Brighton is my America away from America. It's a little San Fran. I have made three trips and I'm sure I will keep on going back. On my most recent visit, I had the pleasure of Kate's company, who thought I should bring all my visitors given the charm and creative energy of the place. She may have loved it because it seems to clearly be the least English town in England (from what I've seen so far anyway) but she didn't say that, so it's hard to know for certain.
After a perfect day of sunshine, ocean, artesian booths, fish, chips and mussy peas, we had no choice but to head home. On the train back to Penge, there were three blokes (English term for regular guy) sitting on the seats across the isle from us. One of them looked like Tony Randall, but he wasn't as charming. It could have been due to his level of intoxication, which was apparent or it might have been because he used the term "queer" like he had to spit it out of his mouth for fear of the bad taste it might leave. I told him he looked like a celeb, but I couldn't quite place it. Kate piped up and mentioned the odd couple, which he wasn't familiar with, but which must have sounded fishy to him, as he quickly used the term queer to infer he was not. Whatever his motive, it made me think of him as less than enlightened. One of my New Year's resolutions is to work on being less critical and quick to jump to conclusions, but so far I am making a slow start. It's already April and I am still deciding things about people I don't know. Baby steps. This is going be a life long challenge. It's sad really because I am so nice in other ways.
The point of all that was that I learned some things from said three regular guys: Brighton has the highest per capita heroine use and trade than any other city in England, Brighton seems friendly and safe but that is an allusion as the drug trafficking requires an extra police force just to manage all the related issues and Brighton is ten years behind America, just like the rest of England (I should mention that Kate and two of the three blokes agreed with this centiment whilst (English word for while) Tony Randall guy and I thought that America was too ethnocentric to rate themselves next to the rest of the world...and that made me like him sort of, but not enough to think he was nice or interesting). The most decent seeming of the group of three, as he was leaving the train, asked an interesting question that neither Kate nor I could address. Does anyone know why America has named the European sport of football, Soccer? Of course we couldn't call it football (although did American football come before soccer?) because we already have American Football...but why soccer?
Despite the abundance of drug users and traffickers alleged to live in Brighton, it is a lovely little seaside town that is English enough to remind you America is still 9 hours away by direct flight, but American enough to keep desperation at bay when you're sick to death of the whilsts, the blokes, the lorries, the parcels, the crisps, the Yorkshire pudding, the rubbish and the pollution of London.
After a perfect day of sunshine, ocean, artesian booths, fish, chips and mussy peas, we had no choice but to head home. On the train back to Penge, there were three blokes (English term for regular guy) sitting on the seats across the isle from us. One of them looked like Tony Randall, but he wasn't as charming. It could have been due to his level of intoxication, which was apparent or it might have been because he used the term "queer" like he had to spit it out of his mouth for fear of the bad taste it might leave. I told him he looked like a celeb, but I couldn't quite place it. Kate piped up and mentioned the odd couple, which he wasn't familiar with, but which must have sounded fishy to him, as he quickly used the term queer to infer he was not. Whatever his motive, it made me think of him as less than enlightened. One of my New Year's resolutions is to work on being less critical and quick to jump to conclusions, but so far I am making a slow start. It's already April and I am still deciding things about people I don't know. Baby steps. This is going be a life long challenge. It's sad really because I am so nice in other ways.
The point of all that was that I learned some things from said three regular guys: Brighton has the highest per capita heroine use and trade than any other city in England, Brighton seems friendly and safe but that is an allusion as the drug trafficking requires an extra police force just to manage all the related issues and Brighton is ten years behind America, just like the rest of England (I should mention that Kate and two of the three blokes agreed with this centiment whilst (English word for while) Tony Randall guy and I thought that America was too ethnocentric to rate themselves next to the rest of the world...and that made me like him sort of, but not enough to think he was nice or interesting). The most decent seeming of the group of three, as he was leaving the train, asked an interesting question that neither Kate nor I could address. Does anyone know why America has named the European sport of football, Soccer? Of course we couldn't call it football (although did American football come before soccer?) because we already have American Football...but why soccer?
Despite the abundance of drug users and traffickers alleged to live in Brighton, it is a lovely little seaside town that is English enough to remind you America is still 9 hours away by direct flight, but American enough to keep desperation at bay when you're sick to death of the whilsts, the blokes, the lorries, the parcels, the crisps, the Yorkshire pudding, the rubbish and the pollution of London.
posted by rebecca | 12:10 PM
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