I made the cardinal error of saying I wanted my pacemaker to be checked in Brighton. The alternative (short of going to London) is Hayward's Heath, which looks and sounds further away but is paradoxically much less trouble to get to.
Today was the day. Getting to Brighton, finding the hospital, getting into the car park and then walking several miles up and down dangerous unlighted staircases and inteminable corridors with freezing gales blowing down them, then finding the way out of that cesspit of a town and at last being in recognizable territory, seemed to take for ever. It could easily have been five hours (perhaps only three or four, but it felt more like 24).
If Herself hadn't decided to come too I might have run mad or stopped by the side of the road in floods of tears. Even she said she needed a drink, and I bought her a bottle of pink bubble on the way back. But she's having tea first anyway.
:o}
PS: I've always had a childish liking for MSG, or 'flavour enhancer' as it is coyly called on the packet. So this very phoney puffed-up crackling (not the best sort by a long chalk) that I've just scoffed may well cause flatulence later. It's alleged to contain pork rind but the best sort is a bit greasy and fatty, and darker in colour. More like the real thing.
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I've scoffed a large vodka and am about to have another. Bit early, but needs must when the devil drives.
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>> I've scoffed a large vodka and am about to have another. Bit early, but needs must when the devil drives.
Would the Royal Sussex County Hospital agree I wonder? It wouldn't care much. The staff when approached were informative and did their best, but the place is a hopeless surrealist maze that makes you feel like Theseus and fear the imminent appearance of a Minotaur, dangerous steep freezing staircases and interminable sloping corridors, nightmare of a place.
Great relief being here and sinking an early large one. Cheers.
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There is very little that a large vodka cannot fix. And those few things it cannot fix, it causes you to worry about less.
If its any consolation I first got lost in Brighton in about 1975, and have lost my way pretty much every time I've been there since then.
Hateful place.
Can you not now change your choice of check up venue?
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 10 Dec 15 at 18:30
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The nurse listened to me griping for a few hours and said she would make my next appt in Hayward's Heath. Seems further than the ghastly Brighton but is easier to get to.
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Easier to get around once you are there, as well.
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By the way, surely both Haywards Heath and Brighton are quite doable for you with train / taxi?
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I often do London like that, train and tube/bus. Not always though, depends where I'm going to be and what the parking possibilities are.
You can't do the country without wheels though. Too much like hard work.
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Pity you can't sort of trickle charge yourself overnight. Crocodile clip on each ear or something.
I go to Brighton sometimes, to an address in The Lanes. Very easy to become disoriented in there. Full of odd people too.
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And car park charges are astronomical. Sort of interesting place to wander round though.
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Sometimes, if I need to be there overnight, I stay in the Thistle next to The Lanes. Much cheaper parking in the adjoining car park if you are a hotel guest. If you get a good deal on the room it can actually seem almost reasonable.
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>> I go to Brighton sometimes, to an address in The Lanes. Very easy to become
>> disoriented in there. Full of odd people too.
You selling kinky boots again Humph?
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Kind of. Not exactly but, y'know, they're not ordinary that's for sure...
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Well as long as you dont have to model them.
Not with legs like that.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 10 Dec 15 at 19:37
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No, thankfully they don't do my size.
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Not been to Brighton since 1956 socially. Me ole mam and a lady friend took me on holiday and we stayed in the Cricketers. Has the town changed much ?
I remember a loony old woman spat in me chips in a cafe.....we left !
Did go in the 90s, recovering a broken down Ferrari from Perth with it's owner and pal. Very nice house at the delivery end but I didn't get let in for a cuppa....it was about 3am...I just turned round and drove back home.
Tight sods !
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Foot fetishists quite finished have they (not you Humph you've got an excuse)?
No offence really. Nice shoes are nice until they get nasty. That can happen all too soon.
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50 miles or more to Brighton and back.
There's a good place on the way back where you take a slip road off the A27 almost-motorway across the downs that turns through damn near a full circle before launching you through a tunnel and into a breathless bit of uphill motorway. I may have got the order wrong but doubtless you get the general idea.
The road goes under a railway viaduct and past a cement works, a huge grey corrugated iron structure now spookily silent but at one time clattering and putting out clouds of dust. An industrial bit of rural W Sussex, not currently in use...
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Herself always knew which way to turn when I didn't and started faffing,
She'd written it all down on a bit of paper, but the right exit was obvious to her nine times out of ten, while I was going round the roundabout again just to be on the safe side.
If it wasn't for her I'd probably still be out there in terra incognita. "I say my man....'
"What's 'e sayin, Zeke?"
"Urrrrr...'
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I'm glad to say I've never been there. Not even on my bucket list. A friend of mine works there. He is gay and he concedes that this "gay" town is a dump. "Bit like Rhyl only more so" he reckons.
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Brighton is a pig of a place to park, I was there for a meeting last Friday but went by train. Love the lanes and the Pavilion.
In the summer SWMBO and I used the car to get there and used bus from the park and ride at Withdean to go to the Dome.
I would also advise AC that Haywards Heath hospital and the parking are no better than in Brighton,been there done that and got the tee shirt when father in law was in his last few months of life.
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I love Brighton too, in particular the Lanes. I had a part-time job for a while driving foreign students around and had to take them to Brighton quite often. I found that people tend to say "Hello" to you if you walk around the Lanes in the evening. I like that.
The first time I visited the town, as a student in the early sixties, a middle-aged woman began a conversation as we waited on a traffic refuge. Unfortunately, I was too naive to respond to what was probably an invitation to a crash course in life's mysteries. I recall, however, that she claimed to be a writer.
AC is spot on regarding the hospital car park. It's truly appalling. My experience of it was a trip taking someone to the eye hospital That's like a rabbit warren, where you have to wait for appointments on seats in narrow corridors. I'd expect it to be a hotbed for opportunistic theft.
I've used the Park n Ride, but not recently, so I was pleased to read Helicopter's report on that.
On one of my trips with a minibus, I dropped my passengers and decided to joyride for a while before looking for somewhere to park. I ended up going down a narrow lane on the east or north east side of town. It led to an open space, with a cricket field, overlooking the Downs. There was a cafe in the pavillion where I could have some lunch and watch people enjoying themselves. I've been unable to find it since. Does anyone have any idea where it might be?
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>> ... There was a cafe in the pavillion where I could have some lunch and watch people enjoying themselves. I've been unable to find it since. Does anyone have any idea where it might be?
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Found it - Rottingdean Cricket Club, off Falmer Road.
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Shoreham Airport is worth a stop for afternoon tea. Fantastic art deco building.
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Ever been to the old Templehof airport in Berlin Z?
Fabulous building now used for events. Kind of scary place too, given its history.
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>> Ever been to the old Templehof airport in Berlin Z?
Yes - landed there even, on a Ryan air flight. Fantastic Terminal building. You could feel the history, as indeed you could throughout Berlin then, although the Germans are doing their best to sanitise it all.
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The old Croydon airport on Purley Way is good for a visit if you are interested in aviation history.The art deco buildings contain a museum of the airport which claims to be the oldest international terminal in the world......the scheduled international services began in 1923 or thereabouts, it was the hub of the empire mail services ........
........famous aviators such as Charles Lindbergh and Amy Johnson both flew from there.
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Heston Airport. The old control tower is on the Westbound M4 Heston Services.
That nice Mr Chamberlain landed there and waved a piece of paper that the even nicer Mr Hitler had given him. Sweet.
tinyurl.com/pkbokgh
.
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I really like art deco, especially Walter Dorwin Teague's camera designs. Exquisite is the word that springs to mind:
tinyurl.com/pamnadu
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I have two fabulous examples of Art Deco within 5 minutes of my place.
The terminal building and control tower of Brooklands,
www.flickr.com/photos/stephenpoole/5985155015
and an art deco house
www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/detailMatching.html/svr/2122;jsessionid=B720B25971DC7F50167D385D9E914D43?prop=21992536&sale=40776185&country=england
Thats an old photo, its just had a complete period renovation
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>> The old Croydon airport on Purley Way is good for a visit if you are interested in aviation history.The art deco buildings contain a museum of the airport which claims to be the oldest international terminal in the world.
I drove round and round the terminal at an idle in my VW 411 (it was good like that), with a camerawoman sitting on the windowsill with her heavy 16mm apparatus trained on the (rather sad and derelict) buildings. The 411 made a good camera dolly...
The resulting movie is called Riddles of the Sphinx and the camerawoman was Dianne Tammes.
You won't have seen it and few here would like it I'm afraid. Not my kind of thing either but it was work, with an interesting side. I got paid but not much.
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I managed to read past the words "Jean Luc Godard" in the pre-amble without succumbing to the usual instant turn-off, but film extract itself defeated me. It was just so incredibly dreary.
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Dreary! Surely not.
"In her writing on feminist film theory, Mulvey has argued that, if the dominant cinema produces pleasure through scopophilia which favours the male gaze and festishization of woman as object, then alternative versions of cinema need to construct different forms of pleasure based on psychic relations that adopt a feminist perspective.[4] As such, the lack of exposition, concentration on the gender politics of domestic life, and the 360-degree pans which move slowly and without focus on the women characters in Riddles of the Sphinx, represent the antithesis of the cinematic pleasure seen in the dominant cinematic styles of the time. Frequently, a woman's voice is heard but not identifiable as particular character, further emphasizing "the lost discourse of woman's unconscious".[5] Rather than using a conventional voice-over, a multitude of voices are heard, Louise and her various friends and co-workers, which according to Mulvey is intended to as "a constant return to woman, not indeed as a visual image, but as a subject of inquiry, a content which cannot be considered within the aesthetic lines laid down by traditional cinematic practice."[6]"
Wikipedia.
My personal view that it would have been enhances by a decent car chase and the odd exploding helicopter. :-)
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As I say, not my kind of thing although admired in some circles.
Peter Wollen is one of my very oldest and dearest friends, although now very ill and remote, and Laura almost as old and still needling me sometimes inadvertently but quite often not. She's my sister in law and part-owner with Herself of this very gaff.
You get sort of used to people in 50 years, knowImean? You recognize that they make allowances for you too, that it's not a one-way thing. Of course you don't have to suffer foolishness or damn cheek gladly, no more than they have to anyway.
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Of course I agree about good car chases, but I've always found exploding helicopters very carp and banal. Even car chases aren't always good.
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>> My personal view that it would have been enhances by a decent car chase and the odd exploding helicopter. :-)
>>
Quite.
Anyway here's a little test for anyone who likes art deco. Where is this?
farm1.staticflickr.com/613/23573636012_f3332ac548_c.jpg[/img]
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SQ 4 LG
>> Anyway here's a little test for anyone who likes art deco. Where is this?
>>
>> farm1.staticflickr.com/613/23573636012_f3332ac548_c.jpg[/img]
Eltham palace
Last edited by: VxFan on Sat 12 Dec 15 at 18:11
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Well done, Z. I thought you'd get it.
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Isn't this just gorgeous? Make sure to scroll down the page:
tinyurl.com/jgwxscq
If you look for it in Streetview, you get an earlier shot approaching from the west than from the east. Maybe the later driver spotted the building and spent the rest of the day looking at it!
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>> Isn't this just gorgeous? Make sure to scroll down the page:
>>
>> tinyurl.com/jgwxscq
>>
>> If you look for it in Streetview, you get an earlier shot approaching from the
>> west than from the east. Maybe the later driver spotted the building and spent the
>> rest of the day looking at it!
Fantastic.
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That is great. I used to have a toy petrol station when I was small that used to look just like that complete with Shell petrol pumps.
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>> That is great. I used to have a toy petrol station when I was small
>> that used to look just like that complete with Shell petrol pumps.
As did I.
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>> The resulting movie is called Riddles of the Sphinx
Sorry, it isn't. It's called 'Amy' and is about the early aviatrix Amy Johnson. When you're just a lowly driver it's easy to get one indy movie confused with another.
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Trickle charge overnight funny.>:)Runfer. My mother had a pacemaker never stopped her drinking me under he table when she was in the mood.
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I can't recommend Riddles of the Sphinx to people here, but anyone intrepid or unwary enough to see the whole movie on screen may see that I have a low-down credit as 'driver' I think. The trusty 411 should really have got one too.
To my annoyance I don't get a credit in the weird versions linked here, the BFI being a law unto itself. Were I a different sort of person I might run screaming to m'learned friends. But I have been beaten down by adversity and can no longer maintain that sort of indignation.
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"Amy" by the way is a good movie in my opinion, the best Wollen/Mulvey cooperative effort. But all the dirty drudgery in the background isn't visible give or take the odd self-reflexive flourish.
Of course Amy Johnson was an exceptional character herself, up there with Alcock and Brown, flew round the world solo I think. I mean chapeau... she was a colossal celeb in her day, music-hall jokes, hit songs written about her, 'Amy, wonderful Amy, etc.'
(Herself has just announced: cup of tea. Oo-er!... but I've only drunk half of the first large one. Sshhh. Least said soonest mended).
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Careful, Dutchie. Night-time trickling probably isn't something we want - or need - to encourage here.
};---)
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Argh... not my favourite place - Armel Coussine
