It was the last Sunday in September, it looked like it was going to be a pleasant day, so I decided on a day trip to Brighton.
Walking down to the seafront, I popped into Waterstone’s. No display of Aleph latest book from Paulo Coelho either in the window or in-store, but at least when I asked, they were at least aware. But then this is Brighton, if not aware in Brighton?
After a wander along the seafront, lunch outside Iydea. I usually enjoy lunch at Iydea, but not this time, and not helped by smoke being blown into my face. It would be good to make these tables No Smoking.
By now not much open, though still very busy in the street.
I was shocked at the number of businesses that had closed in North Laine since my last visit in the spring on Easter Sunday. Maybe it had been a bad summer. There were people about but maybe holding on to their money.
I always enjoy looking in Eco Logic Cool. They always have interesting and unsual products and always interesting music. I asked, to be told The Cinematic Orchestra.
Infinity Foods always have excellent baked bread, but I was too late.
Earlier, on my way to the seafront, I had dropped in Grocer and Grain. Very delicious local apples. A very busy and popular shop.
From Brighton Pier I was able to watch the sun going down until it disappeared behind clouds.
From the bookstall on the seafront I picked up The Shack, The Pilgrimage and Manual of Warrior of Light.
I said Paulo Coelho had a new book Aleph and spoke of the experence of Waterstone’s. I was told Paulo Coelho very popular and his books sell very quickly.
Factory chimneys belching out smoke, slate-roofed rows of terrace houses, the Victorians also gave us parks.
In Lincoln there are two parks, Boutham Park and the Arboretum, two commons, South Common and West Common, all are within the city boundary.
In Guildford only a few minutes walk away from the bustle of the High Street lies the tranqulity of the Castle Grounds and the River Wey.
In Hackney, Vicky Park as it is known locally, or to give it its more formal name, Victoria Park.
Often these parks had bandstands. On the seafront at Brighton a bandstand has recently been restored. In the park adjacent to the Royal Pavilion you will be lucky to see a blade of grass in the summer, especially on a hot day in the shade.
Although very popular, parks are at risk, as greedy developers eye them and corrupt councillors and planning officials agree to their sale.
Schools used have extensive playing fields. Many have now been sold off.
Green space is important for our health. It may be stating the blindingly obvious, but those whose outlook is green space are healthier than those who look out on a brick wall.
Ambient light level is important. That in many residential homes is too low, not surprising many of the residents turn into zombies.
It is not only physical space that is being lost, privatised, so too is our cultural space.
People no longer make a choice in what they wear, what they listen to, their culure has been stolen, turned into a mass-produced, mass-marketed commodity and sold back to them.
Watch a Nigerian rap group and they are churning out the same crap gangster rap, wearing the same gangster clothes as their counterparts in New York. They could be clones, maybe they are.
I travel on a bus and cannot see out of the window because the bus has been turned into a gigantic billboard.
In the London riots and the riots that spread across the country, the must have was the latest mobile phones and trainers. Worth is determined by what we wear. At the end of the day merely footwear and a communication device but such has been the brainwashing and theft of culture.
The only good to have come out of the riots and looting were the people who in the aftermath came out and cleaned our streets, who recognised the importance of common space.
What we saw was less not knowing right from wrong, what we can get away with, but lack of an internal sense of morality, lack of respect for those around us.
But is this surprising when Members of Parliament fiddle their expenses, when companies like Vodafone fail to pay their taxes?
It should be a moral imperative that companies like Vodafone pay their taxes, that is their contribution to the common good. If not they should be seen for the social paraiahs that they are, shunned. And yet we see George Osbourne promoting them in India, David Cameron in South Africa.
Town centres, market squares grew organically. They were where roads met, rivers were crossed, or if on trade routes where there were springs and wells. Local people set up trade, outsiders brought their goods in on market days. These were public spaces, where people paraded, partied, protested. None of the latter is possible in a shopping mall!
The only people who have talked a modicum of sense post-looting have been the Archibishop of Canterbury in the House of Lords last week and the Bishop of Manchester on Sunday.
Resurrection for the Insurrection
23rd April — 1st May
Location: St. Anne’s School, Lewes
Imagine another world. A world where people matter, where the outstanding issues of the day, climate change, community resilience and workers rights are addressed and we can look forward to a more radical and sustainable future.
Imagined it? Good. Now come to the South Coast Climate Camp this Easter and help us build it.
The South Coast Climate Camp is popping up in Sussex to highlight the climate criminals along our coastline. We have drilling for oil in the South Downs National Park, an agrofuels plant proposed for Shoreham Harbour, proposed airport expansion and of course the incinerator in Newhaven.
All this climate criminality not only adds to the outrageous levels of greenhouse gases spewing into the atmosphere, it also despoils our National Parks and generally charming countryside. It ain’t right. Something needs to be done.
The South Coast Camp for Climate Action will take place from the Easter weekend through to the May Day celebrations somewhere on the beautiful South Downs in Sussex. Through living, eating and working together, we hope the camp will act as a positive catalyst for change, transforming both the camp community and the communities around it.
We aim to create a safe space where people can meet, share ideas, plan actions and then go do them.
At the end of the week we shall, as tradition dictates be taking part in a mass action. This will form part of Brighton’s May Day celebrations where many direct action groups from around the country are converging in the seaside resort for a very special day of direct action.
Workshops are invited from, UK Uncut, Plane Stupid, SolFed, Smash EDO, No Borders, Grow Heathrow, Transition Towns, the Rebel Clown Army and many more. Skill shares will be held on permaculture, guerilla gardening, workers rights and tactics of resistance, cooking, building rocket stoves, bee keeping & community organising: among other stuff.
We will share the knowledge and experience we have gathered over many years with local community groups to leave a lasting legacy: a truly radicalised community. The camp itself is just the sowing of the seed.
I do not expect to arrive off a train in Brighton to find myself detained on the street in a police kettle! But that is what happened today.
I got off the train from Victoria a little after midday. Something was up. Police everywhere.
Before I knew it, I was held in a police kettle.
We can not let you leave, you are part of an assembly. No I am not, I said, I am walking down the road, or at least I was until I was held against my will on the street.
The officer pointed to the pink slip in my hand which I had been handed moments before as justification for my being detained. The pink slip informed me off my legal rights. Thus having a pink slip informing me of my legal rights if held on the street is justification for holding me on the street! If this is not political policing I do not know what is.
To be fair to the police, they were not heavy handed or aggressive, and they did have a problem of keeping apart two opposing demonstrations, and they did say once the other lot moved off, I could leave.
I was asked if I was press. Had I said yes, maybe I would have been allowed to leave, but I was honest and said no.
It was then announced everyone was being escorted to Victoria Gardens. Not having any wish to be escorted to Victoria Gardens, not even knowing where it was, I again tried to leave. This time I was stopped by a young inexperienced officer who did not appear to have two brain cells to rub together. He refused to let me leave on the grounds I should have left earlier!
I would have raised the matter with whoever was the senior officer in charge, but I spied a gap in the police lines, and so quickly exited.
I then walked to nearby Grocer and Grain. Outside in the side street, six police vans, including one parked on the corner on the double yellow lines.
I left Grocer and Grain about an hour later to continue on down to the sea front only this time I encountered the opposing demo, a bunch of moronic chanting thugs, otherwise known as the English Defence League.
Repugnant as they may be, English Defence League has the right to protest, to march. It does not though mean we have to listen. Let them march, let everyone see what an obnoxious bunch of clowns they are.
The counter-demo was naive to the point of stupidity. It was to inflate the importance of the EDL to a degree they neither deserve nor merit.
I thought kettles were now illegal and could only be used in extreme circumstances. This clearly has not yet filtered down to the Boys in Blue in Brighton.
We seem to have skipped Spring and gone straight to Summer.
Tuesday last week it was 26 degrees in London. Friday it hit 27 degrees, well ok, 26.9 if you wish to be accurate. Saturday it was 28 degrees at Wisley Gardens just outside Guildford, the hottest April Day since 1948!
Two weekends ago it had been hot, I had thought of going to Brighton. The following day I think it was the Independent showed Brighton beach packed.
Sunday I decided I would go to Brighton. Yes, it would be hot, but there were no rail works.
I arrived at Brighton Station a little after midday, to find as I walked out of the station I had walked straight into a police kettle and they were not going to let me go. [see Kettled in Brighton]
It was then announced we were being escorted to Victoria Gardens. I was already being unlawfully detained, now it seemed I was to be kidnapped.
Kettles have been ruled illegal, to only be used in exceptional circumstances, but it seems that has not yet filtered through to the Boys in Blue in Brighton. Luckily I was able to slip through a gap in the police lines.
I called in on Grocer and Grain, then continued on down to the seafront but not without first encountering an EDL demo, a bunch of chanting morons. Luckily this time I was not kettled.
The seafront was packed. I walked along to the derelict West Pier, then back to Brighton Pier, but it was too packed to walk along the pier.
I noticed on the seafront there was to be a performance of a Passion Play starting at 4pm. I was not sure if I would be back in time as by now I was very hungry and was heading to North Laine for something to eat.
After eating and wandering around North Laine, though by now almost everywhere was closed, I found the Brighton Farm Market was open, not usually open on a Sunday, but by now all the stalls were finished. I was told it was now a regular feature that it was open on Sundays which I thought was excellent news.
One thing I like about Brighton are the murals.
I was very pleased to see that Resident in North Laine had been declared the Best Record Store in the Country, as it and Ben’s Records in Guildford are two of the best record shops in the country.
I got down to the seafront hoping to catch the last half hour of the Passion Play. It was 6-30pm and the beach and seafront were still very busy. Sadly I found the Passion Play had finished early and I did not see any of it. Overhearing snatches of conversation it was apparently very good.
Before the Passion Play was performed, critics had attacked it as ‘tasteless and bloodthirsty’, not suitable for the seafront or to be shown before children. Leaving to one side they had not seen it, they seem to have lost the point of Easter. Maybe they thought it was about bunny rabbits and chocolate Easter eggs.
Once the sun had gone down I expected it to turn cold, but to my surpise it didn’t, it was very warm and balmy as though a hot summer’s evening. Last time it was like this was mid-summer. Looking out to sea I saw something I had never seen before. The sea was calm and the surface as flat as a mill pond. All day it had been misty and it was still very misty.
Synchronicity: On the train home there were two females talking, one was talking about encountering angels. I did what I would not normally do, I went over and spoke to the one talking about angels and said you may be interested in this book and wrote for her The Valkyries by Paulo Coelho. I did not say any more to her as the train was pulling into her station, they thanked me and got off. When I got home and checked twitter, I found I had a message from Paulo Coelho referring to The Valkyries. The time at which it was posted was when I spoke to the girl on the train! [see President Obama quotes “The Valkyries” by Paulo Coelho]
Last Saturday, the busiest shopping weekend of the year, UK Uncut successfully shut down tax dodgers across the country. One such location was Brighton.
Two Santas got arrested for superglueing to Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia stores in Brighton. BHS, Burton, Dorothy Perkins and the whole of Churchill Square shopping centre was closed for parts of the day. Activists on the roof dropped a huge “Stop Tax Dodgers” banner and the police arrived in disproportionate numbers. Even if you don’t believe in Santa, this can’t have been the Christmas you had in mind…
Sir Philip Green avoided £285m in UK income tax by paying his wife a £1.2billion dividend in 2005 and is now employed as the Governments “efficiency” adviser, ie advises on cutting public services.
Protest in Brighton against Vodafone £6 billion unpaid tax bill. One of many Vodafone store closures and occupations that are now taking place every weekend across the country and will continue to take place until Vodafone pay their £6 billion unpaid tax bill.
Were tax dodgers like Sir Philip Green (owner of Arcadia Group which owns Topshop), Vodafone, Boots, SABMiller (owners of Grolsch) to pay their taxes, there would be no Budget Deficit.
Demonstrators glue their hands to the window Topshop Brighton - Cathy Jones
A more eloquent and informed group of demonstrators would be hard to come across and one is struck by the wide appeal across ages and incomes, of what they had to say. — Alex Thomson, Chief Correspondent, Channel 4 News
What do Topshop (Sir Philip Green Arcadia Group), Vodafone, SABMiller (brewers of Grolsch), Boots, Barclays and now Cadbury’s all have in common? They all dodge their taxes.
We all pay our taxes. We may not like it, but it is part of our civic duty, part of our obligation to the Big Society. But not it seems if we are big enough. If we are big enough or rich enough, we get away with paying little or no tax.
The first Saturday of December, one of the busiest Christmas shopping days of the year, it was the turn of Topshop (part of the Arcadia Group of Sir Philip Green’s empire) to be shut down. The Arcadia Group includes Topshop, Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Evans and Miss Selfridge.
Sir Philip Green, billionaire boss of Arcadia, who owns Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge among others. Arcadia is owned by Taveta Investments Limited, which is registered to an office on the tax-haven island of Jersey. Taveta Investments is owned by Green’s family members living in Monaco, where income tax is 0%. It’s estimated Green avoided paying £285 million in tax in 2005 alone.
– Philip Green’s £285 million tax dodge would have paid for 13,000 new police officers
– The tax dodged by Philip Green could have paid for 20,000 NHS nurses
– To clarify the reports, Philip Green avoided £300 million on his £1.2 billion dividend payout
In the Oxford Street store in London security thugs assaulted protesters. As these assaults were witnessed by several people, including the police, I trust charges for assault will be brought and that the local authority withdraws their registration to work as security guards.
Charges for assault should also be brought against the clearly identified thugs in police uniform who attacked a female. There should be no place for thugs like this in any police force.
But well done the police who did the protesters job for them and shut down Topshop stores.
And the mainstream media? To their credit, the Mail Online had excellent coverage, but from the BBC a deathly silence during the day. No mention on the BBC Radio 4 lunchtime news, but did manage to mention that a bicycle thief had been apprehended through a trail he left in the snow! What then of their flagship PM news slot at 5pm? Er nothing. Out of a half hour prime early evening news, almost 15 minutes on Spanish air traffic controllers strikes (and poor stranded Brits suffering) and tut tut corrupt Fifa not awarding World Cup football to England, several minutes on Oprah Winfrey taking her show to Sydney in Australia, several minutes on Asil Nadir allegedly breaching his bail conditions, a few second mention of climate protesters on the streets of London (blink and you would have missed it) but absolutely zilch on concerned citizens shutting down Topshop stores and the scandal of tax avoidance by the likes of Sir Philip Green and the implications it has for all of us in loss of public services. There was coverage on the BBC Radio 4 6pm news and midnight news but nothing on the main 10pm news. Brilliant coverage by Channel 4 News which once again puts BBC News to shame.
If you could not make it or there was not a protest near you there is still a lot you can do. Go into Topshop and slip a few leaflets into pockets, stick up a few posters in the changing rooms, re-arrange the clothes on the racks, take your purchases to the checkout, offer to pay when Sir Philip Green pays his taxes. But best of all, boycott Topshop!
There is a difference between style and fashion. Style is wearing what you look good in. Fashion is being manipulated into wearing what you look ridiculous in. Fashion is pointless consumerism which the planet cannot afford.
Every weekend until Christmas?
Sir Philip Green says he is doing nothing wrong, nothing illegal. Slave owners used to say something similar!
If Sir Philip Green and other corporate tax dodgers wish to trade in our country then they have to pay our taxes. Otherwise we close them down. Quite simple really.
Late in more than one sense. It was late October, but I was also late getting there.
The previous day I had decided to go down to Brighton as the weather forecast was good and no rail works, offering a window of opportunity for a day out in Brighton before the clocks turned back and winter arrived. But Saturday night I was tired, it was forecast to be cold on Sunday, so instead of an early night that I knew I needed, I did not get to bed until the early hours of the morning.
I awoke Sunday in time to get down to Brighton, but I was so tired and dead to the world that getting up did not seem a very favourable proposition. A couple of hours later, seeing how sunny it was, I thought to myself this is stupid, to waste a lovely day at home, so I set off to Brighton far too late for it to be a realistic proposition. Train went via Hove due to rail works, thus instead of arriving at midday, I did not arrive until 2-30 in the afternoon.
I would have liked to have gone straight down to the seafront, but by the time I had popped into see Hakan in Grocer and Grain, it was down to North Laine to eat at a late lunch at Iydea.
I had some excellent soup in Grocer and Grain which I am sorry to say I cannot remember what it was other than it was something and tomato, but I took a picture. It was very good so hopefully I will get the recipe to share.
I would have liked to have gone down to the seafront, but by now half the afternoon had gone, so I went direct to Iydea for lunch. It would have been nice to have eaten outside, but too late to catch the sun so I had to eat inside. I cannot remember what I had, but it was as always very tasty. I finished off with a flapjack. It had something poured on it, maybe honey, plus some seeds, very nice.
From a quirky bookshop I picked up an interesting book, Using the Plot by Paul Merrett, which I enjoyed reading on my way home.
Looking in Infinity Foods I saw they had won the local food awards for best food store. Well done I told them as yes they deserve it, but adding that I had not voted for them but for Grocer and Grain as it would have been nice if Grocer and Grain as a little corner shop had won.
By the time I got down to the seafront it was late afternoon. There was sill some warmth left in the sun but it was not long before it set.
I enjoyed watching the sun set behind the derelict West Pier.
I had a chat with the guy with the bookstall. He said it had been pleasantly warm earlier.
I walked back along the seafront and along Brighton Pier. Not many people about, cold and dark.
Last time I was in Brighton I was able to watch a sliver of a new moon rising on the horizon. From the pier I could see the full moon rising over Brighton, reflections of the lights and the moon in the sea.
Then walk up to the station and catch the train home.
As always I missed my lovely friend Iva who I used to meet in Brighton when she lived in England. I called her whilst I was watching the sun go down, but walking along the seafront and towards the end of the pier I missed her.
I left the house at 10 am in the morning on Sunday 10 October 2010. A very auspicious start to the day.
I was on my way to Brighton. It was dull and hazy but I had faith the sun would come out. And it did, it was a lovely sunny day all day. Along the coast in the Solent it was 22.5 degrees Centigrade, the top temperature of the day. Warm for almost mid-October. It was probably not far off that in Brighton.
And there were no rail works! The train to Brighton was packed. Many others must have had the same idea as me.
It was a little too early to see the autumn colours. The trees were just starting to turn.
On arrival at Brighton Station I felt sad as I used to be met by my lovely Czech friend Iva when she was in England. She would meet me at the station and we would spend the day together in Brighton.
I popped into Grocer and Grain and had a chat with Hakan. I enjoyed his tomato and celery soup, with a kick from added Turkish herbs. Hopefully a recipe soon. Outside lovely flowers for sale.
From Grocer and Grain I walked down to and then along the seafront. Even though there was a breeze blowing, it was surprisingly hot on the seafront.
I would have walked along Brighton Pier, but it was just too crowded to be enjoyable.
Outside the pier lots of bikes and bikers standing around looking like Paulo Coelho clones. Or is it the other way around, Paulo Coelho looks like a biker?
Excellent lunch outside Iydea. And thanks to Charlotte, who asked if she could join me, for her excellent company and conversation.
Earlier outside Infinity Foods I was given a couple of pumpkin seeds. I popped back to Infinity Foods after eating at Iydea as I wanted to buy some excellent Whydark* dark chocolate from Chocolate Organiko.
A saunter along the seafront to watch the sun setting behind the derelict old West Pier.
By the time I had walked up to Taj the Grocer, back along the seafront to the pier and along the pier, it was time to set off back home.
Walking along the seafront after the sun had set, a sliver of a new moon was rising above the horizon.
A lovely day out. My only regret my lovely friend Sian was not with me as she would enjoy Brighton but she is sadly very poorly. Also too would my lovely friend Iva have loved a day out in Brighton.
10-10-10 A quirk of dates. Nothing special were it not for the fact that the charismatic leader of a Jewish sect had his birthday arbitrarily set to a pagan festival.
