PICK OF THE PIX: DOMES

The fantastically absurd and gloriously bizarre Royal Pavilion, Brighton...

POLITICAL COMMENT

Oh, dear, more toilet humour, I'm afraid: a no-nonsense British chamber-pot, c 1805, from Brighton Museum...


This Guzunder (because it 'guzunder' the bed) thoughtfully provided users with something to aim at in the form of a bust of Napoleon!

No doubt patriots uttered the word PEREAT ('perish') as they relieved themselves and poor old Boney once again found himself in the merde!

COFFEE OR TEA?

While in Brighton on our recent anniversary jaunt, we repeatedly sought refuge from the wind and the rain in our favourite coffee shop, Redroaster, where we consumed probably rather too many cappuccinos than were good for us...

But, look! How could anyone resist?


Of course, most of the time (i.e. when I'm not in Brighton) I'm more a tea than a coffee man, except that I think I'd soon go off my English Breakfast if I had to use this depressing teapot spotted in the Brighton museum...


Tea and sympathy? I don't think so... Just drink up and die!

Images: Brian Sibley © 2008

WET & WINDY

After yesterday's vacant seats, here's two more...


This was Friday afternoon on Brighton Pier: far too cold and blowy to be sitting around but fine for a nice, brisk, invigorating, stroll past the one-arm bandits!

And, in the evening, we accidentally happened to be in the right place at the right time to watch a splendid firework display ---- Ooooooh! Ahhhhhh! ---- with great chrysanthemums of colour blossoming over the sea...


As it happened, it was just as well that the fireworks hadn't been scheduled for Saturday or Sunday which turned out to be horrendously cold and wet with driving winds. In fact, it was so windy that the innocent pleasures of the good old helter-skelter...


Were suddenly off-limits...


The gale force winds (I was almost blown off my feet and I am, as you are aware, certainly no light-weight) resulted in some dramatic waves at high tide that can best be described by showing the jetty near the Palace Pier as the waves rolled and rushed ashore...



And the one place where you didn't want to be standing when they hit!


Unfortunately, we had our brolly knicked while we on the pier, so came home sadder and wiser - not to mention damper and severely wind-blasted!

All in all, it was an anniversary to remember!

Images: Brian Sibley © 2008

Now read button's comment.

BRIGHTONING UP

I will be in Brighton today, celebrating the first anniversary of my Civil Partnership with David...


My health may be a bit dodgy and work and money may be thin on the ground these days , but I'm still - I keep telling myself - a lucky man!

FREE WILLY

Jacques Yves Cousteau once said...

No aquarium, no tank in a marine land, however spacious it may be, can begin to duplicate the conditions of the sea. And no dolphin who inhabits one of those aquariums or one of those marine lands can be considered normal.

And that must, I guess, also apply to a fountain - even if it is decorated with - er - dolphins...


Image: © Brian Sibley, 2008

POLARI-VOUS?

Where else but in BRIGHTON would you find a shop called...


So, that's where Julian and Sandy finally ended up!

For those of you too young to understand this cryptic comment...

'Julian and Sandy', played by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams (left), were regular characters in the BBC radio comedy show Round the Horne.

Said to have been named after Julian Slade and Sandy Wilson (respectively authors of the '50s shows, Salad Days and The Boyfriend), this outrageous duo were originally conceived as a pair of "luvvie" actors doing housework for the show's star, Kenneth Horne until their next theatrical engagement came along.

When it was decided that these characters were too sadly pathetic to be really funny, script writers Barry Took and Marty Feldman turned them into swishily camp 'chorus boy types' who began most of their appearances with the line:

"Hello, I'm Julian and this is my friend, Sandy..."

Jules and Sandy conversed in 'Polari', that was the secret language of gay subculture in Britain at a time when homosexuality was illegal.

The origin of Polari is complex: a combination of Romany, corrupted words from Italian, backslang ('riah' for 'hair'), rhyming slang, sailor slang, and thieves' cant with the addition of a few words of Yiddish.

One of the primary sources for Polari was 'Palare', a secret language of carnival folk (from the Italian word for 'to talk') that is still used in the circus and on the fairground - though without the gay over(or under)tones. Its adoption by gays may have started amongst theatrical homosexuals and date back to a time when the world of theatre was closer to that of the circus.

Its use by gays was twofold, as one internet source advises...

On one hand, it would be used as a means of cover, to allow gay subjects to be discussed aloud without being understood; on the other hand, it was also used by some, particularly the most visibly camp and effeminate, as a further way of asserting their identity.

And, according to h2g2 the BBC's 'unconventional guide to life, the universe and everything':

Even within the relatively small Polari-speaking gay community in London there were different 'dialects'.

The 'West End Queens' spoke a version of the language which contained a lot of theatre-speak and they regarded both themselves and their slang as much more upmarket than the East End version which was heavily influenced by canal language and criminal slang. Whichever version you spoke, however, you could be sure that you wouldn't be understood by the uninitiated.

Polari formed part of Julian and Sandy's weekly banter as a couple of omi-palones (gay men) as in the use of phrases like: "How bona to vada your dolly old eek!"

'Bona' was 'good' (a corruption of the Italian 'buona'), 'vada' meant 'see' (from the Italian 'vedere'), 'dolly' was pleasant, and 'eek' was 'face' (an abbreviation of the backslang word 'ecaf').

Other common words used in the show were 'lallies' (for 'legs'), 'luppers' ('fingers') and 'zhoosh' meaning to fluff up your 'riah' or, generally, to tart yourself up!

Although Polari has now largely fallen into disuse, doubtless as a result of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, accompanied by a relaxation of public attitudes and an understandable gay repudiation of an essentially ghettoising language.

Nevertheless, many words of Polari are now in every day use such as naff, bevvy, camp, drag, queen, scarper, dishy, mincing, butch and bitch. And, in 1990, Morrissey released an album called Bona Drag ('drag' was palare for clothes) featuring the hit 'Picadilly Palare' which included the lyric:

So bona to vada, with your lovely eek and your lovely riah.

As for Julian and Sandy, they had various employments during the run of Round the Horne, working, at one time, for a firm of solicitors called Bona Law (a joke on the post-WWI Prime Minister, Andrew Bonar Law) which provided them with a predictable double entendre...

HORNE: Will you take my case?

JULIAN: Well, it depends on what it is. We've got a criminal practice that takes up most of our time.

HORNE: Yes, but apart from that — I need legal advice.

SANDY: Ooh, isn't he bold?

Now it seems they've opened a food shop in Brighton - a bone fide one, at that! - which, to my mind is completely dolly and zhooshy!

CASTING CALL

Brighton has added a new attraction to its not inconsiderable array of pleasures and amusements...

An EIGHT-INCH SQUARE CAST of
PART OF YOUR BODY
for just £50
SAME DAY SERVICE
(Or While-U-Wait Lip-Service - £10)

Click to enlarge

The ideal gift, I would say, with which to make an impression...

DOH!

No wonder the nation's spelling is so appalling: the very first sign kids visiting Brighton Pier see is this one...


Interesting that they don't spell doughnuts donuts (as in Dunkin' Dittos) - but then, of course, if they did douglicious wouldn't make any sense!

AND then they add insult to injury with "Brighton up your day..."!

I blame Homer Simpson myself...

BRIGHTON BREEZY...

...snuffly and sneezy!

The sun shone, the sky was blue and (left) the seagulls obligingly flew past on cue... but, unfortunately, I spent most of the time sneezing and coughing.

As a result, our Honeymoon Boudoir was not quite as romantic as it ought to have been: the roses, champagne and chocolates (courtesy of - how's this for a name? - Bona Foodie!) being outnumbered by boxes of tissues, packets of Lemsip, tubes of Soothers, bottles of Benylyn and the occasional Vic inhaler!

Still - between bouts of coughing and wheezing - we at least began to acclimatise to the idea of being officially Mr and Mr!

The real downside is that the cold has meant that, after weeks of apprehension, Monday's visit to the hospital for an angiogram - the original reason for the almost indecent dash to the altar! - has had to be postponed as the hospital won't carry out the procedure on a patient who keeps giving way to rasping coughing-fits... The test has been rescheduled for Monday 22, so I have two more fun weeks of anxiety.

Never mind, at least David and I finally got around to tying the knot - and, since my Civil Partner happens to be a magician who's routine include several tricks with ropes and knots - I better make sure it's not a slip-knot!

See also... button's blog!

IN THE SWIM

This is TOMORROW's blog-posting posted TODAY (or if you go by the date at the top, YESTERDAY!)

Thank you all for your much appreciated good wishes and what-not on David having made an honest man of me or vice versa - though sadly, of course, vice probably doesn't come into it anymore!

This advance blogging is on account of us popping off to Brighton for a nifty two-night 'honeymoon' --- well, after 17 years, two nights ought to be more than adequate!!


It probably won't be warm enough for sitting on the beach...


...let alone going for a SWIM!

Still, I can always remind myself of warmer days on Kalymnos and That Photo of my 'other-half' (frankly, a ridiculous expression, since I'm at least twice his size!) which, thanks to the talents of our friend Gordon Drayson can now be viewed rather more as I saw it through the view-finder of my mind's-eye...


Thanks, Gordon!

And good-night from us in Brighton...


See also... button's blog!

AWAY WITH WORDS

Graffiti is unquestionably the artform of the 21st Century and Banksy and others have already been accorded the status of Old Masters.

A recent exponent of this art took an intriguingly nihilistic approach to the medium by reducing Kibworth Street, SW9 to a Street-with-no-name relocated in W8....


While a Brighton graffitist demonstrated a laudably moral and ecologically sound approach to the craft...

FLYING VISIT

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...

OUR DAILY BREAD

The last loaf for possibly yards around and it sat there - alone, unbought and unwanted - in the shop window of the chicly trendy little Brighton deli, just before closing time. We should have known better: £1.45 for something that was the size (and, as it turned out, weight and consistency) of a small house brick.

Had we not cut into it (‘sawed’ would be a better word) it might have had its uses - such as a doorstop or a means of robbing jeweller’s shop windows - as it is, we are now committed to getting our money’s worth from something that calls itself a loaf but which not only has a grey pallor and the density of a complex mathematical formula but also smells like Guinness, and, when eventually sliced, looks disturbingly hairy!

MONDAY SUN-DAY

Today dawned with blue skies, sunshine and all things bright and beautiful; so, having spent hardly any time with one another over the weekend, and knowing that the same would be true of week ahead, David and I headed off to Brighton where we had a very relaxing day and caught the sun - in my case rather painfully: which was obviously some kind of judgement for having run away to play on a day when most people are trapped in work!

Brighton is so comfortingly unchanging - except for the further collapse of the dinosaur bones that are the last remnant of the West Pier and the arrival of some hairy-scary new attractions on the Palace Pier. For the rest, it is much as it’s been for a good few generations. Indeed, some things haven’t really changed since Queen Victoria stayed at the Royal Pavilion and Lewis Carroll rode Volk’s Electric Railway along the promenade.

My lobster impressions aside, it was really very restful and refreshing. I think, more than anything, I should like to live beside the seaside… My anxieties and tensions seem to wash away in the turning tide and I feel calmed, soothed and de-stressed.

Of course, this is scarcely surprising since, as one born under the sign of Cancer the Crab (the central water sign of the Zodiac), I am merely responding to my astral nature and the relentlessly restless pull of the moon… Not, I would add, that I believe in all that astrology nonsense for one moment --- which, incidentally, is a typically Cancerian response!

[Image: © Brian Sibley]