I'm off to Brighton today - a flying visit in order to interview Dakota Blue Richards, the 12-year old who is playing Lyra in the film version of The Golden Compass.
Were I not in the grip a nasty cold that has turned into a chest infection with a death-rattle cough, I'd have made a day of it: crunching my away along the beach and getting myself a good healthy breath of sea air before enjoying a fish-and-chip lunch (with mushy peas, naturally) followed by a '99' ice cream on the pier...
But, alas, that is not to be... Instead, I shall be crawling out of bed, guzzling a slug of Lemsip, zooming down to Brighthelmstone and croaking my way through the interview before zooming up to London and hopping back into bed again!
Oddly, a year ago yesterday, I was in Brighton with David and our friend Polkadots & Moonbeams watching the fascinating natural phenomenon of thousands of swarming starlings swooping over, under and around the Palace Pier in the late afternoon...
Here's a moment of two from their fascinating avian gymnastics...
They'll be at it again this afternoon - I'll be sorry to miss the display!
LATER...
But I didn't miss it! Emerging from the Metropole Hotel at 5 o'clock this afternoon, there they were: thousands of starlings in a great cloud, hovering and swirling over the rusting skeleton of the West Pier...
So, here they are...
3 comments:
You poor thing! Just come out of laryngitis myself, which doesn't help with the insomnia... Hope you get better soon.
Will this interview be broadcast on TV?
SCROOGE - I won't hear a word against the Old Lady! Maybe she has the odd wart or two (I'm not sure when you last looked at her) but she is magnificent and grand! The dinosaur bones of the Palace Pier and the strings of lights and the flashing glitterballs reflected in the wet sand at sunset when the tide is out is quite, quite beautiful...
Then there's the junk (sorry ANTIQUE!) shops in the Lanes; a host of lovely little delis, bars, eateries and coffee shops; yards of fascinatingly terrible original works of art; a fine museum; Vokes Electric Railway (the first or oldest or something in the country); the ghosts of literary lovers from Lewis Carroll to Grahame Greene; Ivor the tarot reader (a man to be reckoned with); and the crowning glory: the beautifully frightful Pavilion with more overpowering wallpaper than any known Indian restaurant AND an original Rex Whistler!
Sadly I'm not stopping: it's a case of a quick dash there and back again today, so, no photos... :-(
SUZANNE - Mercifully NOT for TV, just as research for the book I'm writing. The world is spared!
Scrooge is being a bit tough on the old lady here...
The whole point of Brighton is that it IS London-on-sea - noisy, vulgar, pushy, smelly, colourful, congested and above all familiar to those of us who spend most of our days in the Smoke but fancy a day at the seaside.
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