How I Turned into an Acorn.

Benefits Street, Brighton.

February 7th, 2016.

BAN 'EM!!

I accepted, from the day I arrived in Brighton, that The Laines - what's left of the ancient cobbled heart of the city - has been given over to tourists of the better-padded variety.

That's ok.  They have to go somewhere.  Let them eat in overpriced venues and buy the antique jewellery none of us can afford, and go on walking tours wherever their Michelin guides take them.  We love 'em because the tourist dollar makes our world go round.

But not the North Laines, people.  Is nothing to be real any more?

Because the reality of Brighton, apart from the glittering, bijou jewels of bespoke individualism in The Laines, is a tad more tawdry. 

Homelessness is rife here.  As are penniless design students, actors, photographers, eccentrics, and seamy street people.

Creativity is rife here too, though and ways to help pay one's part of the rent in the crowded shared digs around the city are inventive, provoking and affordable.  People share their last rollie, and their classes, with beggars; buskers from music schools all over the area provide everything from jazz quartets to mobile music-halls; and talking loudly to oneself is considered unremarkable. Cheap, cheerful and characteristic of an open society - the North Laines are where Brightonians go to keep themselves beating in time with everything that makes Brighton individualistic.

Or at least it was all that. But with the closure of the Dumb Waiter the last of the places where buskers and business-owners, actors and artisans could share a wobbly table by the window, and get relief from a steady diet of pot-noodles, has disappeared. At this last outpose one could chat to everyone around, or gaze out the window watching the passing parade, and hoping the landlord didn't pass by. People ate with miss-matched cutlery and odd mugs; there was plentiful reading matter, a clientèle who all knew - and often helped out - the staff; and food came in portions and proportions that would stick to the ribs all day.

But the crepuscular creep of gentrification is, dismally, beginning it's eventual encroachment on the Brightonian heart of the city. Restaurants with clever names and awards from foodie organisations have begun to seep into that heart and clog its arteries.

Second-hand shops have slid into euphemism, and first morphed to "pre-loved" at slightly less bargain price shortly after I arrived.They have now labelled themselves uniformly as "vintage' by entrepreneurs who don't know the Sixties from the Nineties but don't let that get in the way of new and refined price-tags.

Giggling Gretchens and up-market Ursulas now take photos of local inhabitants as prolifically as they undoubtedly did the paid characters at Disney-world - as if the denizens of the North Laines too are paid to wander endlessly round in costume for the day to add atmosphere to sneaky selfies or blatant iconicism. (Oh yes look - here's the Taj Mahal, and here's The Great Wall of China, and here's a person from Brighton-England.)

So Daft Donald's plan for a wall around America has struck a chord with me.  I know how to lay bricks and build a bungaroosh wall - so let's re-claim the North Laines. We could apply an acid-test (well this IS Brighton) to all visitors: Anyone owning an SUV while living in the suburbs; those with in excess of three major credit cards; people who stay in hotels rather than Backpacker's hostels; people wearing pumps with heels; those who have never had a baked bean pass their lips; and ANYONE who uses hair-spray; will be turned back at the wicket-gate and escorted safely to The Other Side.

Anyone want to man the barricades with me?  Everyone's welcome.

Just don't wear hair-spray.