Sunday 24 October 2010

Saturday 23rd October 2010: Brighton Part 2

As I slowly but surely get used to my new hometown of sorts, I have already developed some favourite places, an ever increasing list.

Lewes Road, the one closest to mine, is awash with both funeral parlours and twits with guitars. I hate to think of the implications. Could Brighton be the basis for a closed-circuit economy of dead musicians? It's horrible, but they've all got to somewhere, haven't they?

Apart from the obvious main booksellers', this town has tiny bookshops all around. As told before, I massively enjoy hanging around in them, and looking at the other morons without a life hanging around in these bookshops. What do you mean, self-aware?

About being a cyclist in Brighton: it's doable. It certainly is more of a workout than your average bike ride. I have as yet not experienced serious injury or caused any major accidents. Not yet, though. I have not yet found myself on the wrong side of the road. Save that one time on the cycling path though. Nothing happened! I promise! I was silently tutted, I believe, by the man coming at me and missing me by miles. That's how little danger I am on the road. I'm not sure whether that's something to be proud of, or ashamed. At least it so far contradicts the man who drove me and my belongings from the station into town, nearly a month ago (my God! a month already! And I've achieved so... yeah, let's not go into that) who said that if I, a tall man, would cycle in this town, it would just make me a bigger target. I was reminded of Carmageddon, a crap, collision based video game which I hadn't thought about since 1997 (and for good reason; it was crap) and was perturbed by the prospect of ending up as roadkill. Luckily for me, he was totally wrong.

But possibly my favourite place of them all is a tiny fruit and veg shop near the end of London Road. Run by either a habitually telephoning lady or a very, very old man, it's quaint and there's always something weird going on. As if it were a portal into a different world, like the Leaky Cauldron in Harry Potter (come on! You know you love it!). When I was there last, a week ago, I saw a man eating chips and grumbling at the lady who was on the phone, while I tried to pay for oranges. The man looked about 30 and was dressed very well considering the noise he was emitting. He scared me just a bit, even though he was clearly harmless. But you never know. He was either seriously unhinged or an out-of-work performance artist. You never know for certain in this town.

Apart from that, I've bought 4 books today, and I'm very happy with them, thank you. Let me live now!

See you tomorrow! Bye!

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