Benefit Street, Brighton.

Aside from the beach, The North Laine area  is probably one of the most recognised and photographed areas of Brighton. Calenders, travel books, Beautiful Britain pamphlets & posters, Lonely Planet guides - there's always pics. of the outdoor cafes, fabulous graffiti, unconventional people and crazy inventions. I love the North Laine - but I tend to look at it through different lenses each time I'm there. At The Regency Town House we have a huge data-base of knowledge about how North Laine grew, the people for whom the houses were built, those which doubled as schools, pubs, grocers, dressmakers, and information about all the people who lived in them.    But what about this? Did people move into these from Brighton slum areas? Was this the first time some people had proper kitchens instead of dank cellars? Did they luxuriate in heated rooms for the first time? And did they feel a sense of release and even Overlordship, gazing down into the crammed and thronging

                                             I’m going to invoke “the personal is the political” mantra here to excuse my departure  from my avowed stance of being a-political. Not only because I find that the elephant in the room is becoming uncomfortably intrusive; but because we are all, actually, shit-scared. But most people don't want to say it out loud. Because right there, last Wednesday morning, was when the  political  cast a huge dark cloud over my personal. On Wednesday EVERYONE , including the contestants, was at Stage One – total shock. On  Tuesday people everywhere had that euphoric moment on first awakening: - thinking it had all been a nightmare or that JR wasn’t dead. They all experienced the same cold chill when they realised it wasn’t a nightmare; or a game show.  The world had changed. Now, five days later, people have, as people will, begun to work out their own strategies for coping with this change. And  American politics has quietly sl

I utterly refuse to consider people other than Saul on the road to Damascus as having had epiphanies.   Neither Newton nor Archimedes claimed one  and both of them knew of the concept. Nor can Joan of Arc reliably be credited with one, because she was in all probability schizophrenic. An epiphany demands clouds parting, trumpets, and heralds at the very least. Plus a loud booming voice off-stage. So I seriously question people who say they got all this action on the top of the No.5 bus on the way to the Pizza parlour. It may be obvious by now that I did not have an epiphany this afternoon.  But, having been so vehement about repudiating the tendency people have lately of having epiphanies on a semi-regular basis and without visible effects and cloud parting; I find myself bereft of a way to say what happened to me this afternoon. Perhaps it was a revelation? But that still sounds faintly ecclesiastical – so...no.  Yet I honestly felt like the deep fog around

                                                   Unlike, presumably, the AQA and those who have made the decision to circumvent our children’s education, I have actually lived in a country – a very large and populous country – where more than two generations  have been brought up in utter ignorance of their history, their place in the world, or any sense of the aesthetic. They live their entire lives unmindfull of the fact that beauty exists as anything other than an artificial and economic imperative. As a result of having shriven from their environment all that is not logical, practical and dependant for its value upon re-sale worth, their country has become a barren, featureless landscape; their cities the most polluted concrete units in all the world; their children unable to project interest beyond the sealed barrier of Self. Artsy-farty whaffle?  Then let’s look at the fact that, though mainly concealed, the suicide rate per capita is estimated to be the highest w

If it were just that I saw a teaser from Michael Moore's latest film, I could have fitted that in, and still made tea. If it were the joyous news that I feel vindicated I could have conveyed that with the help of Victorian punctuation (scads of exclamation marks) and exclamations to put before them. But neither of those really address the point,: - which is that this deserves to go viral and all the committees, and the panels, and the interest groups and the Departments (those with the capital d - like health, anti-social behaviour, mental health, education,) should be made to hand in their cell-phones and secretaries and advisors at the door, and be made to sit down and watch this. And then answer questions from the public. I would think that most of us know that Finland has a pretty good education system.  But even if not, have you ever met a Finn who couldn't speak English, who wasn't well informed about world affairs, who didn't love to laugh - with or withou

The thing about totally losing your mind is that it takes so damn long to find it again. Even when you think you may have finally rounded it all up, it's really difficult to know how to put it back again neatly.  Like trying to stuff a double duvet into a single duvet cover. I never thought I'd find myself blogging about  this, because I had so many other fish to fry. I wanted to start tilting at windmills once again, and fighting the good fight, and speaking out  But I couldn't. Because I couldn't admit that actually, I couldn't. Because I haven't been fixed yet. People were tactful and supportive when, in May last year, I finally lost the plot completely, But no-one can go on being tactful and supportive indefinitely. It is a very finite state.  Making Allowances wears a bit thin after a while too. So you try to remember who you were when you were well. Then you remember that while you may have switched off all the lights last May, you'd

I expect it would sound suspiciously like conspiracist nonsense to link the current climate in America to the education system? Yet, deconstructed from  an historical perspective, it becomes an inevitable outcome. Because from the beginning of civilisation, education has always been a jealously guarded tool by which and through which, the elite rule. In our culture, it led  to the marginalisation of women, the power of the Church, both absolute monarchy and democracy, and a rigid class system. Because of our violent nature, we ruled through, and gained power by, violent means. Thus, keeping the lower sectors in complete ignorance ensured a steady supply of human cannon fodder; not merely quiescent but, when prompted, actually eager to make the ultimate sacrifice.  Universal education would lead to a questioning of this ancient system. It also led to various reforms and the eventual demand for education to be made the Right, enforced by law, of every person in the land. Ric

I’ve been giving this some thought lately.  Mainly because I kept thinking that this man was surely a ridiculous chimera; or that  at any moment Michael Moore was going to appear and admit that the whole Drumph-bumph is merely a satire for a new movie. Then I realized that people were actually supporting this bombastic buffoon. And I started reading their posts on chat-rooms and forums. I’ve engaged with one or two in various fora  and realized that they were exactly the same kind of people as Trump. Thousands of little MiniMe Trumps.  They truly think he is America’s Great White Hope.  And they unblinkingly accept every ever word he says as the truth. So the big no-no which lurks at the back of every conversation with a Drumph-supporter is that they are, in great droves, badly-educated.  It would be tempting to write them off as predominantly working-class or dirt-farmers – except that, as the man himself tells us – some of them are really important people. From all

It’s not true, of course.  Making a generalization about an entire culture is never going to work.  Besides which, those who can afford to go travelling to other places in the world  have usually managed to fork out the odd few thousand in order not to make  children in foreign climes run from them in terror  when they open their mouth to say Bonjour. So it’s not travelling Brits who gave rise to our reputation as having the worst teeth in the world. (And yes.  We STILL have it.) It’s those one encounters inside the country that present sights not usually seen in developed countries. People with one lone, yellow fang dangling down from their jaw; those with mouths like old pianos – yellow-brown with black spaces in between; people you would hate to sit across from at a dining table; and those whose gnarled and twisted teeth seem to defy all logic and give rise to acute curiosity about whether they actually ingest all food through a feeding tube? And me. A scant fe

I've made it a rule, throughout my career as a writer, never to write something when I'm really angry.  Or, at least, not to send it until I've gone through it again with a cooler mindset..  But then again, I've never liked rules. So yeah: I'm angry.  And yeah - frankly my dears, I don't give a damn: I'm going to press the "Post" button as soon as I'm finished. Because I've just come from this site:  http://bit.ly/1nn0xLU   and the discussion concerning proposed further marginalisation of the tired, the poor, the huddled masses. The discussion centres around what   comes across as a rather flippant idea to further deprive the lowest sector of society - people who are unable to work because they are - either temporarily or permanently - looney tunes.   In Machiavellian terms we - the citizens of la-la Land, are a pretty safe bet.  We have no power.  We are not "organised".  We have no Voice. We are also conveniently si

To-day I gave a talk at the Sallis Benney Theatre. I had to.  It was the only way to tell if I was really getting better or if I was just on a temporary, manic, phase. Quite the conundrum. I explained in the first post of this year that I had had a rather long-drawn-out mental breakdown last year  (which was honestly earned!). It involved realising that I had to take on a whole new life. And I didn't know if I was going to be able to do that, or if it was even going to be possible. I was starting to write again - but did I have my mojo back? Or had it taken another turn? There was only one way to find out so I did it. And the answer was: - hell yeah! From the moment I got up from my seat it was as though all the events of the past three years had never happened: I was back in my skin. Because the brief had been to talk about something one felt strongly about, or had a passion about - and I was suddenly spoilt for choice! Women in the canon of English Literature? China an

The sounds of tweetering in the dovecotes for once drowned out the maniacal screeches of the seagulls to-day, as Britonians and Hove Actuallys waited for the local council - The Brighton and Hove City Council - to hand down its budget. Oh, it'll be debated and argued about for weeks to come so I shan't bother with what's in the budget.  What both delights and dismays are what isn't in the budget - for which everyone living on Benefits Street, Brighton, also gives 'umble thanks. What DIDN'T go in was the inhumane idea of adding to the current paucity of public facilities by cutting out even more. Obviously made by people who are never more than a few minut es away from their cars - and home. But rousingly cheered by anyone who has ever got caught short walking home through Brighton and Hove to get to the other side...before you even get to the road home. It can be agonizing; and accounts for the pungent smells that assail one from various walls, garden

(I couldn't come up with a Benefits Street Brighton pic. that was apposite. This, therefore is a photo of the legendary Sanitary Squad on Brighton Beach in the days before public conveniences, ridding the beach of  waste matter.) And yes, I shuddered when I wrote the post title. But then I reminded myself of the fact that if it hadn't become such a popular topic I wouldn't be writing this at all. Ergo I'm the only one wincing like a Dickensian spinster at the word itself. The subject of human solid waste was never  avoided by our ancestors who  had no prudery about the human body and its workings, until Victoria. But then neither had the subject of body lice or ear-wax been shunned until Victoria either. Yet body-lice and ear wax are not thrown about with such gaiety and abandon, as is the subject of, I would argue, the least appealing of all normal bodily functions. It's understandable that, as an emancipated society who has torn asunder the shack