Category: Brighton

I'm rubbish at getting around to things. Back in January, adactio linked to a video about making dead-drops saying "I should get out there and make a few drops in Brighton". A few days later he posted a flickr set, dead drops in Brighton, showing him with wordridden and briansuda setting up some USB dead-drops. There was also a map to the locations. (For more information, there is some background/discussion of USB dead-drops on metafilter, as well as a catalogue website).

This weekend, about 2 months later, I finally got round to checking the dead drops with Vicky Matthews (who took the photo below). It was a sad story.

The drop in Kensington Street was unreadable. We couldn't find the one in Ship Street Gardens, only a couple of places where it might have been. The town hall drop was destroyed:

We only found the location of one of the two seafront drops. As Pier-to-pier complained frequently, salt air is no good for hardware, and the drive was too corroded to read:

I wonder what was on the drives. It's a shame our expedition didn't achieve its goal, but we did enjoy a beautiful misty day on Brighton seafront.

Today was my first day back at work after my holiday. I arrived home last Wednesday and then had one of those Brighton weekends, that starts on Thursday and continues until Sunday evening. It was Kate's fault: her birthday was on a Friday, which meant it had to be celebrated all weekend. I was jetlagged and came down with a cold, which made the whole thing harder than it should have been.

Drunken poets

Kate and Quiet Choir busking at the pavilion

Hungover on Friday afternoon, I read about the effects of nuclear war on Brighton

Ellen introduced me to a close friend of hers

On Saturday night, Kate played a song with Gentlemen and Assassins

Cheesecake!

All weekends should be like that.

Yesterday was my friend Sarah's birthday. She wanted to celebrate with a dip in the sea. So I decided to join her.

The sea was very still but it was cold. We only stayed in for about a minute, long enough to do a few strokes. I went swimming with Mr. Spratt on New Years' Day a few years ago but this felt far colder. As I came out my skin was tingling, but I felt invigorated and refreshed. We dried off, changed and headed to the Sidewinder for a drink. I'm glad I did it.

Ellen sent me this photo yesterday, taken outside Infinity Foods:

The coming weekend is going to be one of the largest in Brighton's year. Saturday afternoon sees Beach of the Dead IV, Brighton's zombie parade, which starts 3pm at the station. Then, that evening, from 6pm to 7am the next day is White Night.

I will be appearing at The Marwood Cafe at 9pm, giving an extended version of my talk, How to Escape from a WW2 POW Camp. This is as part of the 13 Steps event, curated by David Bramwell. More details here. I'm currently working on my talk and adding various anecdotes that had to be cut from the version of the talk I gave at the Catalyst Club in January.

White Night will also feature a workshop from Ellen de Vries as part of the What is Enlightenment event at the Brighton Bhuddist Center from 10pm-Midnight, with a workshop on making 'little books of enlightenment'. 

A likely highlight of the night will be Jake Spicer and the Brighton Life Drawing Sessions with their Enlightenment Project. Three carts will travel around the town carrying life models and drawing materials. The dry-run for the project, at London's Big Draw, appears to have gone superbly, and there are photos on Kate Kamikaze's blog.

Saturday is going to be a long, exciting day. I will be spending Sunday, Halloween, slumbering and watching horror movies.

Walking through the North Laine on Friday night, I found this decorated lamppost on Kensington Gardens. The sign read: IT IS LAURA THE LAMPPOSTS BIRTHDAY TODAY!!! PLEASE SIGN THE CARD 

The attached card had been filled with messages (along with several pictures of cartoon cocks). It is magical, weird things like this that keep me in Brighton.

The weather has definitely grown colder over the last week. Summer is long gone and the first hints of the coming winter are visible. Down on the seafront last night they were packing away the carousel. I had a couple of memorable rides on the roundabout this summer. 

Spring seems a long way off.

From A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander: "It is a mark of success in a park, public lobby or a porch, when people can come there and fall asleep."

This sign, in Brighton's Pavilion Gardens, makes me sad. 'No Cycling, No Littering, No Sleeping…'

 

I like to think of Brighton marina as a JG Ballard theme park:

 

But there are also homages to other writers, such as this cthulhoid horror:

 An approaching storm:

 Walking past St Bartholemew's, the light caught the building in just the right way that the windows glowed:

An abandoned door:

This inventive plant-pot is in the garden at the bottom of Trafalgar Street: