I’ve seen it from a distance going into and out of Victoria. I find it jarring, incongruous and unsettling. Now I know why…
One is London’s architectural masterpiece, the other is the jewel in Pyongyang’s crown. Can you tell which is which?
Recorded on 24th March 2012. It was a beautiful spring day to sit on the beach, people watching, listening and relaxing.
It struck me that Brighton Beach isn’t a peaceful place between Spring and Autumn. You can’t hear the sea and places to sit are limited. The sound of chatter, the crunch of pebbles, the music from the pier, from bars, from bands all conspire to change the soundscape of what we imagine a beach to be. And yet there’s still something soul-enhancing about the blue horizon, often cloaked in a thin haze.
The issue of internet trolling and anonymity has hit the headlines recently, thanks to a convergence of events.
Firstly, there was the conviction of particularly unpleasant characters who posted abusive and derogatory comments about the recently deceased.
Then this week, Richard Bacon came forward with a TV programme in which he tries to track down an abusive, unpleasant and threatening troll who has been targetting Richard and his family for years.
And finally, an idiot on twitter began a racist tirade which delighted in the near-death of a footballer on the pitch. His posts reached the upper end of UK twitter trends, and at the time of writing it appears he has been arrested. Disturbingly, at the height of the trend his home address was posted by others.
My wife and I don’t do Valentine’s Day. We’d rather be romantic at other times, when it’s not expected of us. Instead, we try to find each other the worst, tackiest, most offensive or most unpleasant card possible. And we’re pretty competitive…
First up, card A - Twilight. The only possible person who’d buy this is a teenage girl. And why on earth would a teenage boy want to receive this? Vampire Love = Necrophilia + Bestiality. Terrible. And it cost £1.99 from ASDA.
And in the opposite corner, card B - Country Cottage. A foul, twee, abomination bought from eBay and with the distinctive musty smell of attic. Only a slightly senile old person, who also smelled musty, could possibly enjoy receiving this.
UPDATE: The lines are closed, the votes have been counted and verified. I’m pleased to announce that Twilight is the worst card this year. Twilight was my choice for @apennyforthem, though I thank her for finding me something absolutely horrible too.
Every Thursday morning while growing up, my mum and her sister would take my nan shopping. While they were out me, my big brother and my cousins would go for a walk with my grandfather (usually to the cemetery).
When the shoppers returned, lunch would be cooked. A meal which forms the smell and the taste of my childhood: cheese and onion dip.
I’ve no idea where this recipe came from. I certainly never heard of anyone else who ate it when I was growing up, but it must go back a long way. My mum says she was also brought up on it and whilst her own grandmother didn’t actually cook it (she was an invalid), it was certainly cooked and served in my mum’s grandmother’s house by nan. I imagine it’s a war recipe, the sort of thing housewives threw together from what was available. It might even go back further.
Googling the ingredients brings up nothing. Outside of a northern town, it doesn’t seem ever to have existed. Outside of my family it appears to have died before the 1970s. So here’s how to make it. I’d love it if you tried. I think it’s delicious – though nostalgia plays a part. For best results, eat two to a chair at my nanny’s dining table in the kitchen, with numerous people arriving and moving on during lunch hour and a pot of strong, hot tea keeping your mug filled. Read the rest of this entry »
The following letter caught my eye, in today’s Brighton Argus:
THE explanation for such common “light-patterns”, as seen by Lisa Stewart (Letters, February 3), is simple.
The key to this is in her letter itself. The sunlight is being reflected from the glass of a double-glazed window onto an opposite wall. This often cross-pattern is formed by the glass panes not being entirely flat.
If you watch them for a short period you will see that they move, because of the Sun.
I couldn’t find the original letter, but it appears they’re talking about a strange phenomenon I experienced myself. I took the photo, below, on Gloucester Place last year. It’s obviously a reflection, and it took me 5 seconds to find out where it was coming from. Simply by standing in the light and looking, I pinpointed it as a particularly pretty pattern caused by a sunny window opposite.
A further poke around the Argus website revealed that the writer of the original letter, Lisa Stewart, has been banging on about this for at least a decade. She first crops up in June 2002, with a full-blown article about these strange and mysterious lights.
UPDATE: The final addendum to this post is that we’ve had a personal email from Mr Dennison, offering a full and sincere apology – which we have, of course, accepted. Whilst we still have issues with how the council go about major works, the incident on Twitter is finished.
If you’ve read any recent posts, you’ll know that I’m unhappy not only about the extortionate bills from the council, but also their single-minded righteousness and refusal to enter a meaningful discussion.
The middle-management gnome at the centre of this was one Mark Dennison, who just sent me the following tweet:
mark_dennison (Mark Dennison)
@electroweb you will be glad to know i have left the Council now so you can moan to someone else……have fun
6:51 PM Jan 7th via web
Good to know that the concerns and feelings of residents and taxpayers are taken seriously by council employees. What a warm feeling to know that those whose wages we pay, through tax and the charges on my property, hold us on such high regard. What wonders this does for the level of trust between leaseholders and council!
Update: Mr Dennison deleted his tweet almost immediately. He’s clearly a man who stands by his words.
Update 2: By the morning following this tweet, Mr Dennison’s entire Twitter account had been deleted. To be clear, although many people got in touch with him in support of us, there was no hounding or abuse and everyone was polite.
In futile exasperation, I’ve written the following letter to Mark Dennison of Brighton & Hove City Council. He’s the man at the top when it comes to their ludicrously expensive, random and unstoppable maintenance of my home, and I’m sick of trying to get any answers (or any kind of sympathetic response) from him. He’s the consummate local council middle-manager, lets put it that way…
A wise use of 20p, York Castle Museum
