Public Libraries in Brighton-Joining Jubilee Library

        Back in March I finally made the effort to join a local public library around these parts. Let it be known that I LOVE reading. I always have a book in my purse, and I’ve been a ravenous devourer of literature since a young age. Jon-not so much. He reads non-fiction about stuff like the reign of Kim Jon-Il and Steve Jobs on the Kindle app on his tablet, only occasionally. In fact, we made a decision to read Game of Thrones-the whole series!-before watching the show, and he’s taken nearly 2 and a half months to get all the way through the first book and halfway through the second, which he then promptly forgot about and completely stopped reading. I gave him the head start because I read so much faster and I knew at some point we’d be stuck on the same book, and I’d be annoyed at having to share and/or wait for him to finish one for me to start it. TLDR: I haven’t started Game of Thrones yet, but I’m about to give up on sharing the experience with Jon:)

         Anyway, I now have a library card good for use at all Brighton and Hove libraries! My library of choice (not necessarily “neighborhood library” but close enough) is the Jubilee Library in the North Laines, as pictured above. Very modern. Pretty cool looking, right? And inside, they’ve got this for checking out-it’s space age and blows my mind. You plop your books on that little shelf and it automatically reads out your list in a few seconds and prints a receipt. Magical! The same thing happens with returns-come in, place your books on the shelf, beep through the bar code on your library card and then place the books on the shelf next to the machine. All self serve.

If you haven’t made the effort to join a library in the Brighton/Hove area yet, you have plenty-and I mean plenty-of choices as to where to go, depending on your own humble abode’s location. There are public libraries in Hove, Coldean, Hangleton, Hollingbury, Mile Oak, Mouslecoomb, Patcham, Portslade, Rottingdean, Saltdean, Westdene, Whitehawk, Woodingdean, and a mobile library.  Whew…what a list!  That list, by the way, can be found here.

I’m not sure how it is at other Brighton and Hove libraries, but at Jubilee I can check out forty books at one time. FORTY. I have no idea why I would ever need so many books at my disposal at one time, but it’s an option, if that’s a thing you’re into. I’m sticking with five or less.

Also, according to their website, the Jubilee library is the city’s largest library and the fifth most visited library in all of England. So that’s nice! Go become a patron of your local library. Free books guys. Free. Books. Enjoy!

An evening stroll down Hove seafront

Ashley and I attempted to take the edge off the fact that A MAN WAS FUCKING MURDERED ACROSS THE ROAD FROM US by taking advantage of the nice weather with a walk along Hove Lawns this evening. It was so nice to see some good weather again after the last week of rain. That, and the murder, had really left us a little glum.

Brighton seafront in 1970

I was pointed towards this excellent video this morning from British Pathé, which is nothing more than a car journey along Brighton seafront. It’s amazing how little has changed, except the Brighton Centre and an extension here and there. Go to around 3.40 for a really nice view of the West Pier as it was then.

Unfortunately Pathé’s embed code seems to have been written around the same time as the video was filmed, so you’ll have to click through to see it.

Racists come to Brighton to “March for England”

This afternoon Ashley and I walked down to Queens Road to show our support for the counter-protest against the EDL‘s “March for England”, a horrible little rally organised ostensibly as a St. George’s Day event, but in reality it was little more than a platform for the EDL’s Islamophobia and general bigotry.

We saw an impromtu EDL protest outside Churchill Square a  few weeks ago which consisted of five overweight blokes, two of whom had their faces covered, and was shut down by the police almost as quickly as it began. This was a slightly more high-profile affair though, with around 200 EDL members facing off against a few thousand counter-protestors, separated by around 500 police.

As the march made it’s way down Queens Road there were small scuffles here and there as EDL members lashed out against those opposing them, and anarchists tried to break through police lines to attack the EDL.

When the EDL reached the main contingent of anarchists and Socialist Worker signs the real trouble began. We were disappointed many of those present for the counter-protest seemed more interested in starting fights with the police than focusing their energy on the EDL.

About one hundred people seemed determined to stop the march altogether and attempted to push back the line of police horses, which somewhat inevitably led to them being rushed and truncheons being unsheathed.

The vast majority of the anti-EDL crowd were well behaved, and employed my preferred method of counter-protest; derision and humour. This lady told us the first draft of her sign read “Nazis are not nice”, but she changed it to “Nasty” to make it that much more forceful -

The EDL were as charming as you might expect. I noticed they’d called this a family event, which apparently means plenty of swearing, throwing things, and constant threats of violence. Even my fairly benign chants of “Boooooo!” were consistently met with invitations to fight. But if you don’t have a shred of logic or reason to pin your arguments on, I suppose punching is all that remains.

As I write this the remnants of the protest has been kettled by police in Victoria Gardens, and apparently have begun to give speeches, which are being expertly drowned out by the opposition.

Plenty more photos on Picasa.

UPDATE

In the aftermath of the march, there are lots of accusations being thrown around about police brutality, mainly based on this video. It’s difficult to condone police attacking protesters of any kind, but in this instance it’s definitely not a cut-and-dry case of police violence. We were stood about two metres to the left of where the video was filmed, and this is what we saw:

1. The anti-fascist protesters jumped into the road to form a barrier to stop the police (and the EDL behind them) advancing
2. The line of police horses stopped, and the anti-fascist protesters began trying to physically push them back.
3. Various protesters made grabs for police horse reins, in the process hitting and jostling the horses, all the time being shouted at by the police to move back
4. Everyone on the raised pavement (where we were) was by this point shouting at the protesters to leave the horses alone
5. The line of protesters eventually fell back when they realised the horses were difficult to move
6. After several minutes of telling the protesters to move back, the police charge (this is where the video starts)

As I was saying on Twitter all last night, I don’t agree with what the police did, but the protesters were guilty of bad behaviour here too.

The biggest disappointment was that some people clearly showed up just  to have a fight with police. Why all that energy couldn’t have been directed at the bunch of marauding racists a few feet behind the police I do not know.

And speaking of the EDL…

In a couple of news stories I’ve seen the following quote from Matt Silva, a spokesman for March for England:

“From my side, we did all we could to facilitate a peaceful and lawful gathering. There was no provocation, no racial chants, no homophobic chants which we have been accused of doing in the past. This was a family event but I was completely appalled at what we saw. There was no excuse for the violence.”

He also said women and children had missiles thrown at them, and there was “no provocation from any of the marchers who sang the national anthem because it was the Queen’s birthday on Saturday”.

I don’t know which march Mr Silva was attending, but the vast majority of the attendees seemed there exclusively to provoke violence. A bald, overweight man challenged me to a fight, and when I politely declined he challenged Ashley. Take a look at any of the pictures from yesterday and tell me the EDL aren’t provoking violence. It’s ridiculous.

Also, I saw the entire march go past twice and I didn’t see a single child. What responsible parent would take their child to such an event, anyway?

Veg Box Delivery Schemes in Brighton and Hove

Where I come from in Ohio, I used to belong to something called a CSA, which is an acronym for community supported agriculture. I would pay a fee to the local market (Greener Grocer represent!) and then weekly I could run to the market and pick up a box of locally raised, organically grown goodness from farmers in the area. It was fabulous, cheap (not more for $15 for a medium box/$20 for a large), delicious, and a great way to support small farmers locally. Of course then I moved to England and couldn’t find any sort of similar CSA anywhere. I was bummed, until I discovered what was wrong-Brits call it something else! Once I found out that here they go by the moniker “veg box scheme”.  I was all up on it. This week, we got our first fruit+ veg box from Riverford Organics. We met some of their lovely employees at the Brighton Food Fest a few weekends ago, and our whole experience so far has been nothing but wonderful.

We’ve started out with just a small fruit+veg box, which cost us a mere £12.45. This box includes 5 varieties of vegetables and 2 types of fruits. This week that means: leeks, mushrooms, purple sprouting broccoli, plums, kiwi, cherry tomatoes, and a very interesting looking cabbage. We’re already thinking about sizing up to the regular fruit+veg box, which has 7 vegetables and 3 fruits. What can I say, we love vegetables! And for these prices it’s really a win all the way around-it’s a small part of our regular food budget, for a better price than at any grocery and with more variety than anything we’d normally choose.

Look at that texture!

Riverford Organics does a lot more than veg boxes. They also do…wait for it…meat boxes. Seriously. From as little as £20  you can order a box of locally raised, organic cuts of meat. Sausages, chicken wings, pork chops, mince, the whole shebang. I’m super impressed. We have not, in fact, ordered any meat boxes (and with our tiny freezer and how little we eat meat, I don’t think we’ll be taking advantage any time soon) but I think it’s a really great opportunity for community building in Brighton. People can build a relationship with the people raising their food, and truly know where it’s coming from, fostering a deeper respect for the animals that nourish them. Riverford also has a few more offerings on the table. Organic cheeses, milk for 99p a liter (organic and local, of course), and even bread. And WINE. They do wine! 

  I can not speak highly enough about Riverford so far. The website is full of recipes for each weeks’ box contents. Their guy Stephen delivered our box to me on Tuesday afternoon (free delivery!) and he was incredibly friendly, accommodating, and asked if I had any questions about their service. You really get the vibe that they are more than willing to work with you for whatever you may need. You can set up a weekly debit and delivery, or you can change your box order up until Tuesday night of the delivery week. You can order a box every week, or every fortnight, or even just as/when you’d like it. So much flexibility! I think the only downside is that not all of their products are always from England, but they are sourced locally when possible and are organic/come from small farms elsewhere in Europe when they’re needed. Because uh…this is England, and you can’t just grow things willy-nilly.

There are other CSA/Veg box schemes in Sussex (and I’m sure in other parts of the UK), and I would encourage everyone to check it out. And if you’re in Brighton-Riverford gets two thumbs up from us!

Posted without comment

More than 4 people have now asked if Andy Warhol will be at our exhibition launch event next week. To confirm, Andy Warhol is dead.

— Museums Sheffield (@MuseumSheffield) April 13, 2012

 

…

Feeling completely inadequate at the Brighton Marathon

Ashley and I walked down the road to Hove Lawns today to cheer on the many brave souls taking part in the Brighton Marathon. According to the enthusiastic announcer there were around 13,000 runners attempting to finish the course, and judging by the foot traffic heading back towards the Palace Pier, a fair amount of them were successful.

It was another one of those schizophrenic Brighton spring days when the weather is pleasantly warm in the sunshine but nipple-hardeningly cold should you stray into the shade, which I can only imagine made the marathon even more challenging for the runners.

Having run a couple of half marathons in her time, Ashley explained the technicalities of marathoning (marathonism?) to me as we cheered on the participants. We saw a couple of people well into their fifties and sixties taking part, which only served to make me feel like something of a failure in life. If I’m even able to run up the stairs at that age I’ll be genuinely surprised.

One aspect that seemed to confused Ashley somewhat was the number of people running for a charity or other organisation. I guess in America most marathonists do it for the sake of competition, whereas in the UK most take part to raise money for their favourite cause. This, of course, means many hilarious costumes.

Angry Bird Marathoners

A slow-moving Rhino

Our personal favourite, a terrifying Tiger

Good show to all those who took part, and we’re sure a ridiculous amount was raised for charity.