wants

to be in the Jungle, but for

thousands fleeing home

towns that had become

lethally hellish, it’s home

for now.

Except since early March, it

isn’t. The 1,200 basic shelters

made by a team of 200

builders and carpenters over

the winter months are now being systematically

destroyed by men in hi-viz jackets from the

Calais prefecture, whose destruction is guarded

by the CRS - the French riot police - as families

and individuals are forced out, with nowhere

to go. Many are simply setting up freezing cold

camp nearby, in scrubland, with no water, no

sanitation, nothing.

As a journalist, I feel utter despair at how the

mainstream media has been reporting - or not

reporting - all of this. Apart from perhaps the

Guardian, every other major news source -

including the supposedly impartial BBC and the

Independent - has been either wilfully erroneous,

economical with the truth, or in the case of the

right-wing press, simply making things up.

So how can there possibly be any feelings of elation?

When you are offered gracious hospitality

by a refugee who has nothing; when someone

destitute cracks a joke, in the midst of their grimness.

And back home, how our innate humanity

can be sparked to light in times of crisis.

Here are some examples. A fundraiser at the

....84....

calais crisis

......................................

Photos by Suzanne Harrington

Synergy Centre on West Street, organised

by a British-Iranian volunteer Leila Zadeh,

(whose mother is currently volunteering on

the Greek islands, welcoming new arrivals and

offering translation skills) which - with the

help of Irish-Iranian comic Patrick Monahan

- raised £5,366. The Hummingbird Charity,

fronted by the inexhaustible aid worker Elaine

Ortiz, sending monthly aid and supplies –

everything from bicycles and socks to doctors

and medicines. There is a Hummingbird Safe

Space in the middle of the Calais camp. Long

may it last.

From the Greek Girl’s Supper Club (which

happens monthly at the Pelham Arms in

Lewes, with all proceeds from its lovely

dinners going directly to refugee charities,

to the School Bus Project run by volunteers

trying to bring some educational normality to

the kids of the Calais camp) to Samara’s Aid

Appeal (run out of an Ovingdean home by a

woman who could no longer stand by and do

nothing - and whose project has sent dozens

of ambulances, care packages and medics to

the most damaged areas of Syria) there is the

elation of hope.

Brighton 2 Calais do regular runs bringing

desperately needed stuff to the French camp,

as do Brighton & Hove Calais Crisis Crew.

For displaced and destitute people who have

somehow made it to the UK, new arrivals

can be supported by hands on hospitality via

Spare Room. Another local fundraising group

is Brighton Migrant Solidarity.

But what if you’re really busy? What if you’d

like to help, but can’t give your time? Easy.

Go on Calaid-ipedia, have a look at which

group you’d like to support - food, clothes,

camping equipment, medicine, firewood (yes,

firewood, a camp essential) - and work from

there. Or, even more simply, photocopy a list

of stuff most needed by the men, women and

children in the Jungle - it’s all online - and

post it though your neighbours’ doors. That’s

what we did last time, and ended up with

several bursting carloads, thanks to the kindness

of our neighbours. Nothing is too little.

Everything helps. Suzanne Harrington

....85....

health

...........................................

Living-room fitness

Home is where the cardio is

In the Globo-gym chains in

Brighton and elsewhere, over

the past decade, there’s been a

misapprehension that Zoolander

was an aspirational documentary.

Young men, often of tangerine

hue, work their biceps,

chests, abs and nothing else,

whilst pouting at themselves in

the floor-to-ceiling-mirrors.

Elsie Harris’s personal training

clients wouldn’t know about

any of this. She comes to their

homes, runs classes at church

halls, or they come to her living

room. “It’s big, it has a laminate

floor, I roll up the rug and

chuck it over the back of the

sofa, and I bring out whatever

we’re going to use: kettlebells,

free weights, yoga mat, medicine balls.”

Having done a degree in Fashion at Brighton

University, she immediately set about getting her

PT qualifications. “I’d started doing weight training

when I was 20, 21 and loved it, and by halfway

through my first year I realized that my passion

for fitness and nutrition was greater than my passion

for fashion. God, I always swore I’d never use

that expression!”

What should have been a year or so with her head

down, learning the trade at a central Brighton

gym, turned into five years, at which point she was

hell-bent on going her own way.

“When I was working at the gym I was ridiculed

for being a feminist, ridiculed for being nice to

homeless people, for caring for animals and for

the environment and for buying my clothes from

charity shops.”

In tandem with going freelance, she began volunteering

as a Peer Group Facilitator at Brighton

Women’s Centre, and did a

counselling skills course; her

business card now says ‘Physiological,

Nutritional and Emotional

support’.

“The work I’ve done at the

Women’s Centre has made me a

better personal trainer, because

I’m now a better listener, more

understanding, more approachable.

It inspires me massively,

the people I meet there.”

When the weather’s decent,

she cycles to and from clients’

houses, which precludes transporting

heavy equipment.

“I’ve developed a way of thinking

to utilize what people have

in their homes, rather than

carrying a load of dumbbells

around. One lady, who’s 60, had a stroke a few

years ago; she uses a zimmer frame, and I basically

train her on her sofa. I have a wooden board that

I hold, and I then ‘become’ the leg press that she

pushes against. It gives her some strength, mobility

and a greater sense of wellbeing. With another

client, we use a footstool belonging to her kids to

increase or decrease resistance during exercises.”

Progress in gyms is often defined simply by

clothes sizes dropped, or weight lost, with purposefully

pasty ‘Before’ pics and professionally lit

‘After’ ones.

“Aesthetics is one facet of what it’s about, but the

increased strength and confidence are more important,

more significant than just weight loss. I

love when someone goes from saying ‘Oh god, I

hate exercise! I could never go to a gym!’ at the

start, to greeting me at the door with ‘Can we do

boxing today?!’” Andy Darling

Elsie Harris, 07752 946273

....87....

䈀爀愀渀搀渀攀眀洀漀搀攀爀渀猀栀漀眀爀漀漀洀 Ⰰ 瀀爀漀瘀椀搀椀渀最挀礀挀氀攀猀

猀愀氀攀猀 Ⰰ 愀挀挀攀猀猀漀爀椀攀猀 Ⰰ 爀攀瀀愀椀爀猀愀渀搀戀椀欀攀 ǻ 琀琀椀渀最

䈀爀愀渀搀猀椀渀挀氀甀搀攀搀愀爀攀吀爀攀欀 Ⰰ 䈀爀漀洀瀀琀漀渀 Ⰰ 伀爀愀渀最攀 Ⰰ

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䌀䠀䤀䰀䐀刀䔀一 ᤠ 匀䈀䤀䬀䔀匀

儀唀伀吀䔀 ᠠ 嘀䤀嘀䄀䈀刀䤀䜀䠀吀伀一 ᤠ 䘀伀刀㔀 ─ 䐀䤀匀䌀伀唀一吀

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圀伀刀䬀匀䠀伀倀

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甀欀昀爀攀攀搀漀洀戀椀欀攀猀

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眀眀眀 ⸀ 昀爀攀攀搀漀洀戀椀欀攀猀 ⸀ 挀漀 ⸀ 甀欀

㈀㜀アパート㘀㠀㘀㤀㠀

㐀㘀 ⴀ 㐀㜀䜀攀漀爀最攀匀琀爀攀攀琀 Ⰰ

䈀爀椀最栀琀漀渀 Ⰰ 䈀一㈀刀䨀

football

...........................................

The road to Wigan Athletic

Albion away? Piers Benjamin will be there

The first away match I went to

was in 1992, an FA Cup Second

Round replay against Woking

FC. We won 2-1, and John

Crumplin scored with his arse. I

was hooked.

Pretty soon every game was an

away game. After the Goldstone

was knocked down the Albion

were banished to Gillingham,

and after Bellotti [former director

David] had gone I went to every

game. It was only the stupid,

the sad and the lonely in those

games. That group is still the

core of the group I go to away

games with. I go to every away game.

Things have changed a lot since the mid-90s.

Cities have got a lot nicer. Even Rotherham has

got a couple of places in the good pub guide. Going

to Blackburn is still a horrible day out, mind.

It’s a bad situation when the best pub in a town is a

Wetherspoons.

However far we’re travelling we make sure we

get there by 11am, even if this means getting

the 5.50am out of Hove. You’ve got to make a day

of it. We don’t do much sightseeing, though we

usually go through the town centre. It’s all about

the pubs, really.

We don’t wear colours. Not because there’s

anything to worry about. It’s just the habit, really.

Goes back to the Gillingham days when the pubs

around Victoria Station wouldn’t let you in wearing

colours.

There was a bit of a flare up of the old-style

violence around the turn of the millennium, but

there’s no trouble any more,

unless people are really after it.

Football at this level has become

a middle-class game. Even going

to Cardiff is OK.

There’s a better crowd atmosphere

going to away games,

though it’s not what it was.

There’s a contingent who try to

act like European Ultras, and a

lot of the songs they try to sing

are too complicated for the bulk

of the fans to pick up. Spontaneous

reaction songs are much

more effective.

How much have I spent on

going away? I wouldn’t like to think. You do get

expert at getting the cheapest tickets, but it does

add up. What’s £30 for the ticket plus £25 for

the train plus £50-70 spending money times 18

matches? Over two grand, I guess. And then there’s

the England matches. Still, you’ve got to spend

your money on something. Other people spend a

fortune in garden centres.

If Albion got into Europe I’d definitely go to all

the games. Might help me tick a few new countries

off if we drew teams in Armenia or Kazakhstan.

The furthest I’ve been with the Albion is for

friendlies in Galway and Aberdeen. In all I’ve been

to over 130 different stadiums.

Last season when the final whistle went at

Middlesbrough we all breathed a collective sigh of

relief. This season’s success has been an unexpected

surprise: as we’re still in with a shout at the

business end of the season I’m expecting a lot of

company in the away end. As told to Alex Leith

....89....

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cycling

...........................................

The Brompton diaries

An unfolding story

“Bloody Brompton!” I’ve spent the day with the

folding bike I’m trying out, and I’m just about

sick of it. It folds neatly into a portable if-fairlyheavy

unit, but I’ve had one of those days flitting

between Kemptown and London Road and Hove

and Lewes, and it’s nearly midnight, and I’m tired,

and I’m on the train back to Brighton and I can’t

remember the order in which it unfolds, and lots

of people are looking at me.

I’ve got the bike for a week though – courtesy of

Freedom Bikes – and something happens on day

two which makes me feel warmer towards the

machine. I meet a friend for a drink in the William

IV pub, and the drink turns into two, and then

three, and then four, and by the end I realise that I

really don’t want to cycle home, and then it comes

to me that – hey! – I can just put the bike in a taxi

and get taken home, so that’s what I do.

Over the week, I get to realise that riding a

Brompton around town is quite fun. It’s a zippy

little thing, and you can turn sharply and weave

in and out of traffic and slip between cars and the

kerb easily, and it’s got six-speed gears which –

while they’re a bit clunky – do work, enabling you

to go up hills with no trouble and get a bit of heft

behind you if you’re going down them. It’s funny

being so close to the ground, but you get used

to it. And it’s damn easy to jump on and off. And

people look at you, because let’s face it, you really

do notice a Brompton.

It’s clear to me from the start that this is a fling

rather than a marriage, because my day is too

bitty to do all that folding and unfolding – you’re

meant to be able to do it in nine seconds but it

tends to take me at least 30 – but I can see why

the Brompton would be Mr Right for people

with a slightly different lifestyle. Commuters, for

example, who wouldn’t otherwise be able to take a

bike on the peak-hour train (Southern are sticklers

on this even on non-busy lines). People who live in

extremely small flats, or have boats in the Marina,

or caravaners who want to take a bike on holiday.

If I could afford it, in fact, I’d buy a Brompton just

for the occasions that it would come in useful.

On my last Brompton day I cycle from Brighton

into Lewes. There’s a headwind, and I manage to

get into the slipstream of this guy on a racer in

tights and clip-on shoes, and I can tell he’s aware

of me, and he can’t shake me though he tries a few

times, and after the Coldean junction traffic lights

I realise I’ve got the legs on him and I overtake

him on the hill, and lose him and I can hear him

think… “Bloody Brompton.”

Alex Leith

....91....

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Safe as houses?

Estate agent Paul Bonett on the Brighton property market

If I had to sum up the state

of the Brighton property

market in one word, it would

be ‘complicated’.

Everything changed around

15 years ago, when the

government started promoting

Buy-to-Let mortgages. People

started buying property as a

pension plan, which offered

a better return than savings

because of low interest rates.

As a result, the number of

properties on the market at

any one time has shrunk by

as much as 50%, especially

property historically in ‘First Time Buyer’

territory. Fewer properties being available has

pushed prices up, pricing out that typical firsttime

buyer.

Some are now going further afield; buying in

Peacehaven, Newhaven, Shoreham and Worthing,

where prices, in turn, are increasing.

A lot of buyers are coming down from London,

one of the few places where housing is more

expensive than Brighton, either having sold their

home in the capital, or rented it out (though

there is still no shortage of local buyers).

Brighton’s housing stock is limited: because

of the Downs and the sea there isn’t much opportunity

for ‘new build’. A flurry of international

investors are buying batches of what new build

flats do appear around the city. I’m not sure this

is really helping our local Brighton community.

Another current challenge (probably because

of anxiety about world events in China and Syria)

is that people are interested in moving, but

they are reluctant to put their

homes on the market, further

increasing the shortage of

available stock, so pushing up

prices even higher.

Even so, many are still making

offers on property. But

owners aren’t really interested

in offers unless the chains are

complete the other end. So,

for the Brighton market to

have legs, people who want to

move need to take the plunge

and get on the market.

The uncertainty about

the UK being in or out of

Europe isn’t helping either. I think it’d be

madness to leave, but if we did, a lot of housing

stock may well come back onto the market. A lot

of renters at the moment are European students

and workers and there would be far fewer of

them around, so I suspect a good proportion of

Buy-To-Let investors may want to sell up.

The rental market in Brighton is equally

complicated. Prices are out of kilter with local

affordability so a lot of people who work in

Brighton – including key workers – can’t afford

to live here because rents are so high. This is not

good for the wider local economy because those

renting locally don’t have much money left over

to spend on other things.

Nevertheless Brighton is always dynamic:

there’s a fantastic variety of property styles, and

an enthusiasm from people to live here. Brighton

is often seen as a bit of a bubble: whatever is going

on in the UK economy, people find Brighton

& Hove irresistible. As told to Alex Leith

....93....

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Shoreham self-build

‘It almost seems to grow up out of the beach’

This striking building, with its ‘glass box’

upstairs living space and cosy, sheltered lower

level, is home to civil servant Catherine and

pilot Adas Nicholson. The house, situated on

Shoreham Beach, was built on the site of the

bungalow they had been living in for five years

previously. After 18 months of discussion and

drawing up ideas with local architect Giles Ings

of ABIR Architects, they began the year-long

project of building their dream home.

“It’s very important to build something that’s

right for the area it’s in,” says Giles. “What

frustrates me is when large-scale housing

developers put up these buildings and call them

‘products’, and they look the same wherever

they’re built.” The lower level of the house is

clad in cages – which had to be specially-made

using stainless steel to stand up to the salty sea

air – filled with pebbles. The team spent a long

time searching for locally-dredged pebbles

which would look just like the ones in Shoreham,

so that when you look at the house from

the shore, the building almost seems to grow up

out of the beach.

Behind the pebbles is an innovative blockwork

system introduced by builder Tim, who lives

just across the road and has worked on several

houses along this stretch. It uses hollow blocks

made out of crushed wood pallets, which are

built up to form a wall, before being filled with

insulation and concrete. The combination

serves to keep the lower level of the house at a

constant temperature very effectively, but the

bigger design challenge was the south-facing

first-floor living space.

“We spent a lot of time on the thermal calculations,”

explains Giles, “working out how to

stop the upstairs room from getting too hot

during the summer.” One part of the solution

was a solar coating on the large window panes,

which stops too much heat from coming in. But

there’s an even more complex system at work,

hidden within the ceilings. The whole house is

fitted with a heat-recovery system, which draws

in hot stale air through ceiling vents, extracts the

heat and uses it to warm up the fresh air coming

into the property. The house also uses an airsource

heat pump, which is basically a fridge in

reverse; using low-grade heat from the air from

outdoors and transferring it for use through the

underfloor heating and hot water systems.

Although Catherine and Adas don’t consider

their project to be quite finished – there’s still

an ensuite to fit and some finishing touches to

complete – it’s safe to say the project has been

a success. “It’s a big investment and you really

want it to work out. When you’re building

your own home it’s very difficult to make any

compromises, but this is the house that we want

to live in forever.” Rebecca Cunningham

....95....

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3D printer at Barclays Eagle Lab

brighton in business

.............................................................................................

There’s something of a housing crisis in the city

with a lack of affordable homes and, according to

housing charity Shelter, rents 46% higher than

the national average (ouch). And there are, of

course, a great many people in the city who find

themselves without a home at all. Karl Williams,

owner of Brighton-based building company 360

Home, has decided to put something back into

the community by working with the Brighton

Housing Trust’s First Base on their First Impressions

programme. This is a project funded by The

Big Lottery that supports people who are ‘street

homeless’ and experiencing barriers in accessing

work and training. 360 Home provide one-to-one

support for participants looking to return to the

building trade. [bht.org.uk] [360-home.co.uk]

If you don’t own a business but you do have a

spare room, you can help too. Barnardo’s are

looking for individuals and families who can

offer practical and emotional support for young

people who are homeless or leaving care. Hosts

receive round-the-clock assistance, a dedicated

key worker, comprehensive training and a weekly

allowance. Call Barnardo’s Supported Lodgings

team to find out more. [01273 412010]

In this uncertain climate, people who were contemplating

moving might be inclined to stay put

and spruce up their existing home. Local designer,

Khan Stevens, of Parker Bathrooms & Kitchens

in Seven Dials, has been nominated as a finalist

in the Kitchen Designer of the Year (2016

Kbbreview Retail & Design Awards). Parker pride

themselves on creating design impact within any

budget and the judges were suitably impressed.

See his design at parkerbathrooms.co.uk.

Brighton is home to a great many entrepreneurs

and there are a couple of recent additions to the

local landscape to help grow some more. We’ll be

talking to Hattie Love over the coming months; a

young woman building her own business with the

support of Entrepreneurial Spark. That’s a ‘business

accelerator’ offering mentoring and more for

start-ups and they’re on the lookout for their next

intake. Visit entepreneurialspark.com to sign up.

If you’ve already got a great idea but you just need

the space and equipment to make it happen, check

out the Barclays Eagle Lab at Preston Circus.

The third in the UK, they offer space to create

and innovate, with equipment (laser cutters, 3D

printers, scanners), space (office, gallery, workshop,

meeting) and all sorts of know-how to hire on

flexible terms. Available to individuals, schools,

community groups and businesses; book in and

make something amazing. [brightoneaglelabs@

barclays.com]

Finally, they say that moving home is one of the

most stressful things you can do, so we suggest you

take a leaf out of Martlets book. The charity shop,

whose proceeds fund their hospices in and around

the city, moved their vintage shop on Church

Street a whole two doors up – from one side of

Dockerills to the other. Surely that just involves

sashaying up the street in a headscarf with a few

things in an elegant valise. Now that’s how to do it.

....97....

inside left: brighton at home, 1953

..............................................................................................

This oil painting of Brighton & Hove Albion’s Goldstone Ground, entitled Saturday Afternoon, 1953, is

by Fred Yates, and it won second prize in the painting category of the Football Association’s ‘Football

and the Fine Arts’ competition, held in 1953, which subsequently toured the country. That was no mean

feat, as the winner was Lowry’s Going to the Match, which fetched a price of £2 million at auction in 1999.

The competition, in association with the newly founded Arts Council (under John Meynard Keynes), was

given a great deal of publicity at the time, and there were a total of 1710 entries from the public.

Yates, himself from Manchester, was often likened to Lowry, which he shrugged off with good grace, suggesting

he was a ‘happy Lowry’. He took up painting after serving in WW2, and spent much of the 50s

teaching art in Brighton. This is a stylised version of the Goldstone Ground, taken from the viewpoint of

Goldstone Lane, behind the ‘Chicken Run’ (East Terrace). The West Stand, sponsored by Co-operative,

also appears in the James Gray collection; Gray called it ‘miserable’ and revealed it was nicknamed ‘The

Rabbit Hutch’ by the fans.

The painting has some lovely touches and is worth close scrutiny. Check out the folding chairs in the

foreground, the hot dog stand adjacent to the Rabbit Hutch, and the splendid Goldstone House in the

top right of the picture. There are a couple of anomalies: Yates has turned the ground round, for the sake

of composition (it should be the East stand in front of Goldstone House). And count the players and

you’ll see that the Albion only have ten on the pitch. Perhaps one has been sent off or – this being long

before substitutes were allowed – injured?

The Goldstone Ground was, of course, scandalously demolished in 1997, and the Albion lost their

spiritual home, banished to Gillingham and Withdean until the Amex was completed in 2011. The image

is part of the Brighton and Hove Museum collection, and we use it courtesy of the Estate of Fred Yates.

Yates continued painting until his death, aged 85, in 2008.

....98....

Viva Brighton Issue #38 April 2016

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