Borderline Brighton
Malone sticks it to the bourgeoisie by eating tinned spaghetti and bacon sarnies
I’m wearing sunglasses and a T-shirt, it’s boiling hot and yet I’m staring at an unmelted snowman from yesterday’s snow. Why hasn’t it melted? I walk past a sign from the police, which says: “Remember to keep a light on to deter burglary”, then I consider all the advice to ‘switch off‘ to save the world via lowering one’s carbon footprint. I’m confused. At this moment a large African woman wearing a purple bikini top walks past, carrying a very big orange Iceland cool bag on her head, presumably full of her Iceland shopping. Only in Lansdowne Place eh…
Brighton is a funny place; the more I live here the more I can’t move away. It’s like the Bermuda triangle of the south coast. Who doesn’t know someone who went to university here, then never left (you know, – they studied design but now they work at Inkfish and the closest they’ve come to being an illustrator is doodling while on the phone)?
“It’s like someone watered it with money made from property and London incomes, giving life to a blossom of 4 x 4s and Bugaboos buggies”
I grew up in London and studied in Wales (no need to explain why I didn’t stay in Wales if you’ve been there…), and recently visited folks and friends in London. Travelling up through four different boroughs, I saw my folks in Shepherds Bush, then carried on to Chiswick to see a friend’s new sprog. I then realised, after seeing all those London areas, that Brighton is like one of those cafés in Chiswick. It’s like someone has taken a Chiswick café, replanted it by the sea and watered it for a few years, with money made from property and London incomes, giving life to a blossom of 4 x 4s and Bugaboos buggies.
It’s unreal down here, every other mum has a £500 pram. In Shepherds bush I could see my brand new £39 Maclaren was getting eyed up. I walk near my parents flat, and every other shop is an internet/call shop, which handily also sells plantain late at night should I need it. I feel like saying: “Hey it’s okay, I get plantain delivered in my weekly organic box, darrrling.” But I don’t. I don’t get a veg box – I like to put my toes in the middle class pool and then pull them out and dance around in my grey hoodie eating tinned spaghetti. To be honest, that’s when I become working class again, when the rum and coke, bacon butties and tinned spag rear their filthy heads. There’s no room for organic vegetables at the weekend. Especially when my daughter goes to her dad’s, then I only eat booze-absorbing carbs with meat. And not pricey, posh sausages with herbs in, the fatty cheap ones that make the bread go soggy.
I can’t really afford £40 a month on vegetables, and to be honest I’d rather spend £30 in Hennes and buy a bag of spinach once a week. Damn I look stylish, in my value catwalk copy clothes with my mouth ulcers and persistent cough. I’m so confused – I’m borderline trendy, borderline middle class/working class/no class. I’m borderline everything. I’m so Brighton.
