Viva Brighton Issue #50 April 2017
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Kneehigh<br />
Tue 23 – Sat 27 May<br />
Theatre Royal <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
Tristan<br />
& Yseult<br />
Directed & adapted by<br />
Emma Rice<br />
Writers Carl Grose &<br />
Anna Maria Murphy<br />
‘If this show doesn’t<br />
make you fall in love<br />
with theatre, there’s<br />
no potion on earth<br />
that can help you’<br />
<br />
The Guardian<br />
brightonfestival.org<br />
01273 709709<br />
Image © Steve Tanner
vivabrighton<br />
<strong>Issue</strong> 50. <strong>April</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
EDITORIAL<br />
.......................................................................................<br />
“It’s just so not me.” Deputy editor Steve agonises. He’s got to go on a stag<br />
weekend in June, to Liverpool. “It’s a terrifying prospect… A combination of all<br />
the things I’m very bad at or dislike: group conversation, lots of drinking and<br />
too much stimulation - the loud music, the nightclubs...”<br />
“So why go?” I ask. Steve isn’t usually given to doing things that he doesn’t want<br />
to do. “I have to. It’s a ritual. It’s a rite of passage. At least the groom’s a doctor,<br />
so I can rest assured that we’re not going to drink enough to actually die.”<br />
The Stag Do. Just one of life’s inescapable, time-honoured rituals. Apparently, in French-speaking<br />
countries, it’s termed ‘enterrement de vie de garçon’ - ‘burial of the life of the boy’. Cheery. A final<br />
hazing on the threshold of adulthood.<br />
I’ve long been fascinated by the rituals we observe. As a species, we seem to add ceremony and ornament<br />
whenever possible. Sacred or secular, solitary or in congregation, grandiose or mundane, they<br />
seem to steady us. Bind us together and orient us in time and space.<br />
In this issue we examine just a few of them. From Norwegian shock rockers to modern-day pilgrims,<br />
religious leaders to ritualistic tea drinkers, we all draw succour from the knowledge that we belong<br />
to something greater than ourselves. To each other, to society, or the natural order of things… We<br />
remind ourselves that what we are doing is worthwhile and has meaning. Touch wood.<br />
THE TEAM<br />
.....................<br />
EDITOR: Lizzie Lower lizzie@vivamagazines.com<br />
DEPUTY EDITOR: Steve Ramsey steve@vivamagazines.com<br />
ART DIRECTOR: Katie Moorman katie@vivamagazines.com<br />
WRITER/DESIGNER: Rebecca Cunningham rebecca@vivamagazines.com<br />
PHOTOGRAPHER AT LARGE: Adam Bronkhorst mail@adambronkhorst.com<br />
PUBLISHER: Becky Ramsden becky@vivamagazines.com<br />
ADVERTISING: Hilary Maguire hilary@vivamagazines.com, Sarah Jane Lewis sarahjane@vivamagazines.com<br />
ADMIN ASSISTANT: Kelly Hill kelly@vivamagazines.com<br />
INTERN: Jasmine King hello@vivamagazines.com<br />
DISTRIBUTION: David Pardue distribution@vivamagazines.com<br />
CONTRIBUTORS: Alex Leith, Amy Holtz, Andrew Darling, Ben Bailey, Cara Courage, Chloë King,<br />
David Jarman, Emma Chaplin, JJ Waller, Jay Collins, Joda, Joe Decie, John Helmer, Lizzie Enfield,<br />
Mark Greco, Martin Skelton, Michael Blencowe and Nione Meakin<br />
<strong>Viva</strong> <strong>Brighton</strong> is based at <strong>Brighton</strong> Junction, 1A Isetta Square, BN1 4GQ<br />
For advertising enquiries call 01273 810 277. Other enquiries call 01273 810 259
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CONTENTS<br />
...............................<br />
Bits and bobs.<br />
10-23. Tandem-riding mayor. Devotional<br />
toilet graffito. Sleepy cartoonist’s routine.<br />
Cultish cover artist. Patcham-born Archbishop.<br />
Lost art gallery. Fly-tipping rage.<br />
Other stuff too.<br />
My <strong>Brighton</strong>.<br />
24-25. ‘I don’t get angry looking at them<br />
in the shop window anymore’. Neurotic<br />
cartoonist and artisan-scotch-egg avoider<br />
Joe Decie.<br />
Photography.<br />
27-31. The photographer, model and war<br />
correspondent who left a 60,000-shot<br />
legacy. We delve into (a tiny fraction of)<br />
the Lee Miller archive.<br />
41<br />
49<br />
Photo by Paul Bergen<br />
46<br />
Columns.<br />
33-37. John Helmer’s ritual is mocked,<br />
Amy Holtz’s is interrupted, and Lizzie<br />
Enfield’s is surprisingly useful.<br />
On this month.<br />
38-49. Salem Witch Trials. Masked<br />
Shock Rockers. Experimental Narrative<br />
Circus. Managing Medical Uncertainty.<br />
Ghanaian Kogolo Star. French Character<br />
Comedy. Plus Billy Ocean.<br />
....7 ....
CONTENTS (CONT)<br />
...............................<br />
Art, design and making.<br />
51-65. Taking inspiration from a Nigerian<br />
parable; tracking down Constable’s <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
studio; painting with hot wax; fumbling<br />
for words in front of Picasso; and more.<br />
The way we worship.<br />
67-71. Five religious leaders, of different<br />
faiths, walk in front of Adam Bronkhorst’s<br />
camera lens. No joke.<br />
Food and drink.<br />
73-77. Casual dining (with a two-week<br />
waiting list); very-non-casual tea drinking<br />
(Song Dynasty style); plus thinking about<br />
sugar, agreeing with Jay Rayner, and (inevitably)<br />
more.<br />
62<br />
Photo by Dan Weill<br />
73<br />
97<br />
Features.<br />
79-97. Could society exist without<br />
rituals? How does Google referee the<br />
internet? Who killed off ladies’ football<br />
in 1921? How scary are parliamentary<br />
whips? Can you have a church ‘without<br />
the god bit’? Which kind of insect is a<br />
‘tiny Travolta’? These, and other questions,<br />
tackled.<br />
Inside left.<br />
98. The height of modernity (briefly): the<br />
old Churchill Square building, in 1973.
THIS MONTH’S COVER ARTIST<br />
..................................................<br />
“A lot of my work has been described as ‘cultish’,”<br />
says Billy Mather, the illustrator behind this<br />
month’s cover. “I wanted to be sensitive to the<br />
theme. Ritual, when it’s applied to religion, is<br />
something people take very seriously, and I didn’t<br />
want the design to make fun of anybody’s beliefs,<br />
so I made up my own ritual/worship world. I’m<br />
really obsessed with the idea of secret societies,<br />
so that was where the idea for the characters<br />
came from. Rituals are a way for people who<br />
might be different from each other to share<br />
experiences, so I liked the idea of the people<br />
wearing cloaks, because underneath you don’t<br />
know if they are young or old, rich or poor, what<br />
language they speak… the cloaks symbolise a sort<br />
of uniform, making everybody equal.<br />
“The tower is based on the i360, which kind of<br />
makes a crucifix shape, and that made me think<br />
about how symbols are used in rituals. What I<br />
like about the i360 as a symbol is that it can be<br />
quite divisive, because it’s a part of the fabric of<br />
the city now. We have to drive past it every day<br />
on our way to work, we see it from our offices,<br />
we can’t avoid it, and the fact that it goes up and<br />
down on a cycle is sort of a ritual in itself. It’s a<br />
focal point of the city and it kind of looks down<br />
on all of us. Sometimes I think that if aliens<br />
landed in <strong>Brighton</strong> they would probably think it<br />
was our leader.”<br />
As well as our cover, Billy has recently been<br />
....10....
BILLY MATHER<br />
..........................................<br />
working on the branding and labelling for Holler<br />
Boys, a new brewery down the road in Lewes.<br />
The designs feature more of his quirky, vibrant<br />
characters, illustrating each of the equally<br />
quirky beers. Moving into a slightly more<br />
unusual medium, he recently started working<br />
on an exhibition of socks called ‘A Tus Pies’<br />
(‘At Your Feet’) which will open at Fábrica<br />
Moritz in Barcelona in November. He’ll<br />
be putting his designs onto a pair of socks<br />
which will be displayed and sold at the<br />
exhibition.<br />
Rebecca Cunningham<br />
Check out more of Billy’s work at<br />
billymather.co.uk<br />
....11....
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CHARITY BOX #13: BARNARDO'S<br />
Barnardo’s has been supporting children and families for over 150<br />
years. I work for one of their services, <strong>Brighton</strong> and Hove Link Plus,<br />
which provides specialist foster care placements for disabled children and<br />
young people on the autistic spectrum and/or with challenging behaviour<br />
in the local area, enabling them to live in a family home.<br />
We are currently in need of more full-time, shared-care and short-break carers for disabled children from<br />
newborn up to aged 18. We’re looking for families and individuals from all sectors of the community, who live<br />
in <strong>Brighton</strong>, Hove and surrounding areas, to provide care for disabled children. We want people who can offer<br />
anything from occasional overnight stays, through to shared-care and full-time fostering.<br />
Carers we currently work with find it a rewarding role. Experience with disabled children isn’t essential, but<br />
a love for children, a sense of humour, time, energy and patience are all important. A spare room is also required.<br />
All applicants undergo an assessment process, during which we explore the role in-depth, and consider the profile<br />
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and supervision from our small and friendly team of social workers. An allowance is paid.<br />
As told to Emma Chaplin by team manager Vicky Lloyd<br />
For more information, or a chat about whether you might be suitable to help us, please contact Vicky on 01273<br />
295179 or vicky.lloyd@barnardos.org.uk [barnardos.org.uk]<br />
....12....
BITS AND BOBS<br />
...............................<br />
ON THE BUSES #24: JOHN PECHAM (ROUTE 50, 50A, 46)<br />
What was John Pecham like? Well, to grow up poor, and rise to become Archbishop<br />
of Canterbury; to argue with the king about power, and with Thomas Aquinas about<br />
philosophy; to write an optics textbook which was still being used centuries later - to do<br />
all this, from a working-class background, in the thirteenth century…<br />
It’s believed that Pecham was born in Patcham, which may explain his surname. It’s<br />
believed that he was born around 1230, and educated at the Priory in Lewes. His rise<br />
through academia and the church means that his later life is better documented, though<br />
he remains a puzzling figure.<br />
For example: Pecham believed in religious self-denial and poverty; but on being appointed<br />
Archbishop in 1279, one historian notes, ‘he entered Canterbury with the utmost pomp<br />
and magnificence’. Pecham was noted for ‘his kindness, sincerity and humility’, according<br />
to the Dictionary of National Biography; however, he could also be ‘overbearing’, ‘high handed’, and rude. Reading<br />
about Pecham’s dogged anti-corruption efforts, he seems modern and forward thinking; but then one finds out<br />
that, in 1282, he ordered the demolition of every synagogue in the diocese of London.<br />
This order, according to the historian Mark Antony Lower, ‘would assuredly have been carried into effect but<br />
for the wise and foreseeing policy of King Edward the First, who temporarily became their protector.’ However,<br />
Pecham wasn’t defrocked or forced to resign in disgrace - he was still Archbishop at the time of his death in 1292.<br />
Steve Ramsey<br />
Illustration by Joda, jonydaga.weebly.com<br />
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BITS AND BOBS<br />
...............................<br />
SPREAD THE WORD<br />
Here we are with Steve (pictured right), one half of Alan and Steve, ‘and<br />
a bit of colourful Spanish pottery’. They are more usually to be found<br />
around the West Hill and Seven Dials areas of <strong>Brighton</strong>, but they took<br />
us on a sunny winter break to Seville. They tell us they couldn’t leave us<br />
behind, so caught up with our March issue in<br />
between trips to the great tapas bars they found<br />
on every corner. And Pat Scott (left) took our<br />
‘flesh’-themed issue with him on a recent trip<br />
to that infamous fleshpot, the Colosseum, in<br />
Rome. Whilst the naked bike ride might raise an<br />
eyebrow or two in <strong>Brighton</strong>, our research tells<br />
us that those gladiators got up to so much worse, with very few clothes on.<br />
It makes for grisly reading. Keep taking us on your adventures and send your<br />
pictures to us at hello@vivamagazines.com
BITS AND BOBS<br />
...............................<br />
JJ WALLER’S BRIGHTON<br />
The dark clouds gathering overhead reflect JJ Waller’s mood in response to this<br />
scene, captured last month on the road to Ditchling Beacon. ‘This dumping on<br />
the Downs is really hard for me to comprehend’ writes JJ… ‘It verges on a raw<br />
wickedness, a grotesque metaphor for human contemptuousness.’<br />
We couldn’t agree more, JJ.<br />
....15....
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BITS AND BOBS<br />
...............................<br />
PUB: THE FONT<br />
“Classy joint,” says my mate Dave, down from<br />
London for the day, who’s asked me if I fancy<br />
Friday-afternoon lunch, in a swanky restaurant,<br />
on his business account. Thing is, I need to do<br />
some fieldwork research on the Font, so I’ve told<br />
him we’re eating there instead. I arrive early, and<br />
wait with a pint of Camden Hells, absorbing the<br />
oddity of my surroundings. I’ve never before<br />
been in a pub that was originally designed as a<br />
Nonconformist chapel.<br />
I’ve done enough onscreen research to bore poor<br />
Dave to tears. In the late-seventeenth century,<br />
when <strong>Brighton</strong> was expanding as a fashionable<br />
resort, it only had one church, St Nicholas’, so a<br />
second was built nearer the seafront, named the<br />
Union Chapel. The date of its foundation is under<br />
dispute: some have it as early as 1668, some<br />
as late as 1698. Its first Minister was a Presbyterian,<br />
and the space was also used by other Non-<br />
Anglican groups; 8% of the city’s population was<br />
then Nonconformist.<br />
In 1825, when <strong>Brighton</strong> was undergoing its<br />
Regency facelift, the building was redesigned<br />
- probably by Amon Wilds Junior and Charles<br />
Busby - which explains its rather gorgeous Classical<br />
façade, rather difficult to admire nowadays in<br />
the narrow alley it resides in. In 1853 it merged<br />
with the Queen Square Congregational Church<br />
(as featured in VB#49); by 1905 it had become an<br />
Evangelical Mission Hall, and subsequently an<br />
Elim Pentecostal Centre. The evangelists left in<br />
1985, and the building was bought by the Firkin<br />
group, who turned it into a real-ale pub - The<br />
Font and Firkin.<br />
Nowadays, run by pubco Mitchells & Butlers,<br />
it’s become something of a twenty-something<br />
vertical-drinking establishment on Friday and<br />
Saturday nights, filling up with revellers enjoying<br />
the sounds spun by its resident DJs, and the<br />
cheap booze on sale. In the weekdays and daytime<br />
weekends its huge screen (above what used<br />
to be the altar) shows live football and rugby: the<br />
seats in the semi-circular gallery on the first floor<br />
look like the perfect place to settle in for a game.<br />
It’s fairly quiet this Friday lunchtime: I enjoy<br />
another couple of pints of craft lager and a very<br />
reasonably priced (£8.95) meat platter as we catch<br />
up on gossip and news. The sausages are pretty<br />
average, but the steak isn’t, actually, at all bad.<br />
It’s not quite The Salt Room, which Dave had in<br />
mind for the afternoon, but when you can mix<br />
work with pleasure… Alex Leith<br />
Union Street, fontbrighton.co.uk<br />
Painting by Jay Collins<br />
....17....
BITS AND BOBS<br />
...............................<br />
<strong>Brighton</strong> Picture Gallery on Grand Parade, 1823 © Royal Pavilion <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
SECRETS OF THE ROYAL PAVILION ARCHIVES:<br />
THE BRIGHTON PICTURE GALLERY: ‘A BEAUTIFUL<br />
AND SPLENDID CABINET OF THE ARTS’<br />
With the Constable in <strong>Brighton</strong> exhibition opening<br />
this month, to be followed in June by a display on<br />
Jane Austen and the seaside, I have been interested<br />
in the various forms of entertainment available in<br />
our city in the early 19th century. Apart from events<br />
at assembly rooms, horse races, theatres and libraries,<br />
<strong>Brighton</strong> also had at least one significant picture<br />
gallery in the 1820s, long before art exhibitions<br />
were held in the Royal Pavilion (from 1850) and<br />
<strong>Brighton</strong> Museum was built (1873).<br />
This image from 1823 shows the interior of the<br />
much-praised picture gallery that Constable is<br />
likely to have visited during his time in <strong>Brighton</strong>.<br />
It stood at what is now roughly the area between<br />
Circus Street and Grand Parade. This plot of land<br />
was developed between 1806 and 1808. The works<br />
included the building of a riding school known as<br />
the Royal Circus, which was opened by Messrs I<br />
Kendall and Co in August 1808. An engraving from<br />
the same year shows an impressive nine-bay, threestorey<br />
structure, with a large Pegasus sculpture<br />
placed on top. Wings to the north and south housed<br />
a coffee house, billiard rooms and a confectionary.<br />
By the early 1820s, the building had become a<br />
picture gallery and social meeting place where<br />
visitors, having paid a shilling admission, could<br />
also read newspapers, magazines and reviews.<br />
The engraving showing the interior appeared in<br />
Richard Sickelmore’s popular book The History<br />
of <strong>Brighton</strong> (1823). He describes the gallery as a<br />
‘beautiful and splendid cabinet of the arts… As a<br />
public exhibition, the Dulwich gallery excepted,<br />
....18....
BITS AND BOBS<br />
...............................<br />
The Bazaar, 1826, courtesy of Alexandra Loske<br />
it is decidedly unrivalled, provincially, and may be<br />
fairly classed with those of the first consequence<br />
in London.’ The gallery looks impressive indeed:<br />
fashionably dressed visitors can be seen flocking in,<br />
and the paintings arranged in a style reminiscent<br />
of the Royal Academy summer exhibitions - hung<br />
closely and all the way to the top of each wall of<br />
the top-lit, 95-foot-high room. Pictures on levels<br />
above the coveted eye-line (referred to as ‘on the<br />
line’) are slightly tilted, for better visibility. In the<br />
early years after its opening, <strong>Brighton</strong> Museum<br />
displayed paintings in the same way.<br />
The list of artists shown at the Grand Parade<br />
gallery was surprisingly international, comprising<br />
Dutch, Flemish, Italian, German, Spanish<br />
and French masters, among them Parmigiano,<br />
Veronese, Caravaggio, Poussin, Ryusdael, Mengs,<br />
Hogarth, Gainsborough and others, as well as<br />
‘the finest collection of De Loutherbourg’s work<br />
extant’. There are no records that confirm that<br />
Constable visited the gallery, but it seems highly<br />
unlikely that during his extended stays in <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
in the 1820s he would not have dropped in to see<br />
the impressive display of high-quality art.<br />
By 1826 the gallery had been turned into a ‘Bazaar’.<br />
J Whittemore notes in one of his <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
guides that ‘although we lament the alterations it<br />
has undergone, we are gratified to perceive that<br />
in its present state, it affords an hour’s amusement<br />
to the numerous fashionable visitors, who honour<br />
it with their presence.’ The author also mentions<br />
that some paintings by foreign artists are still displayed<br />
in the building. A tiny engraving in Whittemore’s<br />
books shows a building that appears to have<br />
been refaced completely, with the additional wings<br />
gone. Sadly, no trace of it remains today.<br />
Alexandra Loske, Curator, Royal Pavilion Archives<br />
Constable in <strong>Brighton</strong> is on at <strong>Brighton</strong> Museum<br />
from the 8th and forms part of Royal Pavilion &<br />
Museums’ Regency Summer season which will<br />
include Jane Austen by the Sea at the Royal Pavilion<br />
from the 17th June<br />
....19....
BITS AND BOBS<br />
...............................<br />
ON YOUR BIKE, MR MAYOR<br />
You’re invited to join our tandemriding<br />
Mayor, Councillor Pete West,<br />
as he rounds off his year in office<br />
with three charity events. Or, if that<br />
sounds a bit too much like hard work,<br />
you can sponsor him to complete<br />
the triple and support upwards of 20<br />
good causes.<br />
Bike the Biosphere Boundary: On<br />
the 23rd, Cllr West will lead a cycle<br />
ride around the <strong>Brighton</strong> & Lewes<br />
Downs Biosphere boundary: 50 miles<br />
which, he assures us, won’t be too<br />
arduous. Heading out from Hove Lawns at 9am, he’ll head along the coast to Newhaven, up the<br />
Ouse valley to Lewes, on to Cooksbridge, over to Ditchling, on to Shoreham via Bramber and back<br />
to Hove. Get yourself sponsored to join him and register at Eventbrite. (Registration £20)<br />
Walk the ‘<strong>Brighton</strong> & Hove Way’: On the 30th, join Pete on an 18-mile path around the<br />
boundary of the city. Starting at Saltdean Oval at 9am, the walk is broken down into six stages so<br />
you can join for a shorter stretch. The route takes in Castle Hill, Stanmer Park, and Waterhall Golf<br />
Course before ending at Emmaus in Portslade around 4pm. (Registration £5)<br />
Sponsor the triple: To round things off - and launch the <strong>Brighton</strong> Fringe - Cllr West will ride the<br />
Mayoral tandem back from Paris (having launched the Fringe fireworks via a live satellite link-up<br />
from the Eiffel Tower and carried out a few ambassadorial duties on the way), arriving back for the<br />
Fringe City Community Day on the 8th of May. Then he’ll take a well-deserved rest. LL<br />
To find out how to join in, or to sponsor Pete, visit facebook.com/BHMayor<br />
Photo by Nick Ford, nickfordphotography.co.uk<br />
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...............................<br />
....21....
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Live Music, DJ’s<br />
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Official<br />
Judas Priest<br />
Tattoo Art<br />
Exhbition<br />
the brighton centre<br />
brightontattoo .com
BITS AND BOGS<br />
...............................<br />
MAGAZINE OF THE MONTH: DUMBO FEATHER<br />
Habits are things we do<br />
repeatedly without thinking;<br />
rituals are ways of behaving<br />
that we deliberately create<br />
and regularly observe.<br />
Wherever I am, I always have<br />
a coffee each day. When I am<br />
working in the shop I have<br />
created a ritual of starting<br />
my day at coffee@33, just up<br />
from us in Trafalgar Street.<br />
Their balance of simplicity,<br />
calm and devotion to great<br />
coffee (and food) always puts<br />
me in the right place for a<br />
day with people who love magazines. It also helps<br />
me find the right mindset for doing things as well<br />
as I can in our own shop.<br />
Many of our customers tweet or post pictures<br />
of themselves with a drink and one of our mags.<br />
They often do this on a Sunday; it’s part of their<br />
ritual of finding downtime in their busy lives. For<br />
them and me, these gorgeous<br />
magazines become part of a<br />
ritual of self-care.<br />
Our magazine choice this<br />
month is Dumbo Feather. The<br />
new issue, just in, is its 50th,<br />
and each comes from a good<br />
place, trying to understand<br />
people rather than throw<br />
snarky comments the whole<br />
time. It’s challenging, in its<br />
own way, but it is hopeful, too.<br />
So much of its subject matter<br />
is about ritual. About the need<br />
to do things consciously and<br />
regularly in order to make good things happen.<br />
In the new issue, you can read about the healing<br />
power of music, cultivating compassion, building<br />
homes with heart, and business with a purpose.<br />
All good, all achievable, all dependent, to one<br />
degree or another, on ritual.<br />
Martin Skelton, Magazine<strong>Brighton</strong><br />
TOILET GRAFFITO #27<br />
Damascene conversion can strike in the<br />
unlikeliest of places. This month’s sitter<br />
found faith in the lowliest of stalls.<br />
But where is this confessional?<br />
Last month’s answer:<br />
Presuming Ed’s<br />
....23....
Photo by Adam Bronkhorst, adambronkhorst.com<br />
....24....
INTERVIEW<br />
..........................................<br />
MYbrighton: Joe Decie<br />
Cartoonist and worrier<br />
Are you local? No. In the I-Spy in <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
book you get 50 points if you can spot an actual<br />
local. I’ve been here 15 years. I came for love,<br />
from Leeds, and before that, Kent. I met my<br />
wife Steph at university. She’s from here, so we<br />
had a choice of <strong>Brighton</strong> or Leeds, and we chose<br />
<strong>Brighton</strong>. Because there’s no place like it. It’s<br />
so unaware of the rest of the country. It’s the<br />
only place I know where people wouldn’t bat an<br />
eyelid at spending £3.50 on a Scotch egg.<br />
Do you balk at that price, or have you been<br />
here long enough not to? I do. But I’m acclimatised<br />
to it. I wouldn’t actually buy one, but<br />
I don’t get angry looking at them in the shop<br />
window anymore.<br />
What are your favourite things about the<br />
city? I like how daft it is. The other day I saw<br />
a sign for craft beer for dogs. I think in every<br />
other town in this country dogs are satisfied<br />
with water. Or least a big-brand dog beer. It’s<br />
quite silly. I do make fun of <strong>Brighton</strong>; it’s very<br />
easy to make fun of the organic-small-batchness<br />
of everything, but sometimes I feel I’m being<br />
priced out of the market because I can’t afford to<br />
buy a £4.50 artisan loaf on my high street.<br />
But you’re getting the community bakery<br />
in your neighbourhood… I already bake my<br />
own. That’s the thing. I laugh and joke about<br />
the <strong>Brighton</strong> folk, but I’m very much one of<br />
them. This is my place. I wouldn’t want to live<br />
anywhere else.<br />
You worry quite a bit, it seems. What worries<br />
you most about <strong>Brighton</strong> lately? I don’t<br />
really worry about anything in <strong>Brighton</strong>. I<br />
mean, I worry about everything in real life, but<br />
not <strong>Brighton</strong> specific. I worry that I worry too<br />
much. That is my main thing.<br />
Does <strong>Brighton</strong> give you lots of inspiration<br />
for your work? Constantly. Take a 37b bus and<br />
you’ll get a dozen stories.<br />
What’s a perfect Decie family outing? The<br />
charity shops of Blatchington Road are fun. A<br />
walk down London Road. We like our secret<br />
spots. The Secret Woods…<br />
Are we allowed to know where they are? No,<br />
they’re secret. <strong>Brighton</strong>’s great for finding your<br />
own special places. Going back to the 37b bus,<br />
that takes you to the best views of <strong>Brighton</strong> - up<br />
by the racecourse - and nobody goes there, just<br />
a few dog walkers. Pack yourself some £3.50<br />
Scotch eggs and have a picnic.<br />
Have you got a favourite restaurant? I have<br />
several. You don’t get a better salt-beef bagel<br />
than at Fourth & Church. And there’s a pizza<br />
place on Waterloo Street. I don’t remember<br />
the name. It’s family run and a bit tatty around<br />
the edges. The menu seems very basic, and you<br />
could easily walk past it but they are the best<br />
pizzas in <strong>Brighton</strong>. The best you’ll get outside of<br />
Naples. I’d rather people didn’t know about it.<br />
Do you swim in the sea? I will roll my trousers<br />
up to my knees and paddle and the waves will<br />
come in and I’ll get completely soaked but<br />
no, I don’t swim in the sea. We’re fair weather<br />
seafront goers… around about now we go down<br />
beachcombing. I’m sure that my son Sam found<br />
a big bit of ambergris once.<br />
Interview by Lizzie Lower<br />
Collecting Sticks, Joe’s first graphic novel, is published<br />
by Jonathan Cape. Available from the 13th<br />
....25....
PHOTOGRAPHY<br />
..........................................<br />
Lee Miller<br />
Carole Callow, Archive Curator<br />
“Most people see her from<br />
the outside, as a model, a<br />
fashion and portrait photographer,<br />
a war correspondent,<br />
a gourmet cook and hostess,”<br />
says Carole Callow, of Lee<br />
Miller, who was, indeed, all of<br />
those things.<br />
Miller worked either side of<br />
the camera for Vogue in the<br />
20s, experimented with surrealism<br />
with her lover Man Ray<br />
in the 30s, became Vogue’s war<br />
photographer and correspondent in Europe in the<br />
40s, and ended up hosting a number of celebrity<br />
artist friends in Farleys House, Chiddingly, where<br />
she lived with her husband, the surrealist painter<br />
Roland Penrose, until her death in 1977.<br />
“But because I’ve got to know her more intimately,<br />
through her photographs, I feel I know her from<br />
the inside, through her eyes,” she continues. “Like<br />
a friend I never met.”<br />
For 35 years Carole has been responsible for the<br />
Lee Miller archive, a collection of 60,000 negatives<br />
which she has had sole responsibility for printing,<br />
in a period in which Miller’s star has risen dramatically.<br />
When Carole started the job, in 1982, the<br />
American was a largely forgotten figure; now<br />
her work regularly features in major exhibitions<br />
around the world.<br />
Carole’s involvement with the project was serendipitous.<br />
“I got a job as a home help at Antony and<br />
Susanna Penrose’s house in Chiddingly. On my<br />
first day I found some black and white photographic<br />
prints hung on the line to dry. Later that<br />
morning over coffee, I revealed to Susanna that in<br />
previous years I worked in a photographer’s studio,<br />
and was familiar with darkroom techniques. This<br />
came at a point when Antony was overwhelmed<br />
with trying to document<br />
and archive the photos.”<br />
Since then, every official<br />
modern print of a Lee<br />
Miller photograph has<br />
been created by Carole’s<br />
hand, utilizing the original<br />
wet process in the darkroom<br />
or, more recently,<br />
created digitally with<br />
Carole’s guidance.<br />
“My favourite period in<br />
Lee’s career was when<br />
she lived in Egypt between 1933 and 1939 with<br />
her first husband. For the first time she wasn’t<br />
shooting for commercial purposes. My favourite?<br />
Portrait of Space, the only print on my wall at<br />
home, gifted to me after 25 years in the job.”<br />
Seeing Lee Miller’s world through Lee Miller’s<br />
eyes hasn’t always been easy for Carole, who<br />
retires in June. The photographer was extremely<br />
damaged by the experiences she went through<br />
during and after the war. Particularly traumatic<br />
was the liberation of Dachau in <strong>April</strong> 1945. “It<br />
was only after a camp survivor came to Farleys<br />
House some years ago, that the emotional reality<br />
hit home,” says Carole. “He told us how he met<br />
Lee, and showed us a packet of cigarettes she had<br />
signed for him. Suddenly I thought, ‘this is real,<br />
it’s not just photos’. It hit me that they were depictions<br />
of events that Lee had witnessed, and been<br />
tremendously moved by. They started affecting<br />
me even more profoundly, just as Lee had seen<br />
through her lens.”<br />
Alex Leith<br />
Lee Miller Archives Print Room Sale, Friends Meeting<br />
House. Part of Artists’ Open Houses festival,<br />
weekends only, May 13th-21st, free entry.<br />
Collectors evening, May 19th. leemiller.co.uk<br />
....27....
PHOTOGRAPHY<br />
..........................................<br />
Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington, St Matin d’Ardeche, France 1939<br />
© Courtesy Lee Miller Archives, England <strong>2017</strong>. All rights reserved. leemiller.co.uk<br />
....28....
PHOTOGRAPHY<br />
..........................................<br />
Roland Penrose and Picasso in Roland’s studio, Farley Farm, East Sussex, England, 1950<br />
© Courtesy Lee Miller Archives, England <strong>2017</strong>. All rights reserved. leemiller.co.uk<br />
....29....
PHOTOGRAPHY<br />
..........................................<br />
Saul Steinberg, Long Man of Wilmington, Sussex, England, 1952<br />
© Courtesy Lee Miller Archives, England <strong>2017</strong>. All rights reserved. leemiller.co.uk<br />
....30....
PHOTOGRAPHY<br />
..........................................<br />
Lee Miller and Antony Penrose, London, England 1947<br />
© Courtesy Lee Miller Archives, England <strong>2017</strong>. All rights reserved. leemiller.co.uk<br />
....31....
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COLUMN<br />
...........................................<br />
Lizzie Enfield<br />
Notes from North Village<br />
“The man in the moon came tumbling down and<br />
asked the way to Norwich… Da da da. No. That’s<br />
porridge.”<br />
I’m having tea and cake with a couple of friends<br />
and am trying to remember which nursery rhyme<br />
features groats.<br />
I’m just back from Poland, where we were served<br />
groats for dinner. They were new on me. A kind of<br />
puy-lentil-coloured quinoa, if you want to be really<br />
North Village about it. A grain of some description,<br />
if not.<br />
But I think they feature in a rhyme, so I’m going<br />
through all the ones I know.<br />
“Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye…<br />
Nope.”<br />
“This is the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house<br />
that Jack built. Malt!”<br />
My companions are surprised by my knowledge of<br />
nursery rhymes.<br />
“Didn’t your parents test you on them over<br />
dinner?” I ask, casually, expecting the answer to be a<br />
murmured “oh yes,” not a bemused “no, did yours?”<br />
Yes.<br />
I now realise nursery-rhyme tests were not part<br />
of everybody’s mealtime rituals and that not<br />
everybody’s father sat at the head of the table asking,<br />
“Who worried the cat that chased the rat that ate the<br />
malt? Quick. First to answer can have another roast<br />
potato!”<br />
“The Dog.” The potato went to my brother.<br />
“And who popped its head into the shop and said<br />
‘What! No soap?’”<br />
“I know! I know! The great she-bear.”<br />
A potato would be mine if there were any left.<br />
Instead, a lifetime of thinking and sometimes saying<br />
“What! No Soap? So he died…” out loud, whenever<br />
someone in a public toilet remarks that the soap in<br />
the dispenser has run out, was what I ended up with.<br />
Cue strange looks. Were the people around this<br />
washbasin not tested on the words of The Grand<br />
Panjandrum over dinner? Clearly not.<br />
Nor the friends of my children who question my<br />
pronunciation of forehead to rhyme with florid or<br />
torrid or, definitively, horrid because that’s how the<br />
nursery rhyme goes.<br />
“It’s fore to rhyme with score - head,” the kids insist.<br />
“There was a little girl, who had a little curl, Right in<br />
the middle of her forehead…” I counter.<br />
“And when she was good, she was very, very good,<br />
but when she was bad, she was horrid!”<br />
This proves that my pronunciation is right.<br />
Otherwise the little girl is not “horrid” but “whore<br />
head,” and it’s a children’s nursery rhyme after all.<br />
Not that they’re all suitable for children.<br />
The groat one comes to me.<br />
“There was an old man in a velvet coat,<br />
He kissed a maid, And gave her a groat” I begin<br />
reciting.<br />
“The groat it was cracked and would not go. Ah, old<br />
man, do you serve me so?”<br />
“Wow, I’m strangely impressed,” says one of my<br />
friends. “More cake?”<br />
So, years down the line, ritualistic mealtime rhyme<br />
testing at dinner has finally come into its own. I’ve<br />
strangely impressed someone and earned more cake.<br />
Illustration by Joda, jonydaga.weebly.com<br />
....33....
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COLUMN<br />
...........................................<br />
John Helmer<br />
11 o’clock<br />
Illustration by Joda, jonydaga.weebly.com<br />
“Is that a coffee cup?”<br />
I’m at the computer in my study, skyping with<br />
my eldest child Grace. She’s laughing at me.<br />
“What?”<br />
Poppy, at my side, smirks - in that unpleasant<br />
way she does all the time now that she’s nearly<br />
fourteen and a proper teenager.<br />
“What?!” I’m getting exasperated. “Let me in<br />
on the joke, someone.”<br />
“Every morning at eleven…”<br />
I look at the cup on my desk, slightly stained<br />
at the rim; adorable little almond cantuccini<br />
biscuit nestling in its saucer...<br />
“You’re so predictable, Dad!”<br />
They’re on to me. Coffee at eleven.<br />
Lunch at one. Tea at four... How<br />
did I become this OCD robot?<br />
Blame a Catholic upbringing,<br />
perhaps. I remember a game I<br />
used to play with my brothers,<br />
nibbling the corners off After<br />
Eights and administering them<br />
like hosts to each in turn, with<br />
a blasphemous sign of the<br />
cross - the body of Christ...<br />
Or perhaps it’s genetic. I am<br />
the son of an engineer, a group<br />
of people who, I was reading<br />
the other day, are significantly<br />
more likely to be on the<br />
spectrum.<br />
A picture comes to mind of Dad,<br />
standing in the porch of our old<br />
house, cleaning his ears out with<br />
a front-door key. Was he<br />
a bit autistic maybe?<br />
Did he have<br />
rituals? I struggle to think of any. But then I<br />
struggle to know anything much about him. He<br />
was a taciturn man, without much small talk.<br />
And without much big talk either.<br />
There was, of course, the tea-time ritual. Tea at<br />
home was served strong, with up to four sugars.<br />
Mum would bring it in and we would all sit<br />
around in the front room nursing our mugs.<br />
After one sip all three of the adults - Mum,<br />
my father and my grandfather - would fall<br />
deeply asleep and silence would reign until the<br />
moment when the heat of the tea caused my<br />
grandfather’s dentures to expand, and they fell<br />
into his cup with a loud splash.<br />
But that was a family thing, and had no allotted<br />
time. My father, my father, though: did he do<br />
particular things at particular times of day? I<br />
rifle through my memories of him - happy face,<br />
cross face - and come back with not much. The<br />
truth is, he was always away on some foreign<br />
airfield, fixing planes (he was an aeronautical<br />
engineer). Long dead, there’s not enough of him<br />
remaining in my memory from which to divine<br />
any sort of pattern to his behaviour. It’s like<br />
looking for the shape of mist.<br />
“…Predictability is not a bad thing,” says Grace,<br />
smiling sweetly through the screen; “Wherever<br />
I am in the world, whoever I’m with, I always<br />
know what you’re doing at eleven o’clock every<br />
morning. It’s reassuring.”<br />
I think about this for a moment, wondering<br />
what it must be like to have a parent whose<br />
presence in your life makes you feel reassured<br />
(rather than mystified and freaked out).<br />
“…It’s a good thing,” says Poppy, patting me<br />
softly, like a dog.<br />
I sip my coffee. A good thing.<br />
....35....
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COLUMN<br />
...........................................<br />
Amy Holtz<br />
And her ten-finger orchestra<br />
I’m in the middle of telling<br />
a story and drinking a pint<br />
when one of my friend’s<br />
bejewelled hands reaches<br />
out and slaps across mine.<br />
“Stop it!” she thunders,<br />
appalled.<br />
“Stop what?” I ask,<br />
bewildered. “Ow.”<br />
She points to my fingers with<br />
the wide, all-seeing eyes of<br />
a former teacher, and huffs.<br />
“You know.”<br />
It takes a minute, but of<br />
course I do know. I just forget<br />
I’m doing it - cracking my<br />
knuckles. And over the years, I’ve come to realise<br />
there are only two kinds of people in the world;<br />
the innocent, misunderstood air-bubble poppers<br />
who just want to be left alone, and the people who<br />
shame them.<br />
“I’m just thinking of your future,” she continues,<br />
calmer, sifting through our pub booty of dryroasted<br />
peanuts, the eating of which, in my opinion,<br />
is a far bigger public-health risk. “My sister got<br />
arthritis early on and she used to do that.”<br />
“But how do you know it was the knucklecracking?<br />
Instead of say, I don’t know, genetics?” I<br />
say this defiantly, with not a smidgen of sensibility,<br />
but I can feel what can only be described politely<br />
as an urge - building. In my fingers. I didn’t finish,<br />
and now I’m going to have to wait until she turns<br />
her back or risk another slapping.<br />
I used to get regular knuckle raps from my<br />
gramma. As an often-annoying do-gooder, it was<br />
the only thing that gave me a frisson of devilry<br />
throughout my youth. The feeling was as close<br />
as I had come to bank robbery or face tattooing -<br />
and likely ever will. And<br />
my piano teacher spent<br />
many a lesson lecturing<br />
me on my thoughtless<br />
habit, as though a<br />
career as a concert<br />
pianist was somehow<br />
hanging in the balance.<br />
It wasn’t. Sighing, a<br />
noise so charged with<br />
disappointment, she<br />
used to tap at my hands<br />
with her marking pencil,<br />
which, looking back,<br />
smacks of counterproductiveness.<br />
But it isn’t just the well-intentioned - the folk who<br />
rightly profess to be looking out for you, no matter<br />
how obnoxiously persistent they are. People look<br />
at you when you do this in the library, one knuckle<br />
at a time, using your other fingers to get at the<br />
thumbs, like a little ten-finger orchestra. Or say,<br />
“ouch”, and wince in your general direction, as<br />
if experiencing some sort of knuckle-cracking<br />
stigmata on their person.<br />
It does make you wonder - just where do these<br />
old wives’ tales come from? And how come they<br />
live on, even now we have Google?<br />
I posit this to my friend - fishing for my rational<br />
voice but coming up with shrill. “I’m not going to<br />
get arthritis! There’s simply no evidence!”<br />
She looks at me with mild pity and passes me the<br />
peanuts. I’m desperate to finish my forefinger and<br />
thumb, which are patiently waiting, but I’m too<br />
scared of her.<br />
Ok, so maybe I do have a problem. In the end, it<br />
doesn’t really matter how these things start. All I<br />
know is that they don’t seem to stop.<br />
....37....
MUSIC<br />
..........................<br />
Gigs In <strong>Brighton</strong>...<br />
cHarLie sTraW<br />
Monday 17th <strong>April</strong><br />
The Prince Albert, <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
Haus<br />
Friday 21st <strong>April</strong><br />
Komedia, <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
WiLLiaM MccarTHy<br />
Friday 21st <strong>April</strong><br />
The Haunt, <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
JoHnny LLoyD<br />
Friday 21st <strong>April</strong><br />
Sticky Mike’s, <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
VaLerie June<br />
Saturday 22nd <strong>April</strong><br />
Concorde 2, <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
Dan oWen<br />
Tuesday 25th <strong>April</strong><br />
Komedia, <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
counTerFeiT<br />
Saturday 29th <strong>April</strong><br />
The Haunt, <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
ProToJe<br />
Thursday 11th May<br />
Concorde 2, <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
Marianas TrencH<br />
Saturday 13th May<br />
The Haunt, <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
Foy Vance<br />
Monday 22nd May<br />
Concorde 2, <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
exoDus<br />
Wednesday 7th June<br />
Concorde 2, <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
Minus THe Bear<br />
Saturday 10th June<br />
The Haunt, <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
LoutPromotions.co.uk<br />
Ben Bailey rounds up<br />
HATERS<br />
Fri 7, Green Door Store, 7pm, £5/4/3<br />
Perhaps pre-empting detractors with their choice<br />
of band name, Haters make the kind of lo-fi<br />
indie-pop that’s often associated with groups from<br />
the late 80s and early 90s. However, the combination<br />
of jangly guitar and pop-punk drumming is a<br />
format that never really went away, and with good<br />
reason. It still works, especially as Haters’ lyrics<br />
have a straightforward honesty which ensures<br />
indie kids of a certain hue will find something to<br />
relate to here. This show, put on by local DIY<br />
promoters FemRock, is the band’s last UK date<br />
before a short European tour. They’re back again<br />
at the end of the month, playing the ‘Fallopian<br />
Tunes Fest’ at the same venue on the 30th.<br />
HOLLY ISOBELLE<br />
Mon 10, Prince Albert, 8pm, £2<br />
Not to be confused<br />
with Bath’s Isobel<br />
Holly, <strong>Brighton</strong>’s<br />
Holly Isobelle is a<br />
singer-songwriter who<br />
sometimes transforms<br />
into the frontwoman of a pop band, trading her<br />
acoustic guitar for a sparkly synth. It’ll be in that<br />
incarnation that she takes to the stage of the Prince<br />
Albert for the launch show of her first single, Remains<br />
of Our Love. Influences range from contemporary<br />
alt-pop acts like Two Door Cinema Club<br />
and Lucy Rose, to original shimmering-synthpop<br />
exponents Simple Minds. Support comes from folk<br />
songstress Hayley Chillcott and local indie rockers<br />
Codename Aquarius. To mark the occasion Holly’s<br />
promising special décor, cupcakes and a free drink.<br />
....38....
MUSIC<br />
..........................<br />
the local music scene<br />
DIRTY WHITE FEVER<br />
Sat 8, Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar, 7pm, £5<br />
Marking the anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death, this<br />
tribute night sees four local grunge acts paying homage<br />
to the tragic hero of 90s rock. Nirvana covers are<br />
inevitable, the only question is: who gets to play Teen<br />
Spirit? Fuoco, DITZ, and PLUNGE fill out the bill,<br />
while Dirty White Fever take the headline slot, mixing<br />
the sludgy blues rock of The White Stripes with<br />
the speed riffing of Queens of the Stone Age. The<br />
<strong>Brighton</strong> duo, one half of which was briefly in The<br />
Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, will go down well<br />
with anyone who likes their rock raw and unpretentious.<br />
The WÜF DJs round off the night playing all<br />
the big grunge hits - which seems like an oxymoron,<br />
but you know what we mean.<br />
FIRST WORLD PROS<br />
Thu 13, Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar, 8pm, £5/3<br />
Promoting the launch of<br />
their debut album, First<br />
World Pros are a new <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
seven-piece comprised<br />
of former members of The<br />
Leisure Society and Django Spears. If you ever caught<br />
the latter, you’ll remember that their klezmer/skiffle<br />
pop covers were musically much better than they<br />
needed to be for the humour to work. Likewise, the<br />
comical lyrics that First World Pros have hewn out of<br />
everyday petty problems (you know the sort) are set<br />
to a diverse and impressively executed form of festival<br />
music. The band’s Afrobeat, highlife and alt-rock<br />
influences leaves them sounding like a frenetic version<br />
of Vampire Weekend mixed perhaps with some of<br />
The Clash’s weirder later stuff. If you’re not dancing,<br />
you’ll be laughing.<br />
________________________________________<br />
Sammy and the Snow Leopard<br />
Wed 19 - Thu 20 Apr<br />
________________________________________<br />
KIN<br />
Wed 19 Apr<br />
________________________________________<br />
Banff Mountain Film Festival<br />
Thu 20 Apr<br />
________________________________________<br />
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra<br />
Sat 22 Apr<br />
________________________________________<br />
Naomi’s Wild & Scary<br />
Sun 23 Apr<br />
________________________________________<br />
London Philharmonic Orchestra<br />
Sat 29 Apr<br />
________________________________________<br />
<strong>Brighton</strong> Festival<br />
Sat 6 - Sun 28 May<br />
________________________________________<br />
brightondome.org<br />
01273 709709<br />
....39....
<strong>Brighton</strong> Fringe Award<br />
Winners 2014 . 2015 . 2016<br />
What the critics say about Pretty Villain:<br />
‘Brilliant’- Plays International ✶✶✶✶✶ ‘High quality’ The Argus<br />
‘Thoroughly professional’ – Fringe Review<br />
‘Tragedy and comedy intertwine magically’ - Broadway Baby<br />
Blue/Orange<br />
by Joe Penhall<br />
NE-YO<br />
Sat 1 Apr<br />
THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS<br />
Sat 15 Apr<br />
CARO EMERALD<br />
Fri 14 Apr<br />
DIVERSITY<br />
Tue 18 Apr<br />
Award-winning comedy and modern<br />
masterpiece - one day before release<br />
from psychiatric hospital, an enigmatic<br />
patient claims to be the love child of<br />
an African dictator.<br />
27th - 28th May | 30th May - 3rd June<br />
New York Stories<br />
by Damon Runyon<br />
Two wise-crackin’, fast-talkin’ 1930s<br />
short stories brought to life by ‘the<br />
nest actors I have seen on the Fringe’.<br />
‘A masterclass in direct storytelling<br />
and character comedy’.<br />
16th - 21st May<br />
box office 0844 847 1515 *<br />
www.brightoncentre.co.uk<br />
*calls cost 7p per minute plus your phone company’s access charge<br />
What did I miss?<br />
The Missing Special<br />
by Richard Hearn<br />
Winner of The Rialto’s 2016 new<br />
writing competition by acclaimed<br />
<strong>Brighton</strong> author. This comedy/drama<br />
replays key events from Rufus’ life -<br />
but does he have a second chance ?<br />
21st, 23rd - 26th May<br />
11 Dyke Road, <strong>Brighton</strong> BN1 3FE<br />
(50 yards from Churchill Square)<br />
Box Office: 01273 725230<br />
www.rialtotheatre.co.uk<br />
whatdidimiss.co.uk
MUSIC<br />
....................................<br />
Ghost<br />
Agnostic shock rock<br />
All things considered, I guess we’re a shockrock<br />
band. I don’t put a lot of effort into thinking<br />
about what we are in terms of genre, but I perfectly<br />
understand that if you’re a little bit anal and you’re<br />
a protector of your genre, then you might not buy<br />
into us.<br />
I come from a very mixed-up musical background;<br />
we listened to everything from doo-wop<br />
and pop to extreme black metal. But the spark that<br />
started Ghost was the fact that I found a way to<br />
combine death-metal riffing with AOR choruses.<br />
Papa Emeritus is our mascot. Like Eddie is for<br />
Iron Maiden; but he just happens to be the singer<br />
as well. I think what you’ll get in <strong>Brighton</strong> is what<br />
we call ‘the full thing’. A few new songs, and maybe<br />
some pyro that we haven’t really done before in the<br />
UK. It’s a bigger show; it just looks grander.<br />
Religions claim to be for the greater good,<br />
whereas anyone who knows a little bit about history<br />
knows they are made up in order to control people.<br />
And that has led to an enormous amount of grief<br />
and suffering, all in vain. Ghost is an emulation of<br />
that, symbolic of that suffering. But as opposed to<br />
traditional worship, we are trying to make people<br />
euphoric by taking part in a mass, in a ritual. We<br />
leave people with the idea of wanting to<br />
live and wanting to live freely, rather<br />
than going away feeling that they<br />
need to repent or that their lives<br />
suck. That is<br />
not to say we<br />
dismiss religion<br />
per se, or a<br />
belief in<br />
something<br />
greater. We<br />
respect the<br />
fact that we<br />
have no f**king idea.<br />
You get used to playing in a mask. Obviously it’s<br />
strange at first, but the upsides are definitely greater.<br />
You find yourself transforming into a slightly different<br />
character, and that in turn gives you an extra<br />
boost on stage. In the beginning there wasn’t an issue<br />
with being recognised, because I never thought<br />
it would be propelled to this size.<br />
If there’s one person screwing up the anonymity,<br />
it’s probably my mum. She’s very proud. Ever<br />
since I was a kid I’ve always been a fan of musicals<br />
and theatre; she dragged me along to a lot of different<br />
cultural events. The first time we went to<br />
London we saw The Phantom of the Opera and Cats.<br />
I was absolutely blown away. I knew it was a format<br />
I wanted to work within. Will there be a Ghost<br />
musical? I really hope so. The point has always been<br />
to be theatrical. With the aid of masks you can more<br />
freely let your mind ease into the idea that this is<br />
‘real’.<br />
I knew nothing about the bands I loved when<br />
I was a kid; I had to invest so much imagination<br />
into the posters on my wall. Even in 2008, when<br />
we started, I was extremely annoyed by hysteria on<br />
Facebook and Twitter. A lot of the new bands have<br />
to profile themselves as individuals and photograph<br />
everything they eat. I guess Ghost was a counterreaction<br />
to that. This is not<br />
the rock ’n’ roll that I love.<br />
I wanted Ghost to be<br />
something completely different.<br />
We do things that<br />
make other people<br />
talk. As told to Ben<br />
Bailey<br />
<strong>Brighton</strong> Dome,<br />
Sun 2nd Apr,<br />
7pm, £27<br />
....41....
MUSIC<br />
....................................<br />
Billy Ocean<br />
Tailor’s-apprentice-turned-megastar<br />
“I was told I was singing before I could talk,” says<br />
Billy Ocean. “I used to sing along to the radio; I<br />
always did it.” He heard calypso tunes at his musician<br />
father’s shows; he listened to American popular<br />
music on the radio; he sang in a church choir. He<br />
was given his first instrument at the age of four - a<br />
toy ukulele. The authoritative AllMusic website says<br />
that ‘by his teenage years [he] was singing regularly<br />
in London clubs’.<br />
All this - the keen interest, the early start, and<br />
the useful mix of influences - might seem to have<br />
been leading him towards inevitable success as a<br />
musician. His mother, though, got him to learn a<br />
trade, as a fall-back. So he started work as a tailor’s<br />
apprentice. The Telegraph later noted that ‘he got<br />
the sack when Annie Nightingale played his first<br />
single on Radio One’.<br />
That was in 1974; he signed with the GTO label<br />
the following year, and went on to sell 30 million<br />
records. It’s tempting to say something like ‘…and<br />
he never looked back’. But Ocean evidently retained<br />
an interest in tailoring; he told the Guardian that ‘in<br />
the 80s, I made all my suits myself’.<br />
“I still have a few of the old suits,” he tells <strong>Viva</strong>. “But<br />
they don’t get worn these days. I like to feel good on<br />
stage, so I always wear a suit and tie; it’s just me.”<br />
Mon 24th, <strong>Brighton</strong> Dome Concert Hall, doors 7pm,<br />
tickets from £24.50<br />
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COMEDY<br />
....................................<br />
Ed Patrick<br />
Real life isn’t like med school<br />
“One of the main things about being a doctor,<br />
actually, is managing uncertainty,” says Ed Patrick, a<br />
comedian and junior doctor. “Everything’s laid out<br />
for you on a plate in medical school, but actually in<br />
real life you have to deal with uncertainty” - with<br />
situations that are messier and more complex than<br />
the ones you tend to encounter as a student.<br />
In medical school, for example, “you learn a theory,<br />
and you learn how things happen if there’s only one<br />
thing wrong.” But in real life, patients often have<br />
multiple issues, whose symptoms you have to try to<br />
disentangle and make sense of.<br />
In medical school “you have practical exams: you’ll<br />
be called together, examine the patient, take histories,<br />
and all that stuff you need to do. But whether<br />
you actually have the time, and the space, to do that<br />
in the hospital setting, when it gets really busy, is<br />
difficult. Because you’re juggling a lot of priorities.<br />
“That’s one of the key things as a doctor; you have<br />
to prioritise. You have people coming at you from<br />
left, right and centre. If you’re a junior doctor, like<br />
me, you have a list, and have to assess each thing<br />
that comes to you, and decide which is most important,<br />
and prioritise that accordingly.<br />
“You’ve seen what’s happened in A&E over the last<br />
couple of months; it’s not like everyone’s got their<br />
own room, where you can go and comfortably do<br />
everything you need to do in that time. It’s more<br />
hectic. You’re having to work in corridors and<br />
things like that. That’s not what you’re taught in<br />
medical school.<br />
“The show is about how you’re kind of thrown<br />
into this world that you didn’t know about, and<br />
it’s not quite as set up as you thought it was… You<br />
go from a medical-school situation, a university<br />
situation, to suddenly being in a very responsible<br />
position. And it’s a baptism of fire, for the first few<br />
years of doing that.”<br />
I gather that a theme of the show is that doctors<br />
aren’t ‘demi-gods’, as people might like to imagine -<br />
they’re just well-trained people doing their best. Ed<br />
says: “I think society’s always sort of seen doctors<br />
on a pedestal. There are good reasons for that, but I<br />
think sometimes you need to remember that they’re<br />
human as well.<br />
“Actually, what makes a good doctor is someone<br />
who’s aware of their limitations and gets help when<br />
they need it. And that’s why you have teams of<br />
people that you work with. It’s not actually a solo<br />
thing… You have different specialists; you wouldn’t<br />
attempt to do something that wasn’t your specialism,<br />
or where you felt out of your depth, your level.<br />
“But what happens is that people come to see you<br />
and might not realise that you’re not the specialist<br />
in that area. Because you are a doctor you’ve got<br />
that general sort of, ‘you are a man in a white coat;<br />
you must know everything.’” Steve Ramsey<br />
Ed Patrick: Junior Optimist, Komedia, Sun 30th,<br />
8pm, £10, komedia.co.uk<br />
....43....
Omid Djalili Tracy-Ann Oberman<br />
FIDDLER ON<br />
THE ROOF<br />
This celebrated and much loved<br />
musical directed by Daniel Evans is<br />
packed with show-stopping songs<br />
including If I Were A Rich Man,<br />
Tradition and Matchmaker<br />
#FiddlerOnTheRoof<br />
10 July – 26 August<br />
01243 781312 cft.org.uk
THEATRE<br />
....................................<br />
The Crucible<br />
‘A perfect post-truth play’<br />
‘I have laid seven babies<br />
unbaptised in the earth,’<br />
Ann Putnam says in The<br />
Crucible, Arthur Miller’s<br />
play about the Salem<br />
Witch Trials. This is<br />
early in Act One; the<br />
suspicion of witchcraft<br />
has been raised; Mrs<br />
Putnam connects it with<br />
the deaths of her babies.<br />
“That’s the hardship of that time; many women lost<br />
their children,” says Douglas Rintoul, the director<br />
of a current touring production of the play. “I find<br />
the character incredibly moving, because she’s desperately,<br />
desperately looking for a reason why those<br />
children didn’t live, and she cannot [accept] that her<br />
body was not strong enough to produce those seven<br />
children. There has to be another reason…<br />
“That’s really the beginning of where the seed of<br />
the hysteria starts. That’s to do with somebody who<br />
was so deeply unhappy in her life that she had to<br />
find a reason outside of herself to explain it away.<br />
And certainly we can find lots of analogies with that<br />
in a contemporary society, as well. We often look<br />
for something outside of ourselves to make up a<br />
narrative of why things haven’t worked out the way<br />
that we were told that they should have done.<br />
“For such a long time, as individuals in the western<br />
world, we’ve been told that we can have anything<br />
and everything, as long as we fight for it and we<br />
work hard… It’s kind of the American dream. And<br />
then, when we don’t attain those things… because<br />
the structure of capitalist society has kind of let us<br />
down - I mean, it is an anti-capitalist play - but then<br />
we don’t question the structure of that society.<br />
“In the same way, in<br />
the play they’re…<br />
[generally] not<br />
questioning the<br />
structure of their<br />
theocracy, which is<br />
really to blame for<br />
all of the events in<br />
the play. They’re<br />
looking to blame<br />
other individuals for<br />
why their lives have not turned out the way that<br />
they were told that they should. And I think that’s<br />
the great parallel, is that we are in a time where our<br />
structures are falling apart, and we’re not blaming<br />
the structures; we’re looking to blame individuals,<br />
which will be the minorities or the outsiders. In<br />
the play, the weakest members of that community<br />
are the ones who are first attacked. Which is Sarah<br />
Good and Goody Osburn, who are old women who<br />
live in ditches and probably have dementia. They’re<br />
a really easy, easy target. And the hysteria picks<br />
them out first…<br />
“There are lots of examples in contemporary<br />
society… Look at Islamic extremism, or the way<br />
that we scapegoat immigrants for all the ills of our<br />
societies; we read enough Daily Mail headlines and<br />
then we believe… I mean, the play is a perfect posttruth<br />
play. I’m not sure that Arthur Miller would<br />
have ever believed that we would find ourselves in<br />
this situation in the 21st century, where his play is<br />
probably more pertinent now than it was when he<br />
wrote it in the 1950s. It’s… the whole play is about<br />
believing a lie, believing the lies.”<br />
Steve Ramsey<br />
Theatre Royal, Mon 24th – Sat 29th<br />
....45....
MUSIC<br />
....................................<br />
King Ayisoba<br />
Ghanaian kologo prodigy<br />
Photo by Paul Bergen<br />
King Ayisoba is a musician<br />
and singer from<br />
Kalaga, in the Upper<br />
East region of Ghana.<br />
His grandfather was<br />
a traditional healer<br />
who taught him how<br />
to play the kologo (a<br />
two-stringed guitar),<br />
and King Ayisoba<br />
became something<br />
of child prodigy in<br />
the area. Having<br />
played with hip-life artist Terry Bonchaka, King<br />
Ayisoba went on to win the Ghana Music Award<br />
in 2007. He’s been touring the world more or less<br />
ever since. This month he comes to <strong>Brighton</strong>,<br />
supported by his unlikely ally Arnold de Boer, who<br />
performs with his lo-fi electro-punk project Zea.<br />
How would you describe your music? Is it a<br />
traditional style? It is kologo music from Ghana,<br />
played with my own personal style.<br />
What is kologo? How did you start playing it?<br />
Kologo is a mystical instrument, and it’s a gift. My<br />
grandfather was a kologo player, so the kologo<br />
spirit caught me when I was born.<br />
Who else are you bringing to the Komedia this<br />
month? Ayuune Sulley (kologo player and singer),<br />
Francis Ayamga (drummer and sound engineer),<br />
Aboba Azure (talking drum) and my brother Adortanga<br />
Abbadongo Aporee, who is a dancer and<br />
horn player. We are all from the same area, Bongo<br />
Soe and Bolgatanga.<br />
What other influences have shaped your style<br />
of music? I listened to reggae music, and I started<br />
promoting kologo through the hip-life and hiphop<br />
scene, with the support of Terry Bonchaka and<br />
Panji Anoff.<br />
What is your connection<br />
with Dutch<br />
punk band The Ex?<br />
Arnold De Boer, a<br />
member of The Ex<br />
and also of Zea, invited<br />
me on tour with<br />
him and produced my<br />
albums in Europe, so<br />
I started touring with<br />
him and we shared a<br />
stage together. Later<br />
he invited me again<br />
with my full band for a European tour.<br />
Have you toured around here before? Do audiences<br />
in different parts of the world react differently<br />
to your music? I’ve been touring all over<br />
Europe and beyond for six years now... including<br />
China. Even Chinese people enjoy my music and<br />
dance like crazy.<br />
What does ‘King Ayisoba’ mean? Why did you<br />
choose it as a name? King Ayisoba means “Land<br />
Lord”; people call me that.<br />
How did you celebrate the 60th anniversary<br />
of Ghanaian independence last month? What<br />
are the biggest problems facing the country at<br />
the moment? In the north of Ghana, we have a<br />
big problem about water access and electricity. I<br />
created my own water foundation to support my<br />
people and my region.<br />
What inspired your song Wicked Leaders?<br />
I wrote this song to talk to all the leaders who<br />
are not helping their own people and just make<br />
promises when an election comes. I always want<br />
to remind them that their “power” come from<br />
their people!<br />
Interview Ben Bailey<br />
Komedia, Monday 3rd <strong>April</strong>, 7.30pm, £9<br />
....46....
COMEDY<br />
....................................<br />
Marcel Lucont<br />
Trop drôle pour l’Anglais<br />
French ‘raconteur, bon-viveur<br />
and flâneur extraordinaire’<br />
Marcel Lucont is the winequaffing<br />
alter-ego of awardwinning<br />
British comedian<br />
Alexis Dubois. He shares his<br />
Gallic wisdom…<br />
What does being French<br />
mean to you? In these times,<br />
a discerning man chooses to<br />
wear his nationalism lightly,<br />
like a billowing cravat. Yet it<br />
is difficult not to appreciate<br />
the many positives that come<br />
with being French - like a<br />
billowing cravat. There is a<br />
style, a way of life, an insouciance<br />
that only the French can truly live.<br />
French style is lauded all over the world; can<br />
you talk us through your own look? My level<br />
of style deceptively hides its functionality. Each<br />
jacket pocket contains at least one book of notes;<br />
the deft roll of the pullover conceals at least one<br />
reminder of the night before; the neat trouser<br />
contains at least one mystery.<br />
Which French stereotype is furthest from the<br />
truth? We are said to be aloof, I believe. If this<br />
is the case, perhaps you should ask yourself why<br />
are we not immediately engaging in conversation<br />
with you? Perhaps we first need convincing that<br />
an interaction will be worthwhile, or everybody’s<br />
time is wasted.<br />
You’ve written a memoir, Moi. What do you<br />
think readers will be most surprised to learn?<br />
My role in France’s space programme.<br />
What are you reading at the moment? My<br />
memoir.<br />
Your new show is described as ‘a kind of group<br />
therapy’; have you ever<br />
attended such a thing yourself?<br />
No. Having to interact<br />
with a group of strangers in<br />
this way would merely drive<br />
me to further therapy. Perhaps<br />
this is a misleading précis<br />
of the show, as it implies<br />
that I will alleviate audience<br />
members’ gripes, grievances<br />
or failings. I can assure you<br />
this is not the case. It is highly<br />
likely everyone will leave feeling<br />
more depressed.<br />
Do you rate any other<br />
comedians? Comedy is, in<br />
general, such a low art form. I<br />
find it so bewildering that other practitioners refuse<br />
to write even one poem or chanson. Observational<br />
comedy, in particular, seems wasted on the<br />
British, whose observations often reveal lives so<br />
mundane that Socrates may instead have decided<br />
the unexamined life to be perfect left as it is.<br />
What do you think of English wine? It is about<br />
time we had a joke question. I believe this is part<br />
of your mythical folklore, along with Robin Hood,<br />
King Arthur and Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction.<br />
A good attempt, but it will take more than<br />
this to fool me.<br />
Are you a fan of <strong>Brighton</strong>? ‘Fan’ is a strong<br />
word. Despite its unusually large grains of sand<br />
and suspiciously cheery nature I have spent some<br />
memorable afternoons staring across the sea at<br />
civilisation. Often such moments can last up to<br />
three minutes without the interruption of a skateboarder,<br />
a child or a festival.<br />
Interview by Nione Meakin<br />
Marcel Lucont’s Whine List, Komedia, <strong>April</strong> 12th<br />
....47....
eathe deeply<br />
close your eyes<br />
think beautiful thoughts<br />
about how your<br />
home could look<br />
do something about it<br />
call Nutshell:spaces<br />
01903 217900
CIRCUS<br />
....................................<br />
KIN<br />
Narrative acrobatics<br />
Dance and theatre director Ben Duke<br />
has collaborated with acrobatic heroes<br />
Barely Methodical Troupe<br />
on their new show, KIN.<br />
In a general sense, dance<br />
is introverted where<br />
circus seems extroverted<br />
- needing the audience<br />
to feed it. A few years<br />
back, I made a dance piece<br />
called It Needs Horses, about<br />
two circus performers. It<br />
explored the concept of having<br />
no skills or talent and the increasingly<br />
desperate lengths the performers<br />
would go to to entertain - very direct in terms of<br />
contact with the audience. It made me think about<br />
how dance deals with a fourth wall; the performers<br />
aren’t necessarily pretending to be someone else<br />
and it isn’t like theatre, where you’re developing a<br />
separate world, but dance tends to have an inward<br />
focus. I was curious about how these disciplines,<br />
dance and circus, could meet - if an emotional narrative<br />
could find its way into this extreme physical<br />
language of the circus.<br />
KIN is Barely Methodical Troupe’s second<br />
show after Bromance - the story of founding<br />
members Charlie, Louis and Beren’s relationship.<br />
Bromance was a huge hit and they built a kind<br />
of reputation and aesthetic; but we’re trying to do<br />
something different with KIN, which explores ideas<br />
of hierarchy and power struggles. KIN is about<br />
people who become close because of the situations<br />
they are put in - the families that form outside<br />
‘blood families’; the circus is interesting in that<br />
way because of the physical and mental closeness,<br />
the trust and danger involved and how that builds<br />
connections. This show looks at contemporary<br />
ideas of those power<br />
and gender roles.<br />
This is an exciting time<br />
for the circus - it’s got an<br />
openness and curiosity<br />
about what’s going on<br />
and it’s learning how to<br />
borrow and steal from<br />
other things. There’s<br />
something about the idea<br />
of entertainment that circus<br />
embraces very consciously,<br />
which is a great thing. I’m a big<br />
fan of dance, but it can have a feeling<br />
of inaccessibility or, like with conceptual art, that<br />
you need some kind of key to understand it. I don’t<br />
think that’s the case, but I think that’s how a lot of<br />
people feel. But circus is overtly fun and inclusive,<br />
less formal for the performers and the audience. If a<br />
trick goes wrong, you can do it again; there’s a kind<br />
of humanity in that - we can acknowledge the fact<br />
that it didn’t succeed and that gives the circus a kind<br />
of relatability.<br />
KIN is a kind of experiment in sustaining a<br />
narrative in circus. For me it shifts between these<br />
moments where there are tricks, while feeling like<br />
you’re lost in an amazing world; there’s an atmosphere<br />
that carries you through, which creates an<br />
emotional and theatrical landscape. It’s interesting<br />
to notice the kind of audience that comes to KIN as<br />
opposed to a dance performance. It’s got a more relaxed<br />
kind of vibe; beer and popcorn, not high-arts<br />
stuff. They want to clap and cheer for tricks, and I<br />
think that’s how it should be; but that doesn’t mean<br />
it can’t be intelligent. As told to Amy Holtz<br />
<strong>Brighton</strong> Dome, Wed 19th <strong>April</strong>, 3pm and 7.30pm<br />
....49....
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ART<br />
....................................<br />
Constable in <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
Exhibition curator Peter Harrap<br />
When artists Peter Harrap<br />
and Natasha Kissell bought<br />
a run-down house in Sillwood<br />
Road back in 2010,<br />
no-one could have predicted<br />
that it would one day<br />
display an English Heritage<br />
blue plaque. “It looked kind<br />
of bombed-out. The building<br />
had been divided into<br />
three flats, none of them<br />
very salubrious, and some of the windows were<br />
missing. But there was something about it that we<br />
liked, particularly the light in the upstairs studio.”<br />
It was a journalist neighbour, Shan Lancaster, who<br />
first hinted that the house might have an impressive<br />
pedigree. “She had been doing some digging,<br />
and was convinced that it had been the painter<br />
John Constable’s <strong>Brighton</strong> studio. The deeds of<br />
her house were listed as Sober’s Gardens and<br />
there’s a letter from 1824 where Constable says<br />
he’s living at 9, Sober’s Gardens. Obviously that<br />
address doesn’t exist today, so up until that point,<br />
no one had made the connection. We discovered<br />
that both the street name and numeration had<br />
changed twice, but through a process of deduction<br />
- including an uncatalogued, unarchived letter we<br />
found at the Tate - we were able to establish that<br />
the house had indeed been Constable’s studio.”<br />
Fired up by the discovery, Harrap then worked out<br />
that the painter had made some 150 works over<br />
the period he spent in <strong>Brighton</strong> during the 1820s,<br />
many inspired by a series of walks he took from his<br />
studio towards Shoreham, Devil’s Dyke and along<br />
the seafront in the direction of the chain pier.<br />
“1824 was a particularly good year. The Hay Wain<br />
had been selected for the Paris Salon, and Constable<br />
later won a gold medal<br />
for it. But he never went<br />
to France. Instead, he was<br />
at the top of Devil’s Dyke<br />
having a revelation about<br />
painting. He decided it was<br />
not the job of the painter<br />
just to depict a beautiful<br />
view, but instead, to make<br />
something out of nothing.<br />
He then began taking off<br />
on these systematic walks across <strong>Brighton</strong>, stopping<br />
every few yards to make a little painting. To<br />
my delight, I realised that I walk my kids to their<br />
school in St Nicholas Road overlooked by the<br />
windmills Constable painted in 1824.”<br />
Although Constable only came to the city in the<br />
(dashed) hope that the sea air would revive his<br />
sick wife Maria, the years he spent here were to<br />
change his work quite profoundly. “He gains a<br />
lot of confidence over the <strong>Brighton</strong> period. His<br />
paintings were a little stuffy, a little brown, and<br />
during this time they became more energetic,<br />
almost wild. There’s a very clear transition from<br />
these quite staid pictures of Salisbury Cathedral to<br />
his big, bold storm clouds.” The house has become<br />
a popular draw for tourists since it received official<br />
English Heritage recognition in 2013, but not,<br />
Harrap has learned, for the reasons one might<br />
expect. “We’ve had five years of people standing<br />
outside taking snaps on their phones. I thought<br />
it was fantastic that there was so much interest in<br />
Constable. But I’ve just learned that it’s probably<br />
because our address is a Pokemon Go destination…”<br />
Nione Meakin<br />
Constable in <strong>Brighton</strong>, at <strong>Brighton</strong> Museum from<br />
<strong>April</strong> 8th<br />
‘A Windmill near <strong>Brighton</strong>, 1824’ by John Constable © Tate<br />
....51....
ART<br />
....................................<br />
Victor Pasmore<br />
Il était peintre<br />
There is a story that is<br />
often told about Victor<br />
Pasmore meeting<br />
Picasso. It’s November<br />
1950, and Picasso is<br />
in England to address<br />
the second International<br />
Peace Congress<br />
in Sheffield. Accounts<br />
differ wildly. Sometimes<br />
Pasmore is meeting Picasso<br />
off the boat train at<br />
Victoria. Or maybe he’s<br />
at St Pancras to greet Picasso on his return from<br />
Sheffield. Sometimes he’s deputising for a poorly<br />
Roland Penrose as Picasso’s chauffeur. Unless, that<br />
is, he’s bundling Picasso into a taxi to take him<br />
from Victoria to St Pancras. Or was it from St Pancras<br />
to Victoria? Occasionally, fellow-artist Rodrigo<br />
Moynihan is in the taxi as well. Anyway, whichever<br />
the version, whichever the terminus, there’s a problem.<br />
Unable to conduct a conversation with the<br />
great man in either Spanish or English, Pasmore<br />
has to fall back on his schoolboy French. After a<br />
lengthy silence he essays: “Moi, je suis peintre”.<br />
Picasso replies: “Moi, aussi”.<br />
Victor Pasmore was born in 1908 and took to being<br />
a peintre at an early age. His brother Stephen<br />
recalled him determinedly drawing battleships and<br />
aeroplanes in the nursery during World War One.<br />
He showed great promise at Harrow, pulling off<br />
a very creditable copy of Landseer’s Dignity and<br />
Impudence. Unfortunately, the sudden death of his<br />
father meant that the proposed art-school education<br />
was no longer financially viable. Instead, he<br />
worked as a clerk in the Public Health department<br />
of the London County Council for ten years. Two<br />
factors were crucial in his eventually becoming an<br />
artist. The first was that dogged determination first<br />
revealed in the nursery.<br />
According to Pasmore’s<br />
entry in the Dictionary<br />
of National Biography,<br />
he refused all promotions<br />
at work to have as<br />
much time as possible<br />
to devote himself to art.<br />
For years he attended<br />
evening classes at the<br />
Central School of Arts<br />
and Crafts. The second<br />
factor is the patronage<br />
of Kenneth Clark. In 1935 he bought, from the<br />
annual London Group Show, Victor Pasmore’s The<br />
Café (Tea Gardens). He went on to provide a stipend<br />
for Pasmore in exchange for paintings, that eventually<br />
allowed him to give up his job at the LCC.<br />
Nonetheless, their first meeting was not propitious.<br />
As recounted in his autobiography, Clark was<br />
rehanging a Turner at the National Gallery in a<br />
silvery new frame: ‘A young man with bright black<br />
eyes came up to me and said “I don’t know who you<br />
are, but whoever you are you’ve no taste”. I agreed<br />
and the frame was hastily removed’.<br />
Clark was unable to follow Pasmore into the pure<br />
abstraction which he embraced from the late 40s<br />
onwards. The transition from his earlier figurative<br />
style to abstraction provides the main focus of the<br />
splendid Pasmore exhibition at Pallant House Gallery,<br />
Chichester (until 11th June).<br />
Pasmore is one of the great twentieth century British<br />
Artists, able to paint both figurative and abstract<br />
masterpieces. Take the exquisitely beautiful The<br />
Quiet River: The Thames at Chiswick (1943-4); probably<br />
my favourite painting on teenage visits to the<br />
Tate. And turn round from the last room at Pallant<br />
to look back at Yellow Abstract (1960-61). To me, it’s<br />
just breathtaking. David Jarman<br />
'Spiral Motif Green, Violet, Blue, Gold...' by Victor Pasmore © TATE<br />
....53....
ART<br />
....................................<br />
Keith Tyson<br />
‘It’s just a simple process that I repeat’<br />
Portrait of Keith Tyson © Scott Douglas<br />
“I would like to do them<br />
every day, but I have three children<br />
and a complicated life, so<br />
I don’t really have that routine,”<br />
says Keith Tyson, the 2002 Turner<br />
Prize winner, on his series of<br />
Studio Wall Drawings. Since<br />
the project began in 1997, he’s<br />
produced “about 900” of them.<br />
“It sounds a lot, but over 20<br />
years it’s about one a fortnight.<br />
Not that regular, really.”<br />
The series began when he was<br />
one of five artists sharing a<br />
small studio in South London<br />
and wall space was especially scarce. His part of<br />
the studio had ‘one solitary wall for painting and a<br />
small area between the windows where I could pin<br />
a sheet of watercolour paper to a board and scribble<br />
down notes, ideas and sketches.’<br />
Reflecting on the beginnings of this ongoing opus,<br />
Tyson says: “All these nebulous ideas that hadn’t<br />
quite formed just went on to it. And when it got<br />
full I would take it off and put another piece up.<br />
So they would pile up in the corner like carpets.<br />
But then I noticed that they all had different styles<br />
as my mood changed through<br />
them. A curator came in about<br />
98 or 99 and he thought they<br />
were really interesting, and he<br />
was doing the Venice biennale<br />
and asked if I would do a room<br />
of them. So I started to think of<br />
them as works, and they began<br />
to evolve, and I started putting<br />
more imagery in, and eventually<br />
they became more like poems,<br />
or paintings, or a diary.<br />
“They are the way that I process<br />
things as well. I might be going<br />
through a particularly black<br />
phase in my life and be very depressed, and then<br />
it’s very therapeutic. At other times it’s difficult.<br />
To sum it up, it’s just life. You have good days,<br />
you have bad days, you’re inspired, you’re jaded.<br />
It’s not meant to be anything grand. It hasn’t got<br />
any message. It’s just a simple process that I repeat.<br />
“But as I do it for longer and longer periods of<br />
time it becomes imbued with some of the beauty<br />
and pathos of what it’s like to be a human being.<br />
Anyone who did this regularly would see a similar<br />
effect - maybe not as ambitious in scale, but I<br />
....54....
ART<br />
....................................<br />
Photo by Lizzie Lower<br />
think that’s what it’s supposed to be. It’s always<br />
been a longer project, and I kind of see it as one<br />
big work. When I’m gone, that’s what I’ll leave<br />
behind. Some kind of trace of my activity on earth,<br />
or the things that I experienced.<br />
“Everything in there happened. The things that<br />
are favourites of mine are moments that just<br />
happened - that catch you unawares. I remember<br />
after the Paris attacks I was in New York eating<br />
breakfast, and the New York Times had this headline<br />
about all this suffering and sending bombers<br />
into Syria, and in the corner was the weather<br />
forecast. So on that drawing, there’s a touch of<br />
the news in the corner, but I focused on reproducing<br />
the weather forecast. There’s this thing<br />
that the weather is always going on against our<br />
affairs, our individual lives. There’s something<br />
kind of Buddhist about this relationship between<br />
the clouds and the events. Those are the [drawings]<br />
that are most successful to me, that point to<br />
something transcendental. Even though they’re<br />
about specific events, there is something that draws<br />
you out of yourself. If there weren’t moments like<br />
that then I wouldn’t keep doing it. These are the<br />
moments that make you want to carry on. That<br />
I’ve just managed to grab something that’s bigger<br />
than me.”<br />
Lizzie Lower<br />
Turn Back Now, a show of 365 of Tyson’s Studio<br />
Wall Drawings, continues at Jerwood Gallery until<br />
4th June. jerwoodgallery.org<br />
‘Of Course I Know that you Don’t Exist’ 2015 © Keith Tyson<br />
‘Somewhere Near the Edge of the Visible Universe’ 2001 © Keith Tyson<br />
....55....
䠀 䄀 倀 倀 夀 䔀 䄀 匀 吀 䔀 刀<br />
昀 爀 漀 洀 愀 氀 氀 愀 琀 嘀 椀 瘀 愀 䈀 爀 椀 最 栀 琀 漀 渀<br />
瘀 椀 瘀 愀 洀 愀 最 愀 稀 椀 渀 攀 猀 ⸀ 挀 漀 洀
ART & ABOUT<br />
....................................<br />
ART & ABOUT<br />
In town this month...<br />
‘Hove Beach c1824’ by John Constable © V&A Museum<br />
‘There is not a healthy man in London, such is the state<br />
of the atmosphere and the mode of life,’ the painter John<br />
Constable once said. His wife Maria had tuberculosis,<br />
and the Constables spent quite some time, between 1824<br />
and Maria’s death in 1828, taking in the sea air at <strong>Brighton</strong>.<br />
During these stays, he must have worked prolifically,<br />
as he apparently produced around 150 works in the<br />
town. From the 8th, <strong>Brighton</strong> Museum shows upwards<br />
of 60 of these: paintings, drawings and sketches (more on<br />
pg 51). [brightonmuseums.org.uk]<br />
Ipek Duben has long been preoccupied with perceptions<br />
of her native Turkey, both from within and without.<br />
THEY / ONLAR, her latest work on the theme,<br />
has its UK debut at Fabrica from the 8th as part of the<br />
<strong>Brighton</strong> Festival. In the multi-screen video installation,<br />
the personal stories of several individuals allow<br />
us an insight into the interweaving strands of Turkish<br />
society, revealing a diversity of ethnic, religious and gender positions and how they perceive, define and tolerate<br />
one another. Dupek has said the work ‘sets out to define the Other’s Other. Prescribed identities marginalize<br />
people within their own ‘victimhood’, in turn breeding prejudice, even violence and denying some people’s right<br />
to life. In such a divided situation, how can ‘togetherness’ be realised?’ Continues until 29th May. [fabrica.org.uk]<br />
Ipek Duben at Fabrica<br />
Photo by Sergi Gorselleri<br />
‘Sway’ by Solange Leon and Dirk Engels<br />
From the 10th until the 23rd, ONCA Gallery hosts a two-week interactive community<br />
art project exploring themes of identity, migration and borders. Sway is the brainchild of<br />
Solange Leon, and is a response to the environmental and political challenges of recent<br />
times. Visitors are invited to add to a flock, or<br />
sway, of paper swallows suspended in the gallery,<br />
and also to add their voice to a new dawn<br />
chorus arranged by John Warburton. The<br />
fortnight includes workshops, performances, films and talks.<br />
[onca.org.uk] Cameron Contemporary has Menagerie until the 23rd;<br />
a group exhibition inspired by all creatures furry, feathered and finned.<br />
Featured artists include newcomers to the gallery Alice McMurrough,<br />
Clare Mackie and Andrew Squire. [cameroncontemporaryart.com]<br />
‘Oui, Oui, Oui’ by Alice McMurrough<br />
....57....
ART & ABOUT<br />
....................................<br />
In town this month... (cont)<br />
The DIY Art Market comes to The Old Market on Sunday the 30th.<br />
It’s a curated selection of works from upwards of 60 artists working in all<br />
sorts of media and from a wide range of artistic backgrounds. Go along<br />
for a rummage and find prints, ceramics, zines, illustration, risograph<br />
prints, photography, jewellery, comics, custom tees, homemade cassettes,<br />
records, artist books and all manner of creative knick-knackery.<br />
[diyartmarket.com]<br />
Methodology of the Edition: 50x50=75 is at 154–155 Edward Street until the<br />
20th. 75 members of staff and students from The University of <strong>Brighton</strong>, Nagoya<br />
University of Art and King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology in Thailand<br />
have collaborated on this international printmaking project, each making<br />
a 50x50cm print using a variety of traditional and digital techniques. The exhibition<br />
marks 20 years of exchange and communication between <strong>Brighton</strong> and<br />
Nagoya universities.<br />
Intimidated by art galleries? Bemused by art-speak? Too broke for Brâncusi?<br />
Fear not. The Vending Machine Art Gallery comes to Patterns<br />
in time for the Bank Holiday Weekend. Dispensing works from upwards<br />
of 35 artists - including <strong>Brighton</strong>’s Sophie Abbott - from just £20 a<br />
pop. Curators Tom and Hannah chose <strong>Brighton</strong> as their latest landing<br />
spot for its individuality and positivity and - no doubt - its love of a slot<br />
machine. From the 13th of <strong>April</strong> until the 26th of May.<br />
‘Sunny Beach’ by Sophie Abbott<br />
Out of town...<br />
Photo by JJ Waller<br />
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft is seeking <strong>Brighton</strong>ians to take part in an installation<br />
as part of their Festival programme. They need six colourful individuals who represent<br />
the city’s vibrant personality to model (clothed) for their Lunchtime Life Club; a series<br />
of lively life-drawing classes using an eclectic array of models. The drawing classes will<br />
take place at University of <strong>Brighton</strong>’s Grand Parade gallery, in Cathie Pilkington’s The<br />
Life Rooms installation. If you want to volunteer yourself to model, email a photo of yourself<br />
to lucy@ditchlingmuseumartcraft.org.uk, and tell her what makes your unique individuality<br />
worth capturing. You’ll also need to be available for three lunchtime sessions,<br />
either Tuesday 9th, 16th, 23rd, or Thursday 11th, 18th, and 25th of May from 12.30-<br />
2pm. All classes will be led by experienced drawing tutors. Go on, join in. [ditchlingmuseumartcraft.org.uk]<br />
....58....
ART & ABOUT<br />
....................................<br />
Susie Monnington at Pelham House<br />
From the 12th, at Pelham House in Lewes, there’s an exhibition by painter<br />
Susie Monnington, who has a technique that she calls ‘drift and draw’: making<br />
sketches while afloat in a canoe. Her field drawings - not exclusively made<br />
in canoes - are later used to create paintings. In them, Monnington tries to<br />
capture the shifts in mood which come with the changing seasons: ‘the stillness<br />
of winter, the chaos of spring and the intensity of high summer,’ as she has<br />
described it. [pelhamhouse.com]<br />
Turn Back Now, the epic show of 365 of Keith Tyson’s<br />
long-running series of studio wall drawings, continues<br />
at Jerwood Gallery (see pg 54). The venue also hosts<br />
Bride of the Sea, a one-room exhibition of works by Eileen<br />
Agar. Affiliated with the British surrealists, and a<br />
regular visitor to Farleys House, when pressed to define<br />
herself, she wrote: ‘If anything, I would like to call myself<br />
a humanist. Whatever you are going to do, you should<br />
do it here, on this planet, now. You must listen to your spiritual side and develop it. Listen to the things<br />
that whisper to you.’ [jerwoodgallery.org] Speaking of Farleys House, the former home of Lee Miller<br />
and Roland Penrose, it’s open again for the summer, with guided tours every Sunday. Admission is £12<br />
per person (tickets from reception; there is no advance booking). They also have a selling exhibition of<br />
Lee Miller’s prints coming up, at the Friends Meeting House in <strong>Brighton</strong>, as part of the Artists’ Open<br />
Houses festival in May (more on pg 27). [leemiller.co.uk]<br />
' Pigeon Post' by Eileen Agar<br />
© The Estate of Eileen Agar<br />
The Museum of Art at Towner<br />
Photo by Rohan Van Twest<br />
What was it like being an art collector before the globalised<br />
mass-media age? How would you go about finding out how<br />
many works survived by a particular artist, and where they<br />
all were? You may find yourself pondering such questions<br />
after visiting The Museum of Art, a show inspired by the eclectic<br />
collections amassed by 19th-century art enthusiasts.<br />
It continues at Towner Gallery<br />
until the 17th. If you’re<br />
very quick, there is still time to<br />
enter the gallery’s Sussex Open <strong>2017</strong>. Entries must be submitted by 4pm on<br />
the 2nd of <strong>April</strong>. [townereastbourne.org.uk] Finally, our congratulations to<br />
Simon Martin, whose appointment as Director of Pallant House Gallery<br />
was recently announced. Simon joined the gallery as Assistant Curator in<br />
2003, working his way up to the position of Co-director in November 2013.<br />
During his time at the gallery, he has overseen an acclaimed programme of<br />
exhibitions, which this spring includes Sidney Nolan in Britain and Victor<br />
Pasmore: Towards a New Reality (see pg 53). We very much look forward to<br />
seeing what plans he has for the gallery’s future. [pallant.org.uk]<br />
Photo of Simon Martin by Alun Callender<br />
....59....
<strong>April</strong> Lambing<br />
at MIDDLE FARM<br />
Witness lambs being born, and<br />
even help bottle feed some of them
WE TRY...<br />
....................................<br />
Hot-wax painting<br />
‘Aggressive is ok...’<br />
“It looks a bit…<br />
aggressive” I think<br />
aloud, taking a step<br />
back from the canvas<br />
I’m working on. “Aggressive<br />
is ok. Here,<br />
take the heat gun.”<br />
I’m learning the art of<br />
encaustic painting at<br />
Tony Owers’ studio<br />
in Hove. Sometimes<br />
called ‘hot-wax painting’,<br />
the art form was<br />
used by the ancient<br />
Egyptians to paint portraits of the deceased,<br />
Tony tells me. However, he became interested in<br />
encaustic painting while studying the far more<br />
contemporary work of Jasper Johns.<br />
“Hot wax has all sorts of appeals,” he explains.<br />
“It’s fast, immediate, spontaneous. It comes under<br />
a genre called ‘process painting’, in which the<br />
painter has less interest in the outcome and more<br />
interest in the process. You allow the material to<br />
do its own thing, so when you start painting you<br />
won’t have any set idea of what’s coming out.” The<br />
wax we’re using is a mixture of beeswax, paraffin<br />
wax and a setting agent, which is kept hot over a<br />
camping-sized electric hob while I’m painting.<br />
I started by gluing down a piece of dyed fabric<br />
onto my empty board. Then Tony dotted some<br />
ink around, and told me to move it about using<br />
the heat gun until it dried (the heat gun is a sort<br />
of industrial-looking high-power hairdryer).<br />
After that, I covered the board in clear wax, using<br />
a broad, coarse brush, painting it on in random<br />
strokes to create texture. Then Tony told me to<br />
pick a coloured wax,<br />
so I went for a garish<br />
red, and painted<br />
two thick, diagonal<br />
strokes across the<br />
board. And this is<br />
the part where I start<br />
to understand the<br />
‘process’ bit.<br />
Until now I’ve been<br />
doing what I’m<br />
told, to an extent,<br />
and trying to make<br />
something - if not<br />
particularly artistic - at least pretty. But the red<br />
has taken away any prettiness from my canvas, so<br />
I feel more free to just mess around with it. “Take<br />
the heat gun again, and you’re going to heat the<br />
coloured wax so that it blends into the clear wax<br />
underneath,” he guides. The heat has a much<br />
stronger effect than I expected, and the brush<br />
strokes in the red wax completely melt away. It<br />
pools in some areas and creates rippling waves in<br />
others. We experiment with dropping pigment<br />
on top of the wax, and blowing it around with the<br />
heat gun. Tony suggests looking in closely at the<br />
way it moves and bubbles and dries onto the wax,<br />
and it’s kind of captivating.<br />
I spend probably an hour on my piece, and it feels<br />
a bit like meditation; I’ve become so focused on<br />
each step that I stop feeling the time pass. And<br />
while the end result isn’t necessarily something<br />
I’d hang on my wall, it was a lovely way to spend a<br />
morning. Rebecca Cunningham<br />
Workshops for beginner level up to practising artists,<br />
call 07970613288. encausticworkshop.co.uk<br />
....61....
DESIGN<br />
....................................<br />
Yinka Ilori<br />
How do you turn a parable into a chair?<br />
Photo above by Veerle Evens<br />
Artist and designer Yinka Ilori is achieving great<br />
things with his enigmatic furniture, which is<br />
inspired by Nigerian words of wisdom. He may still<br />
be in his twenties, but Yinka is already preparing for<br />
his eighth solo show, in South Korea, and his chair<br />
A Trapped Star was recently acquired for the permanent<br />
collection at <strong>Brighton</strong> Museum & Art Gallery.<br />
Yinka says it’s an honour to have his work exhibited<br />
alongside personal favourites such as Salvador<br />
Dali’s Mae West Lips Sofa. “To be around designers<br />
and artists who I’ve looked up to a lot, to have my<br />
work around theirs, is amazing.”<br />
Yinka’s work found its way to <strong>Brighton</strong> after<br />
Fashion Cities Africa co-curator Helen Mears asked<br />
him to create chairs for their reading room. The<br />
team visited Yinka’s East London studio and were<br />
taken by his series If Chairs Could Talk, so they<br />
snapped up his favourite piece.<br />
Photo by Dan Weill<br />
....62....
DESIGN<br />
....................................<br />
The series is based on a Nigerian parable: ‘No<br />
matter how long the neck of a giraffe, it still<br />
can’t see the future’. “It’s quite a funny parable,”<br />
Yinka tells me, “but with a strong message… We<br />
shouldn’t judge people. We should always believe<br />
that people can change.”<br />
Yinka was born and raised in London to Nigerian<br />
parents, and many of his peers were also from<br />
immigrant families. “That was quite powerful,”<br />
says Yinka. “We shared this automatic love and this<br />
bond based on our parents’ backgrounds.”<br />
Having parents that are busy creating a sense<br />
of belonging creates a particular sense of being.<br />
Says Yinka, “I always respected [my parents], and<br />
thought I can’t ever say anything is hard enough<br />
because they’ve done one of the hardest things<br />
anyone can ever do: to start again... I struggled<br />
with the idea of fitting in, because I love being<br />
British, I love being born in London, but I always<br />
felt there was a lot more to me.”<br />
The subject of A Trapped Star is a boy Yinka was<br />
close to in year seven. His friend was brilliant at<br />
music but was also falling over: dealing drugs and<br />
bunking school. “He was trapped in this body of<br />
two people,” says Yinka. “He was trying to find this<br />
inner person, find out who he is.”<br />
The piece, constructed from a child’s and an<br />
adult’s chair bonded together, says Yinka, ‘is quite<br />
sentimental’. The larger, captain’s chair, represents<br />
the boy’s unfulfilled potential. “I really liked this<br />
person, he was intelligent. I just felt the system<br />
could have done a lot more for him, and for a lot<br />
of people.”<br />
While the stories Yinka tells can be touched with<br />
sadness, the works themselves are almost overwhelmingly<br />
joyous, playful, celebratory. Readymade<br />
furniture items, repurposed and reinterpreted,<br />
upholstered in allegorical wax print fabrics<br />
and sprayed vivid colours.<br />
“What I love about doing exhibitions,” says Yinka,<br />
“is seeing how people react to my work. Some<br />
people, their first contact is to smile… You don’t<br />
always walk up to a chair and smile. Well I don’t...<br />
actually, that’s a lie. I love chairs, so I’m always<br />
smiling!” Interview by Chloë King<br />
yinkailori.com<br />
Photo by Andy Stagg<br />
Photo by Dan Weill<br />
....63....
let<br />
with us<br />
We’d love to talk to you<br />
about how we can maximise<br />
income on your property.<br />
Best of <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
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best.of.brighton<br />
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01273 308779
TRADE SECRETS<br />
....................................<br />
David Jones<br />
Watch repairer<br />
I’ve been in this business for about 70 years.<br />
I’d been working as a mechanic for the National<br />
Cash Register Company, but then I put my back<br />
out. I was off work for a year, and while I was<br />
recovering I started doing watch and clock repairs<br />
from my home in Portslade.<br />
It started as a hobby, but then a man called Mr<br />
Scrace came knocking on my door, as he’d heard I<br />
was keen. He trained me and gave me most of my<br />
early jobs - mainly cleaning watches for seven and<br />
sixpence.<br />
I had a lucky break. My father worked for Remploy,<br />
which organised factory work for disabled<br />
people, and he was asked to move to Sussex to<br />
oversee a new watchmaking factory. It fell through,<br />
and the company had to sell off the tools and machinery.<br />
My dad bought me a lot of the equipment<br />
I needed to start out.<br />
I took my first shop in Sackville Road in 1952,<br />
in the building now occupied by Countryman<br />
Improvements. I’ve been in this shop since 1970.<br />
The business went through a tough time in the<br />
’70s. Customers wanted everything brand new<br />
and would just replace their watches when they<br />
broke. Now it’s picked up again, because a lot of<br />
people have taken a shine to traditional mechanical<br />
watches.<br />
My son Martin has worked with me since<br />
he was about 13. He wanted to buy a radiocontrolled<br />
speedboat and I said: “Well, if you want<br />
one, you’ll have to come and earn some money.”<br />
I started him on watches, but he always preferred<br />
working on clocks, so that’s his speciality.<br />
Watches are seen as a prestige item. Me, I’m<br />
not particularly interested in that. I wear a secondhand<br />
Tissot that I’ve had for about ten years. Tissot<br />
is a subsidiary of Omega and good quality. But<br />
as long as it keeps time, any watch is okay by me.<br />
Some of the most unusual watches we get in<br />
are by Verge and date from the 1700s. I have to<br />
say, my heart sinks a bit when someone puts a<br />
Verge on the counter. They’re hard to make any<br />
money from because you have to spend so much<br />
time on them.<br />
It’s an inventive job; you have to think out of the<br />
box to find solutions to problems. A lot of shops<br />
now just tell customers they can’t do the work or<br />
they send it back to the makers. I always try and<br />
fix it.<br />
You need good eyesight. Mr Scrace taught me<br />
how to drill balancestaffs, which are as thin as a<br />
hair. My eyesight is not as good as it was, but it’s<br />
good enough.<br />
I’m kept very busy. I didn’t used to open the shop<br />
til 11am. Now I come in at 8.30am and rarely go<br />
home before 10pm. It would be nice to have a<br />
little more time to myself, but I’d be a fish out of<br />
water if I gave this up. As told to Nione Meakin<br />
DL Jones & Son, 64 Blatchington Rd, Hove<br />
dljonesandson.co.uk<br />
Photo by Adam Bronkhorst, adambronkhorst.com<br />
....65....
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THE WAY WE WORSHIP<br />
This month, Adam Bronkhorst’s portrait series took him to a church, a mosque,<br />
a meeting house, a synagogue and a meditation room, all in one morning.<br />
We asked each of the religious figures he photographed:<br />
‘What’s your morning ritual?’<br />
adambronkhorst.com | 07879 401333<br />
Rabbi Hershel Rader at West Hove Synagogue<br />
“Every morning before I get out of bed, I say, not a prayer, but an affirmation:<br />
‘I thank you, living and eternal king, for giving me back my soul in mercy. Great is your faithfulness.”
THE WAY WE WORSHIP<br />
Deacon Julie Newson at St Luke’s<br />
“I get up, get dressed, take the dog for a walk, and then have porridge - always porridge.”
THE WAY WE WORSHIP<br />
Imam Uthman Jeewa at Almedinah Mosque<br />
“First prayers are at 5am so I have to wake up at half four.”
THE WAY WE WORSHIP<br />
Rachel Ramaker, Elder at Friends Meeting House<br />
“I’ve got two big windows in my bedroom, which I open up to say hello to the world.”
THE WAY WE WORSHIP<br />
Gen Kelsang Chodor at Bodhisattva Meditation Centre<br />
“We start the day with a group meditation at 7.30am.”
Food & Drink directory<br />
ADVERTORIAL<br />
Terre à Terre<br />
It’s spring! Visit Terre à Terre, the go-to for the most creative vegetarian food in <strong>Brighton</strong>,<br />
always delivered with a cheeky little pun. Open all day offering lunch and dinner options<br />
from small plates to three-course set meals, not forgetting their magnificent afternoon<br />
tea: multi-tiered savoury, sweet and traditional delights available from 3 till 5pm daily and<br />
lots of chocolate goodies! 71 East Street, 01273 729051, terreaterre.co.uk<br />
The Set Café<br />
The café is situated next to the The Set restaurant and offers laid-back snacks and small<br />
plates in a relaxed atmosphere. Eating off tables made from the old West Pier and overlooking<br />
Regency Square and the sea makes it an ideal place to have a quick lunch or night<br />
out with friends. Cocktails and craft beers are on hand as well as a wine list shared with the<br />
restaurant. 33 Regency Square, 01273 855572, thesetrestaurant.com<br />
The Better Half<br />
The Better Half pub has put the heart and soul back into one of the oldest public houses in<br />
the city, just off Hove seafront. There’s a superb wine and spirits list and some great ales and<br />
ciders on offer, as well as a hearty and wholesome menu to enjoy, making the best of local<br />
ingredients. The Better Half is relaxed, friendly and easy-going, making all feel welcome and<br />
comfortable when you visit. 1 Hove Place, Hove, 01273 737869, thebetterhalfpub.co.uk
FOOD REVIEW<br />
...........................................<br />
Holy Phok<br />
Casual street food with a two-week waiting list<br />
It is very probably easier to book<br />
a seat on a flight to Hanoi than<br />
it is to get one at Holy Phok, the<br />
22-seat, super-hip, Vietnamese<br />
eatery on Lansdowne Place. Four<br />
months after opening the place<br />
is still packed, and I’ve waited a<br />
fortnight for this table for two at<br />
six o’clock on a Wednesday night.<br />
Try as I might to get a third person<br />
added closer to the day (I thought<br />
you might appreciate me taking<br />
a meat-eater along, as I hear the<br />
chicken pho is truly life enhancing),<br />
they take a hard line on not<br />
overcrowding their diners, and<br />
fellow <strong>Viva</strong> vegetarian Rebecca<br />
had already called dibs. The menu<br />
might be casual street-food dining<br />
but the protocol, if you want to<br />
avoid disappointment, is strictly call<br />
ahead. Two weeks ahead.<br />
We start our meal sharing an order<br />
of ‘vesto’ - a pesto-style dip made<br />
with coriander instead of basil and<br />
peanuts in the place of pinenuts,<br />
with a good kick of garlic and<br />
chilli. It’s served with vast sesame<br />
rice crackers - all the better to<br />
shovel it in. Rebecca is the office<br />
bao bun expert and orders the (vegan) ‘bao wow<br />
tofu’ - two springy steamed buns stuffed with<br />
crispy marinated tofu, pickled carrots, cucumber,<br />
beansprouts and both peanuts and chilli sauce.<br />
Tofu can be underwhelming but, in this case, the<br />
wow of the bao is justified. Even the side of Vietnamese<br />
herb slaw is packed with zesty flavours<br />
and, whilst I know it’s rude to repeatedly help<br />
yourself to another person’s food,<br />
I have decided that she who writes<br />
the review gets to graze all plates.<br />
And I do.<br />
It is, in my experience, very hard<br />
to clear your plate when using<br />
chopsticks but I doggedly chase the<br />
last few peanuts around my ‘mockthe-squid’<br />
noodle bowl. It’s one of<br />
those clever dishes where a thing is<br />
masquerading as another thing. In<br />
this instance it’s oyster mushrooms,<br />
dredged in a turmeric-and-five-spice<br />
mixture, and fried until crispy. They<br />
turn out to be an upgrade on calamari<br />
which, in my memory, was so often<br />
like rubbery washers. The ‘mock<br />
squid’ is piled on cool vermicelli noodles,<br />
pickled vegetables, mint, basil<br />
(the aniseed Thai variety), coriander<br />
and lime dressing. The mixture of<br />
tastes, textures and temperatures is<br />
mouth-watering. The flavours are as<br />
bright on the tastebuds as the neon<br />
lights are against the dark teal walls.<br />
For dessert we share a salty fudge<br />
brownie - pleasingly more salt than<br />
sweet - and chilli chocolate ice cream.<br />
As we’ve been eating, 40 golden<br />
fortune cats have been waving<br />
down from the wall, neatly regimented around<br />
cerulean neon letters spelling ‘YOU LUCKY<br />
CATS’. Now I get what all the fuss is about. But<br />
it’s not luck you’ll need to eat at Holy Phok.<br />
It’s patience.<br />
Lizzie Lower<br />
52 Lansdowne Place (entrance on Western Road)<br />
01273 911551 holyphok.com<br />
Photos by Lizzie Lower<br />
....73....
RITUAL<br />
..........................................<br />
Photos by Horseshoe Photography<br />
....74....
RITUAL<br />
..........................................<br />
Tea Ceremony<br />
<strong>Brighton</strong> tea mistress Jennifer Maksymetz<br />
explains all...<br />
Tea ceremony stems from the Song Dynasty,<br />
an era that ran from 960 to 1279. The monks<br />
of southern China found that drinking<br />
steeped tea leaves made them more alert and<br />
able to meditate for longer periods of time.<br />
What began as an everyday practice in mindfulness<br />
developed over the centuries into the<br />
ritual we know today.<br />
I first learned about tea ceremony in 2000<br />
when I was living in Taiwan. My Taiwanese<br />
‘family’ didn’t drink alcohol so all our<br />
social occasions revolved around tea. When<br />
I moved back to Canada two years later I<br />
met Olivia Chan, a second-generation tea<br />
master whose dad opened the first teashop in<br />
Vancouver. She taught me how to perform<br />
formal gongfu tea ceremony. Gongfu means<br />
‘with skill’.<br />
The first thing one does when hosting tea<br />
ceremony is to prepare the space or chaxi,<br />
which translates as ‘tea stage’. You might light<br />
a candle or some incense, put out a cloth to<br />
place your tea set on, and add some favourite<br />
items - a beautiful flower, perhaps, or a poem.<br />
You would warm the cups and teapot and<br />
prepare the tea. In the spring, it’s traditional<br />
to drink green tea and other light teas as<br />
they are thought to be cooling to the body.<br />
In the winter, you might choose black tea or<br />
fermented pu-erh.<br />
Fill the teapot with water and let it overflow<br />
a little as a sign of abundance and gratitude.<br />
Pour into the cups immediately and as you<br />
do, focus on your wishes and hopes for each<br />
guest. Offer the tea to each person by placing<br />
the cup in front of them, either on a coaster, a<br />
piece of fabric or just on the table.<br />
There will usually be three to five infusions<br />
in total. The first and last are given in silence.<br />
In between, the host will lead the conversation;<br />
it’s part of their training. Don’t expect<br />
general chit-chat. It’s usual to talk about how<br />
the tea tastes, or to comment on the teaware<br />
or the flower the host has placed on the table.<br />
The whole process should be approached<br />
with reverence. Sitting down to tea ceremony<br />
is like stepping into a church, temple or<br />
mosque. When everyone has finished, it’s<br />
important to take a moment to appreciate the<br />
time you have spent together.<br />
Tea ceremony is a ritual that’s accessible to<br />
us all. You don’t have to have the fancy yixing<br />
teapot with the precise temperature of water<br />
and the ornate tea tray. It can be done over a<br />
mug of classic English breakfast tea in your<br />
kitchen. The point is to focus on the moment.<br />
You don’t look at your phone, or read the<br />
paper; you just sit, drink your tea and reflect.<br />
As told to Nione Meakin<br />
jadespringteas.com<br />
....75....
FOOD<br />
............................<br />
Edible updates<br />
Illustration by Chloë King<br />
Fair to say, as Edible Updates columnist, I don’t quite have Jay Rayner’s level of<br />
experience. But even so, I wholeheartedly agree with his recent (glowing) review<br />
of The Salt Room. The restaurant has just celebrated its 2nd birthday, and their fab<br />
new menu features delights like monkfish tiger’s milk and gurnard, romesco and octopus.<br />
A real star. Another delight is Edendum on East St, who are celebrating their newly revamped interior and menu.<br />
Look out for their new pizzettes and extended selection of sharing plates.<br />
Now, you must admit our city’s bloggers and journos do much to boost <strong>Brighton</strong> & Hove’s place on the food<br />
map, but too many critics can be... pesky. The Set get their own back with Too Many Critics on Apr 9th, in aid of<br />
Action Against Hunger. The likes of Andy Lynes (food writer and co-founder of <strong>Brighton</strong>’s Best Restaurants) and<br />
Fran Villani (Graphic Foodie) will take to the kitchen and it’s bound to be fun (tickets via Eventbrite).<br />
In other news, all eyes are on <strong>Brighton</strong> fave chef Tom Griffiths, of Flank fame, opening new restaurant Pascere<br />
with Amanda Menahem this spring. The Manor on Gardner St has been given a fresh new start as The<br />
Common - still serving ‘proper food, made with love’. Fatto a Mano have just launched a new gluten-free pizza<br />
option. Foodies Festival returns to Hove Lawns from Apr 29th - 1st May. Top of the pop-ups goes to Lizzie Bett<br />
of Yolk Catering at Café Rust on Sat 8th (contact: lizziebett@live.com). And last but not least, on <strong>April</strong> 28th,<br />
Conversations on Sugar at One Church promises an essential debate on one of the hottest topics in food (more<br />
on pg 77). Chloë King<br />
.................................................................................................
FOOD<br />
...........................................<br />
Conversations on Sugar<br />
A dangerous weapon?<br />
“In 1971, when we had a macrobiotic restaurant and the first naturalfood<br />
store, I wrote a book called About Macrobiotics, and in it I said,<br />
rather simplistically, ‘if sugar was discovered today it would be banned immediately and handed over to the<br />
military for weapons research’.” So says health-food activist Craig Sams. He’s since moderated his views, cofounding<br />
the Green & Black’s chocolate company with his wife in 1991. “But, ultimately,” he adds, “our energy<br />
comes from sugar - without it we’d be dead - so it’s good stuff in principle. It’s how we approach it that matters.”<br />
In Conversations On Sugar later this month, Craig will be discussing that approach with Jo Rallings of the Jamie<br />
Oliver Food Foundation, and Dan Parker from Sugar Smart <strong>Brighton</strong> & Hove - organisations both dedicated<br />
to increasing awareness of, and reducing consumption of, sugar nationwide. They’ve been making inroads with<br />
their pilot phase in <strong>Brighton</strong> & Hove.<br />
Obesity is rising; experts are telling us to drastically reduce sugar consumption, while advertisers are telling us<br />
otherwise. Slow Food Sussex have convened the panel to examine the evidence, navigate the conflicting advice<br />
and help to bring about a very necessary change. “It’s about everything in moderation,” Craig concludes. “You<br />
get more pleasure out of the things that you don’t overdo.” Lizzie Lower<br />
Friday 28th, 6.30-9pm, One Church <strong>Brighton</strong>, Gloucester Place. Tickets are available from eventbrite.co.uk<br />
....77....
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THE LOWDOWN ON...<br />
....................................<br />
Sunday Assembly<br />
A sort of church, ‘without the god bit’<br />
It’s a non-religious<br />
or secular community<br />
that, in<br />
<strong>Brighton</strong>, meets on<br />
the 4th Sunday of<br />
every month. There<br />
are about 50 Sunday<br />
Assembly groups<br />
around the world<br />
now. It’s a community<br />
of people who come<br />
together without<br />
having to have a<br />
common belief in anything. They just want to<br />
come together to celebrate life.<br />
The London one was the first to be set up<br />
by Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, two<br />
comedians. They came together with the thought<br />
that ‘wouldn’t it be great to have a church without<br />
having to have the god bit’. Initially it was<br />
nicknamed ‘the atheist church’, but very quickly<br />
they abandoned that headline, as it wasn’t just a<br />
place for atheists.<br />
I was brought up as a Christian, but realised<br />
in my early teens that I didn’t believe in the God<br />
I’d been brought up with. I used to think I’d love<br />
to go to the church at the end of my road and<br />
be among other people, be part of a welcoming<br />
community, but I didn’t feel comfortable saying<br />
or singing words in church that I didn’t mean.<br />
When I heard Sanderson speaking about Sunday<br />
Assembly on the radio, I thought ‘that’s exactly<br />
what I want’. So I expressed my interest, met<br />
with Sanderson and some interested local people,<br />
and eventually formed a committee of eight. We<br />
launched in September 2013.<br />
We were given a very loose template. There<br />
should be an interesting<br />
talk; something<br />
like a TED<br />
talk, something<br />
positive. There<br />
should be songs -<br />
that’s a big part of<br />
it. There should<br />
be a moment of<br />
silence and reflection.<br />
And, one of<br />
the most important<br />
bits, tea and cake<br />
at the end. That’s one of my favourite things, to<br />
hear people chatting who didn’t know each other<br />
an hour before.<br />
Everyone is welcome. Some people believe in<br />
God, some people don’t. We don’t promote one<br />
belief over another and we don’t discuss religion...<br />
we just focus on our common traits as humans.<br />
Our lowest turnout has been 75, and the highest<br />
250. There are always new faces, and I’m still<br />
staggered by how many new people come. We<br />
have an assembly every May in the Speigeltent as<br />
part of <strong>Brighton</strong> Fringe. They keep asking us back,<br />
so we’ll have our fourth this year, on 7th May. It<br />
gives us the capacity to have more people along.<br />
It’s really opened my eyes to lots of different<br />
things. Different values. Other people’s perspectives<br />
on life and faith and all sorts of things. One<br />
person told me that he thinks it saved his life. He<br />
was in a place that was dark and lonely when he<br />
came along; it just lifted him enough to see a way<br />
out of a really dark time.<br />
Lizzie Lower interviewed <strong>Brighton</strong> founding member<br />
Jo Wright<br />
sundayassemblybrighton.com<br />
....79....
RITUAL<br />
....................................<br />
Modern Pilgrims<br />
What’s your wholesome destination?<br />
When we made our first pilgrimage together,<br />
the ritualising of the walk that we did<br />
made it into a pilgrimage. We were walking<br />
a song that had been written by gypsies<br />
about a tragedy where 37 hop-pickers were killed<br />
on a bridge over the River Medway. When we<br />
got to the monument in the churchyard where<br />
they were buried, there was this couple there, and<br />
we asked, ‘Why are you here?’ They said, ‘We<br />
tried to find this monument ten years ago, but we<br />
couldn’t - we had three ancestors who died in the<br />
tragedy’. They hadn’t heard the song, and so we<br />
got to return it, not only to the land where the<br />
tragedy actually happened, but to the bloodline.<br />
It was amazing, the power of ritualising something,<br />
of having clear intention, and the very<br />
specific destination of the source of the song; the<br />
whole thing worked so well. What we realised<br />
was that this was pilgrimage: a journey on foot<br />
to a holy place - ‘holy’ being from the Old<br />
English word ‘halled’, which just means holistic,<br />
or wholesome. But having that focus changed<br />
everything, and thus was our quest for pilgrimage<br />
was born.<br />
There’s no description in Britain that says you<br />
have to go barefoot or not shave or brush your<br />
hair; what binds it all together is walking: pilgrimage<br />
is an unbroken journey on foot. There<br />
are four principles which we call the ‘SONG’ of<br />
pilgrimage: ‘S’ is for ‘self’, which means connecting<br />
with your physical self. We talk a lot about the<br />
spirituality of pilgrimage, but it’s a physical<br />
journey; it puts you in your body in a way<br />
that modern life often doesn’t allow. We’re of-<br />
....80....
RITUAL<br />
....................................<br />
ten so hemmed in by walls and deadlines and<br />
emails and mortgage repayments - all this stuff<br />
that fills our minds in modern life – but all of<br />
that kind of drifts away, and you find yourself<br />
thinking about things in a totally different<br />
way.<br />
The ‘O’ is for ‘other’: connecting with the other<br />
people you’re walking with. They become<br />
your mirror, showing you the ugliest and the<br />
best parts of yourself. The ‘N’ is ‘nature’; connecting<br />
with more than just the human world<br />
that we’ve created in cities, but everything. We<br />
are just one animal amongst the whole wave of<br />
life forms on earth, and it’s quite easy to forget<br />
that in our anthropocentric, human-built lives.<br />
Pilgrimage really strips that away.<br />
The final one is connecting with your sense<br />
of gratitude. Which obviously leads to the question:<br />
what, or who, are you grateful to? And we<br />
leave that up to people to decide.<br />
There are lots of groups today which will take<br />
you to places all over the country, but what we<br />
really try and tell people is that if you want to<br />
make a pilgrimage, you don’t have to take three<br />
weeks or follow a signposted track. You can simply<br />
work out for yourself where your wholesome<br />
destination is, the one that calls to you - it might<br />
be the grave of an ancestor, or a place where you<br />
first experienced something significant. Choose<br />
somewhere that feels like the right place, look<br />
it up on Ordnance Survey maps, make sure you<br />
plot a route that is away from the road, follow<br />
footpaths as much as possible, and simply make<br />
your own pilgrimage. You take a holiday, but you<br />
make a pilgrimage - it’s a creative act - so there’s<br />
a freedom within it to stretch to your own ritual<br />
needs. As told to Rebecca Cunningham by Guy<br />
Hayward and Will Parsons, founders of the British<br />
Pilgrimage Trust.<br />
They will be leading a two-night pilgrimage from<br />
Lewes to Eastbourne, leaving on <strong>April</strong> 7th, see<br />
britishpilgrimage.org<br />
....81....
MY SPACE<br />
....................................<br />
Pete West<br />
Mayor of <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
I’ve got two months to go. This is day 307 and<br />
my 724th engagement. My spreadsheet calculates<br />
that I might just get to 900 by the end of the year,<br />
if I keep this up.<br />
I’ve got a very long list of highlights. The first<br />
was abseiling off Peacehaven cliffs for the Martlets.<br />
That was properly scary. I won’t forget that in a<br />
hurry. Then there was a special moment at Pride.<br />
They were remembering all the victims of the<br />
Orlando massacre and it was very powerful to<br />
be invited to walk at the front of the procession.<br />
Tandeming down to Lewes bonfire, with 100 other<br />
people in the cycle train, was fun. And I love putting<br />
medals on runners when they come in. The mayor<br />
gets invited to start lots of things, but I like to be<br />
there at the end to celebrate the achievement.<br />
I’ve enjoyed meeting so many of what I call<br />
our newer communities. I’ve met people from<br />
the Filipino community who have been here for<br />
around 20 years and who mostly work in the<br />
health service. Many of these groups identify<br />
through their faith, so I’ve been to Coptic Christian<br />
celebrations and visited a Sudanese Muslim<br />
women’s group.<br />
One of the amazing things has been realising<br />
how diverse the city is and what a beacon<br />
of hope we project into the world. It’s not just<br />
our ethnic diversity, but our massive LGBTQ<br />
community too. People have come here because<br />
they feel a sense of sanctuary. They feel welcome,<br />
....82....
MY SPACE<br />
....................................<br />
Photos by Lizzie Lower<br />
at home, and not judged. All that diversity leads to<br />
all sorts of amazing things happening. The good<br />
thing about being the mayor is that you get a year<br />
to focus on that. Such positive news. I feel very<br />
humbled by that. I thought I knew the city well,<br />
but I’m still finding out new things every day.<br />
The mayor would usually have three of four<br />
charities, but I was faced with 16 or 17 applicants,<br />
so I’ve created a family of charities - some<br />
big, some small - and they’re learning from one<br />
another and working together. There is so much<br />
to embrace and support. People are motivated by<br />
charitable giving and volunteering. Capturing all<br />
that positive energy and getting people involved<br />
is so important. I started my year with a theme,<br />
‘active life’, and my first interpretation was from a<br />
public-health point of view. But it’s not just physical<br />
wellbeing that’s important, it’s mental health<br />
too, so my reinterpretation is to be as active as you<br />
can and involved.<br />
I’m often invited to thank volunteers, and I’ve<br />
had loads of receptions here at the town hall. It’s<br />
a great place to invite people. We’ve had lots of<br />
kids in too. Politicians are not highly regarded,<br />
but the mayor seems to be immune from that.<br />
Thankfully. Everyone seems to be well disposed<br />
to the mayor. Kids see you as something between<br />
a pirate and Santa Claus when you’re wearing all<br />
the gear. When I’ve captured their interest, I’ll<br />
take the group into the council chamber and ask<br />
them to imagine all the decisions that have been<br />
made there. I think that’s an important role for the<br />
mayor to perform - to strengthen an interest in<br />
democracy. As told to Lizzie Lower<br />
....83....
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<strong>Viva</strong> Lewes half page March 17 b.indd 1 13/03/<strong>2017</strong> 15:12
RITUAL<br />
....................................<br />
Prof Jon Mitchell<br />
Why do we have rituals?<br />
“I don’t think society can<br />
exist without rituals,” says<br />
Jon Mitchell, Professor<br />
of Social Anthropology at<br />
Sussex University. “The<br />
idea of human beings without<br />
ritual is a non-starter.”<br />
There is a caveat, though.<br />
Ritual is a very broad term.<br />
As well as the religious<br />
kind, there are secular rituals<br />
- which can be anything<br />
from a stag do to the State<br />
Opening of Parliament. Then there are personal<br />
rituals: superstitious habits, for example. Anything<br />
which is done partly for symbolic reasons can be<br />
called ritual - and even that broad definition doesn’t<br />
cover everything, apparently.<br />
Ritual, in this wider sense, is “absolutely central”<br />
to what it is to be human, Mitchell says. So why<br />
are we a ritualistic species? Is it a social thing, to<br />
do with bonding?<br />
“That’s an argument that comes from Emile Durkheim,<br />
a 19th-century sociologist-anthropologist<br />
who was interested in religion. He argued that<br />
at the core of religion is ritual activity, and ritual<br />
activity is about social bonding. It’s about bringing<br />
people together in the worship of something bigger.<br />
And that something bigger, he said, is simultaneously<br />
god and society. That when people come<br />
together to celebrate what they think is god, they’re<br />
actually celebrating the social bond that brings<br />
them together. A very influential view.<br />
“In some contexts, ritual is helping us to understand<br />
that we’re part of something bigger, and what the<br />
dynamics of that are. In the classic religious ‘rites of<br />
collectivity’, it’s about recognising that we’re all a<br />
part of a group, worshipping the same god.<br />
“I think that translates into<br />
[secular] ‘rituals of state’ as<br />
well, which are about recognising<br />
that we are part of<br />
something bigger: the state<br />
which is presiding over us...<br />
For example, the ritualization<br />
which goes into legal<br />
proceedings is about recognising<br />
that we’re subject to<br />
a legal framework which is<br />
shared and collective.<br />
“More recently, people have<br />
tweaked Durkheim’s idea, and started to recognise<br />
that ritual can be about challenging social cohesion,<br />
as well as constructing it. Ritual activity can<br />
be about protesting; it can be about going against<br />
the established social order. The kind of ways in<br />
which some of the alter-globalisation movement<br />
has started protesting in the last, say, 20-30 years, is<br />
often highly ritualistic.<br />
“And things like the Orange parades in Northern<br />
Ireland; to what extent are they about creating a<br />
cohesive group of unionists, and to what extent are<br />
they actually about communicating with the Catholics,<br />
and creating antagonism in relation to the<br />
Catholics? So it [can be] as much about out-groups<br />
as about in-groups.<br />
“Ritual is partly, I’d say, a search for an understanding<br />
of the social bonds in which we are located... It<br />
goes back to the basic Durkheimian idea that ritual<br />
is about constructing an idea of what ‘the social’ is,<br />
and how are we are placed as individuals within it.<br />
“We assume that, as humans, we are individual,<br />
separated, psychological beings. And so ‘the social’<br />
then becomes a problem. Actually ritual is about,<br />
precisely, dealing with that issue.”<br />
Steve Ramsey<br />
....85....
INTERVIEW<br />
....................................<br />
The whip system<br />
Recent Labour rebel Peter Kyle tells all<br />
Peter Kyle walked into the Labour whips’ office,<br />
accidentally interrupting a meeting. This was<br />
a few months ago, before he defied the party’s<br />
three-line whip over the Brexit bill. Perhaps the<br />
whips guessed what he’d come to talk about.<br />
“They all stopped and looked at me,” the MP for<br />
Hove and Portslade recalls.<br />
“The deputy chief whip walked over, walked past<br />
me, and opened the door to his office, without<br />
saying a word. I knew what I was supposed to do.<br />
I walked in... He slammed the door shut and said<br />
something quite frank and unrepeatable, along<br />
the lines of ‘what are you doing here, Kyle’, but<br />
using other words. I said to him ‘I’m intending to<br />
break the whip.’”<br />
If Kyle was nervous at this point, it would have<br />
been understandable. Years earlier, he had read<br />
Jeremy Paxman’s 2002 book The Political Animal.<br />
It portrays whips as pretty fearsome people -<br />
scheming, bullying, Machiavellian types. It says<br />
that, ‘for the average backbencher, the whip is the<br />
street-corner thug they need to get past on their<br />
way home from school’. It’s got some worrying<br />
stories about things whips have done to ensure<br />
MPs’ obedience.<br />
However, Kyle had also worked for Hilary<br />
Armstrong, a former chief whip, and “had a lot of<br />
conversations with her about how it changed…<br />
I think what [Paxman] was describing was an era<br />
that ended, pretty much, pretty soon into the<br />
Blair period…<br />
“I don’t think, in this day and age, the whips’<br />
main job is actually discipline anymore. I think<br />
the whips’ job is a much more sophisticated one<br />
now… ninety percent of what I’ve experienced<br />
from whips has been supportive. It’s much more<br />
akin to the role of an HR department in any<br />
other business.<br />
“So, for example, I will get a phonecall from my<br />
whip saying, ‘there’s a piece of legislation coming<br />
in in two weeks’ time; we think this is something<br />
that you’re really interested in and would have<br />
an interesting perspective on - would you want<br />
to speak on it? Would you like to go on the bill<br />
committee for it? Is there any information we can<br />
provide for you?’<br />
“There’ll be other times when my whip will call<br />
me and say, ‘we know that you are very, very busy<br />
at the moment, you’re under a lot of stress; is<br />
everything ok? Can we help you with anything?<br />
Is there any additional support that you need – in<br />
terms of information, lightening the load, that<br />
kind of thing?’<br />
“Whipping is far more about understanding the<br />
challenges and problems that MPs have, than just<br />
trying to squeeze them into one voting lobby in<br />
one division… It’s a much more sophisticated<br />
job than people realise; it’s a lot more supportive<br />
than people realise. As an MP, I’ve always<br />
been really grateful for it, although I’ve been<br />
at the receiving end of some pretty challenging<br />
conversations.”<br />
For example, that Brexit-bill encounter in the<br />
deputy chief whip’s office. “He tore into my argument...<br />
We had a conversation that lasted about<br />
half an hour. It ranged from quiet, deliberate,<br />
detailed, calm conversation, to the other extreme,<br />
where there were raised voices and… It was very,<br />
....86....
INTERVIEW<br />
....................................<br />
very challenging. Probably the<br />
single most challenging conversation<br />
I’d had since I’d become an<br />
MP. And I left slightly shaken, and<br />
physically pretty much sweating.<br />
“But the next day I went and did<br />
some interviews when I went<br />
against Tories on TV and the radio<br />
about what I was doing. And at that<br />
instant I was grateful for what I’d<br />
been through the day before, because<br />
my argument was sharper, I<br />
had a much deeper clarity of vision<br />
and clarity of purpose, and I felt<br />
like I’d been given a real challenge<br />
as to why I was doing it… I came<br />
away from that experience with<br />
more respect for the whips and<br />
what they do than I had before.<br />
“And at no point - I’m really keen<br />
to stress this - at no point did I<br />
ever feel that any of the whips, including<br />
the deputy chief whip, was<br />
disrespectful to me, or disrespectful<br />
to the people who elected me,<br />
or compromised my ability to act<br />
in the best interests of my community.”<br />
Which is not what one<br />
might have expected, if whips still<br />
behaved in the way that Paxman<br />
described in The Political Animal.<br />
“I think there has been a shift in<br />
the way that whipping has been<br />
done,” Kyle says. Though the<br />
whips, I gather, still carry a certain<br />
aura of intrigue. “The mythology,<br />
I think, around whipping is<br />
understandable… [Imagine] you’ve<br />
told people who work for you, who<br />
are friends with you, that you’re<br />
thinking of rebelling on a piece of<br />
legislation. Then you go into the whips’ office, they take you<br />
apart on the argument and it doesn’t stand up, and you cave in.<br />
If you leave and say, ‘they put the argument to me, and they’re<br />
right and I’m wrong’, you’re going to look like a right idiot.<br />
“But if you come out and say, ‘oh my god, they threatened me<br />
with this, that and the other; they threatened to take my office<br />
away, to bury me in committees, and not put money into my<br />
campaign in the next election’, and all that stuff, then people<br />
will understand it. So I think there is a… some people allow<br />
the reputation of whips to grow because it kind of suits their<br />
interests.” Steve Ramsey<br />
....87....
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THE LOWDOWN ON...<br />
....................................<br />
Search-engine optimisation<br />
With brightonSEO founder Kelvin Newman<br />
Apparently there are<br />
‘white-hat’ SEO techniques,<br />
which involve<br />
making a website<br />
better, and ‘black-hat’<br />
methods, which involve<br />
tricking Google into<br />
thinking a website’s better<br />
when it isn’t. Is that<br />
right? That’s a good way<br />
of approaching that… But<br />
there are lots of shades of grey between white and<br />
black hat. Often it’s about what your motivation is,<br />
and whether you can justify the approach you’re<br />
using if it wasn’t for search reasons.<br />
Google often updates its algorithms, possibly<br />
to make SEO harder. Is it like an arms race between<br />
Google and SEOs? I think a better way of<br />
thinking of Google’s role is like a referee. They’re<br />
refereeing between the different websites and saying<br />
‘we prefer this type of approach’. They’re trying<br />
to penalise the people who are diving, and reward<br />
the people who are playing the game in the right<br />
way. And Google do quite a lot to help people play<br />
in the right way; they clarify the rules, they toughen<br />
up the bans [for using black-hat techniques].<br />
Is Google a good referee? To continue that<br />
analogy, diving does sometimes work. But it comes<br />
with risks. You can get a situation - and this has<br />
happened in the past - where a major florist found<br />
themselves banned by Google for Mother’s Day.<br />
Does SEO involve creativity, or just applying<br />
standard techniques? There’s fundamental rules,<br />
changes you might want to make to your website<br />
based on keywords that people are searching for.<br />
So for a company that provides insurance for<br />
expensive bicycles, on one level, you go, ‘ok, we<br />
just need to reflect what people search for’. The<br />
obvious one might<br />
be ‘bike insurance’.<br />
But some people<br />
who are making<br />
those queries might<br />
be after motorbike<br />
insurance. So, do we<br />
optimise for ‘bike<br />
insurance’? Because<br />
you’re also then<br />
going up against<br />
the people who sell motorbike insurance - there’s<br />
a lot more competition, it’s a lot harder to rank<br />
for ‘bike insurance’ than for ‘bicycle insurance’.<br />
But are more people searching for it? Does it have<br />
a bigger value? Nitty-gritty decisions like that<br />
become the challenges, before you start to get<br />
into… For example, you might find that people<br />
search for ‘cheap weekend breaks’, but the people<br />
selling the weekend breaks don’t want to describe<br />
themselves as cheap. So how do you navigate that as<br />
well, before you then start to get into the technical<br />
challenges, where it’s like, I would like to make<br />
this change because this is what the search engines<br />
want, but the content-management system you’re<br />
on doesn’t allow you to make that change… There’s<br />
some fundamental principles, but the devil’s in the<br />
detail. Often it’s easy to come up with ideas that<br />
help search, but it’s much harder to actually make<br />
them happen.<br />
So SEOs aren’t pure coding nerds? You also<br />
need to understand psychology? Definitely; the<br />
best people sit between those two disciplines. It’s a<br />
technical creative discipline, so… it’s not an IT-type<br />
role, if you see what I mean. Steve Ramsey<br />
The brightonSEO conference is held every six<br />
months. The next one is on <strong>April</strong> 7th, <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
Centre. brightonseo.com<br />
....89....
Photos by Chloë King<br />
....90....
HISTORY<br />
....................................<br />
The Chattri<br />
‘Spiritual and physical protection’<br />
The Chattri memorial, situated<br />
high on the Downs near Patcham, is<br />
usually accessible only on foot. In the<br />
company of the Chair of the Chattri<br />
Memorial Group Davinder Dhillon,<br />
however, I am permitted to drive<br />
here over open farmland, and as the<br />
white dome appears modestly in the<br />
distance, I’m moved by the view.<br />
This unique memorial, named for<br />
the Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi word<br />
for ‘umbrella’, was unveiled by the<br />
Prince of Wales, Edward VIII, in<br />
1921. Today, it is adorned with saffron<br />
and blue cloths, representing the Hindu and<br />
Sikh soldiers cremated here. Three raised slabs,<br />
bordered by weathered poppy wreaths, mark the<br />
cremation sites. “Looking at it,” says Davinder, “the<br />
Chattri represents shelter from the elements. It offers<br />
spiritual and physical protection.”<br />
Some 12,000 soldiers from India were treated in<br />
<strong>Brighton</strong> during the First World War, and in many<br />
ways, the Chattri is a partner to the Gateway to the<br />
Royal Pavilion, erected the same year as a gift from<br />
India in gratitude for the work of ‘Doctor <strong>Brighton</strong>’.<br />
On this remote hill off Standean Lane, 53 Indian<br />
soldiers were cremated in traditional ceremonies.<br />
“They would have been sad but practical affairs,”<br />
Davinder tells me.<br />
The mourners had responsibility for gathering wood<br />
and building a pyre on which they laid the body, covered<br />
with clean white sheets. Prayers would be given<br />
and then the pyre would be set alight. Afterwards, the<br />
ashes would be gathered, taken to the sea, and scattered<br />
over moving water.<br />
The 1902 Cremation Act made it illegal to hold<br />
funerals to these rites, but it is thought that the King<br />
made an exception in respect of these soldiers. The<br />
inscription on the Chattri acknowledges<br />
it as the site where soldiers<br />
“passed through the fire”, in poetic<br />
reference to their reincarnation.<br />
The inscription, however, may be<br />
open to different interpretations,<br />
says Davinder. “It’s a creative<br />
phrase, and a good phrase, in my<br />
view, but sadly, you can interpret<br />
it as referring to all Indians, or<br />
just the Sikhs and the Hindus.”<br />
India at the time was pre-partition,<br />
and 19 Muslim soldiers, who<br />
also died in <strong>Brighton</strong> and were<br />
buried near Woking, should also be considered. The<br />
Chattri honours all the Indian soldiers, and also the<br />
Nepalese Gurkhas.<br />
Each year, on the second Sunday in June, a pilgrimage<br />
is made to the Chattri to honour them. Davinder<br />
took responsibility for this commemoration quite<br />
by accident. In 2000, he saw an article saying that<br />
the Royal British Legion was struggling to continue<br />
the service they had performed there since 1950. He<br />
offered to help make the teas, only to find himself<br />
tasked with the whole event.<br />
Davinder has since grown what was a dwindling<br />
gathering, to a meeting of over 500. People from<br />
across the UK come for a wreath-laying service<br />
and an exhibition, and each year, Davinder grows<br />
our connection to the Chattri, meeting people and<br />
learning new aspects of its story. It’s important and<br />
gratifying work.<br />
“It’s conceivable that the First World War, the Western<br />
Front at least, would have been lost without the<br />
Indians,” he says, “and yet it’s just a footnote in history.<br />
Part of my motivation, if you like, is to correct<br />
that imbalance.” Chloë King<br />
chattri.org<br />
....91....
SPORT<br />
....................................<br />
Lewes Ladies FC<br />
At the top of their game<br />
Photo by James Boyes<br />
We speak to Ash<br />
Head, media and PR<br />
manager of Lewes<br />
Ladies FC.<br />
Who are the<br />
Rookettes? Members<br />
of Lewes FC Ladies.<br />
The nickname for<br />
the men is the Rooks,<br />
so the women are affectionately<br />
called the<br />
Rookettes. Both teams<br />
play at the Dripping<br />
Pan in Lewes and share training facilities. Lewes<br />
Ladies play in the FA Women’s Premier League,<br />
alongside Tottenham, West Ham, Cardiff. We’re<br />
a small-town team playing against big-city clubs.<br />
We’re currently mid-table. The Rookettes recently<br />
beat the Women’s side of Leicester City, which<br />
means we’re through to the FAWPL Plate Final,<br />
at Brackley Town FC’s stadium on the 23rd of<br />
<strong>April</strong>. That’s St George’s Day, which works for us<br />
because our goal scorer was Georgia Bridges.<br />
How did you come to be involved? I used to<br />
watch the men and thought nothing of women’s<br />
football. One day, I was persuaded to watch Lewes<br />
Ladies, and I’ve never looked back. If push comes<br />
to shove, I’d watch the women over the men.<br />
Why is that? The men are a little faster, but both<br />
teams are equally skillful. I find the women’s game<br />
easier to follow, and you don’t get the petulance<br />
and aggression from players, or negativity from<br />
opposing fans. The women’s game is hard but fair.<br />
There’s a great camaraderie after the game. Plus,<br />
we get fantastic supporters.<br />
You’ve got some special events coming up...<br />
Yes, to highlight an immense injustice in women’s<br />
football. In 1921, the FA banned women from<br />
playing on men’s pitches, effectively killing off<br />
ladies’ football. The<br />
best-known team of<br />
that time, Dick Kerr<br />
Ladies, was formed in<br />
1917, during WWI,<br />
from workers at a<br />
Preston munitions<br />
factory. One Christmas<br />
Day match they drew<br />
a crowd of 10,000, and<br />
donated the whole<br />
gate (£38,000 in<br />
today’s money) to the<br />
war wounded. So Lewes Ladies are donating their<br />
entire gate for the last four matches of this season<br />
to local women’s charities, in their honour.<br />
Where do Lewes Ladies get their players? The<br />
pathway starts with the Newman Lewes Academy<br />
for girls, followed by the Foundation Squad, then<br />
the Development Squad. All are managed by John<br />
Donoghue and Jacquie Agnew, who is a Lewes FC<br />
director. (Four of the ten members of the Lewes<br />
FC board are women).<br />
How is the team funded? As well as gate receipts,<br />
both the men’s and women’s teams are funded<br />
from income from community ownership of Lewes<br />
FC (£30 buys a year’s membership, which offers<br />
members discounts in many Lewes businesses).<br />
Plus sponsorship of players by local businesses.<br />
What's different about Lewes FC? It’s an extension<br />
of Lewes, so it’s open and friendly. Beautiful<br />
views, great food, Harvey’s bitter, plus things like<br />
fantastic posters and hospitality beach huts. We’re<br />
family friendly, and visiting supporters always say<br />
they love the place. Interview by Emma Chaplin<br />
Home matches this month: Lewes Ladies v Charlton,<br />
Sun 9th, 2pm, Lewes Ladies v Coventry, tbc.<br />
The Dripping Pan, Mountfield Road, Lewes BN7<br />
2XA. £3/kids go free. lewesfc.com / @Rookmeister<br />
....92....
HEALTH<br />
....................................<br />
OCD<br />
Clawing back control<br />
Obsessive Compulsive<br />
Disorder (OCD) is<br />
essentially an anxietydriven<br />
condition, but like<br />
all repetitive behaviours,<br />
the compulsion may start<br />
to function like any other<br />
addiction. The OCD<br />
sufferer may feel they have<br />
to do increasingly more<br />
of their compulsive behaviour just to feel ‘normal’<br />
- just as the addict may need to take increasingly<br />
more of a substance to get the same hit.<br />
I see OCD as particularly ritualized: ‘If I do<br />
this, I’ll avert some disaster; I won’t be powerless’.<br />
There’s often a superstitious element to it, doing<br />
whatever it is - checking, cleaning, counting - a<br />
certain number of times.<br />
One very important, basic emotional need is<br />
the need to feel some control over one’s life<br />
and environment. You see that need come out<br />
in all sorts of ways, sometimes maladaptively<br />
- perhaps as perfectionism. Someone with an<br />
under-quenched need for feeling control and<br />
autonomy in their life might try to get it through<br />
unrealistic, unreasonable means. You could say that<br />
religions are society’s attempt to control capricious<br />
nature, to give a sense of control. There’s a lot of<br />
uncertainty about the world, and in such times we<br />
try to claw back some certainty: at least I know<br />
how many times I’m doing this activity, at least I<br />
can control how long I’m showering for.<br />
We could say that with OCD, as with any<br />
problem, there’s a need trying to get through,<br />
but the ‘solution’ can become a problem. An<br />
analogy would be someone drinking engine oil in<br />
the desert because they’ve no water and they’re<br />
desperate to hydrate.<br />
There’s a lot of<br />
research that actually<br />
suggests that the more<br />
you check, the less<br />
reliable your memory<br />
of what you’ve done<br />
becomes. Once the<br />
imagination is involved,<br />
there’s almost a falsememory<br />
effect: you become less sure whether<br />
you’ve checked. It’s a good idea to check once or<br />
twice whether you’ve turned the gas off or locked<br />
the door, but spending four hours doing it isn’t<br />
great. I teach people to trust their perceptions<br />
more. One exercise I do is I clap my hands, and<br />
then get them to close their eyes and tell them<br />
to imagine me clapping my hands. Then I really<br />
clap my hands, and I get them to tell me which<br />
one was real. They always identify the real clap.<br />
That would be the beginning of trusting their<br />
perceptions rather than imagining.<br />
People often understand that it’s irrational,<br />
but that can make it worse - the knowing. It’s the<br />
arousal that’s the problem: it’s the emotion driving<br />
the thinking rather than the other way round, and<br />
you can only appeal to the rational, cognitive part<br />
of the brain once the emotions are calmed down. I<br />
think that a therapeutic skill that’s necessary across<br />
all models is the ability to sit calmly with someone,<br />
so that the emotional temperature can drop.<br />
You can’t clear the back garden until the wind’s<br />
dropped, otherwise the leaves will keep getting<br />
whipped up. An emotionally heightened state<br />
makes extremists of us all. As told to Andy Darling<br />
by Mark Tyrrell, psychology trainer and psychotherapist<br />
uncommonknowledge.co.uk<br />
....93....
Illustration by Mark Greco<br />
WILDLIFE<br />
....................................<br />
Ghost Moths<br />
Spectral dancers of the South Downs<br />
Last summer, as the sun set over the South Downs,<br />
I was wandering through a wood on a twilight hike.<br />
Through the trees I noticed about a dozen figures<br />
decked out in brilliant white gathering in a small<br />
clearing. I hit the floor and, buried amongst the<br />
bracken, watched as other white figures joined them.<br />
Each individual slowly started swaying, swinging<br />
hypnotically like a pendulum suspended on an<br />
invisible wire. The whole silent scene felt eerie,<br />
otherworldly, ancient. I was spellbound and barely<br />
breathing, scared I would be discovered and this<br />
mesmerising performance would end. As some of<br />
the figures swung fixed to their stations, others oscillated<br />
wildly, whirling and crashing into each other.<br />
The light was fading fast, and as my surroundings<br />
dissolved into shadow, the swaying white figures<br />
seemed luminous against the gloom. Then, as the<br />
full moon rose and illuminated the glade, the action<br />
slowed, the figures retreated and I was left alone in<br />
the gloaming.<br />
The ritual I had witnessed was not the sinister<br />
secret ceremony of some part-time pagans. This<br />
was the dance of the ghost moths: elaborate<br />
courtship behaviour performed by the male moths<br />
on warm summer evenings across Sussex. That<br />
moonlit glade had been temporarily transformed<br />
into a miniature moth disco where these incredible<br />
insects pirouetted, pranced, swaggered and strutted<br />
in an attempt to attract a female. More Saturday<br />
Night Fever than The Wicker Man.<br />
And, like tiny Travoltas, the male ghost moths<br />
know that to stand out on a crowded dancefloor,<br />
you need a flashy white suit. Their wings are whiter<br />
than white and look as though they have been<br />
hand-painted with Tipp-Ex. The female ghost<br />
moth has a more subdued wardrobe and wears pale<br />
yellow wings with elegant orange swirls. Males also<br />
have another trick up their sleeve (or in this case<br />
their trouserlegs). Their hind legs contain furry<br />
scent-brushes which release pheromones into the<br />
air which act as an overpowering aphrodisiac. Once<br />
the ladies are lured it’s the individual moth’s dancing<br />
which seals the deal. It can be murder on the dancefloor<br />
and scuffles start as the males try to assert their<br />
positions. It’s a behaviour known as lekking and the<br />
dominant dancers will lead a lucky lady of the lek<br />
into the surrounding shadows.<br />
In days gone by the moth’s mysterious, ethereal<br />
waltz was interpreted as something supernatural and<br />
it has been suggested that the dance of the ghost<br />
moth gave rise to local legends of fairies and will-o’-<br />
the-wisp.<br />
For many years I believed that an empty dancefloor,<br />
Stevie Wonder’s Superstition and a splash of Brut 33<br />
was all that was needed for the ladies to fall under<br />
my spell. Yet the ghost moths seemed to have more<br />
success. I knew I should have gone for the white suit.<br />
Michael Blencowe, Sussex Wildlife Trust<br />
....95....
We believe we can create any shape<br />
garden room, please challenge us!<br />
25 Year guarantees on materials<br />
T E L : 0 1 2 7 3 4 7 9 9 9 8<br />
E M A I L : I N F O @ M O D P O D S . C O . U K<br />
W W W . M O D P O D S . C O . U K<br />
嘀 椀 瘀 愀 䰀 攀 眀 攀 猀 䤀 猀 猀 甀 攀 ⌀㈀ 㜀<br />
䌀 漀 瘀 攀 爀 椀 洀 愀 最 攀 戀 礀 匀 椀 洀 漀 渀 攀 刀 椀 氀 攀 礀<br />
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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 ⸀<br />
琀 ⸀ ㈀ 㜀 アパート アパート アパート 㠀 㐀 ㈀<br />
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<br />
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
RITUAL<br />
....................................<br />
Street Festivals<br />
Identity parades<br />
Rituals don’t just take<br />
place in buildings associated<br />
with faith or religion.<br />
<strong>Brighton</strong> and Hove has<br />
created many rituals on its<br />
streets to mark the passing<br />
of the year. On the<br />
seafront alone there will<br />
be some 19 events, from<br />
the marathon to speed<br />
trials and the somewhat<br />
slower Classic Car Run.<br />
They sit in an annual<br />
calendar of public parades<br />
and happenings held each<br />
year to celebrate who and<br />
where we are.<br />
During its long history, our annual Pride day has<br />
transformed from a political march to a ritual celebration<br />
of our gay community that is intrinsic to<br />
the city’s culture. <strong>Brighton</strong> and Hove also held the<br />
first Trans Pride in the UK, now in its fourth year.<br />
We’re coming up to two of the biggest of our<br />
calendar rituals - the <strong>Brighton</strong> Festival and Fringe.<br />
This year’s Festival guest director, Kate Tempest,<br />
has urged that some of the programme be delivered<br />
out in the community, and this year we’ll see<br />
events in Whitehawk and Hangleton, with Your<br />
Place creative hubs alongside a range of outdoor<br />
events. Festival season starts with one of the most<br />
joyous of our annual street marches, that of the<br />
Children’s Parade, this year on the 6th of May.<br />
The Fringe can be found on the streets all month<br />
long, particularly on New Road, with its weekend<br />
smorgasbord of performances.<br />
Where the Children’s Parade marks the beginning<br />
of springtime and the fairer conditions that<br />
make outdoor ritual<br />
more pleasant, Same<br />
Sky’s Burning the Clocks<br />
marks our mid-winter<br />
celebration. <strong>Brighton</strong>’s<br />
White Night events<br />
marked the ritual turning<br />
of the seasonal clock with<br />
a city-wide programme<br />
of events late into the<br />
night on the last day of<br />
British Summertime.<br />
Donna Close, Arts Officer<br />
at the Council at the<br />
time of White Night, and<br />
one of the driving forces<br />
behind it, comments:<br />
‘The best festivals always have an association with<br />
ritual, not least in the way they mark key points in<br />
the year and the passing of the years. White Night<br />
was conceived as a modern-day ritual.’ With ritual<br />
comes myth and a quick affection, and Donna<br />
recalls, ‘You have to give space for the audience<br />
to bring themselves to the experience in order for<br />
it to be meaningful. Just after the fourth and last<br />
White Night event, someone was saying that they<br />
had gone to the first ever White Night in the mid-<br />
1990s… success!’<br />
None of these festivals can take place without the<br />
people of the place, and they take a huge amount<br />
of volunteer hours and enthusiasm. Much loved<br />
rituals, such as Kemptown Carnival, operate in a<br />
precarious setting and are reliant on community<br />
support. <strong>Brighton</strong>’s Trans Pride is also in need of<br />
help this year - find them on Facebook to see if<br />
you can help.<br />
Cara Courage<br />
Photo by Lizzie Lower<br />
....97....
INSIDE LEFT: CHURCHILL SQUARE, 1973<br />
.....................................................................................<br />
This photo of the old Churchill Square Shopping Centre was taken in 1973, a year when young men were uncomfortable<br />
if their hair didn’t cover their ears (or their flares their toes); when <strong>Brighton</strong> buses were stripy and<br />
colour coded; when the Albion were languishing in the old Third Division; when <strong>Brighton</strong> & Hove was still<br />
more than a quarter-century away from becoming a city. We reckon it was taken from a flat in Sussex Heights.<br />
Churchill Square was built in 1967 in the place of a neighbourhood which incorporated a number of highstreet<br />
shops, lots of terraced houses, several pubs and an underground church, all demolished in the cause of<br />
progress. At the time it was the height of modernity, but it very soon became dated, after indoor shopping malls<br />
became all the rage, and within just 31 years the complex itself was razed to the ground, with the new covered<br />
centre built in its place.<br />
It’s worth pointing out a few details you can see in this picture. The sculpture in the back (south) open space<br />
was called Spirit of <strong>Brighton</strong>, and was designed as a water feature by the experimental artist Bill Mitchell, who<br />
pioneered the use of recycled materials in his work. The water soon stopped running, and the statue became<br />
a folly-like feature that a lot of townspeople loved to hate, its base filled with crisp packets and empty cans:<br />
few mourned it when it was demolished in 1998 along with the rest of the Centre. The space around it<br />
was poorly designed and became something of a wind-tunnel, though it was a popular area for the first<br />
generation of skateboarders.<br />
The round building at the other side of the complex was, when the photo was taken, a wedding-dress shop<br />
called Solitaire: white-clad mannequin-brides looked out from each of the rectangular first-floor windows.<br />
Other businesses located in the complex (and thanks here to members of the <strong>Brighton</strong> Past Facebook page<br />
for the information) included British Home Stores (one of the ‘anchor’ stores at the front), Tesco, The Green<br />
Shield Stamps shop, Slims Café, Orange Hand, Hall of Cards, Cox’s Hi-fi, Savory & Moore Chemists, Habitat<br />
and Bejam. At the top of the picture, just left of centre, you can see the Union Church, as featured in VB#49.<br />
When the Square was rebuilt in 1998, the Council decided it would keep the name given to it in 1967:<br />
Winston, of course, was partly schooled down the seafront in Hove. Alex Leith<br />
Thanks to the Royal Pavilion and Museums for the use of this picture. brightonmuseums.org.uk<br />
....98....