Latest Bill: A pat on the back to Brighton!
I listened to Warren Morgan’s impassioned speech that Brighton is and always will be a great European city. We broadcast it on Latest TV and you can listen to it on The Latest TV YouTube page or on our website thelatest.co.uk. Warren’s emotional welcome to all should be broadcast on all media channels.
Brighton of course is special. We have so many global visitors as well as language schools and foreign students. And increasingly visitors are coming from all parts of the world. I love our truly welcoming cosmopolitan city and I enjoy hearing multiple languages when I walk from our studio in Latest TV in Manchester Street to a lunch meeting at Donatello in New Road.
I know it’s springtime, not from daffodils popping up, but when I see a group of 60 students crossing the road at the end of our street by the Brighton Palace Pier. Good to see Palace back in the Brighton Pier’s name. Congratulations to Anne Martin and Luke Johnson from Brighton Palace Pier.
Even with Brexit, we remain European, free and global
Last week was English Tourism Week and Angi Mariani and myself felt very privileged to receive a special recognition award from The Mayor alongside several other Brighton businesses for services helping to spread the word about our great city. As Angi says, there is nothing better than being nosy and going behind the scenes of all the great tourist hotspots that Brighton has to offer, whether it’s the BAi360 or the Grand Hotel or a new festival, and then sharing the info. Angi has spent the last two years making a national TV show for BBC and the local TV network, that has spread the name of our city far and wide. Digital Nation it’s called and Brighton of course is at the forefront of the wired revolution. You can view the 80 episodes at www.bbc.co.uk/digitalnation.
Everyone knows Donatello so it was nice to see Sue Addis in the Mayor’s Parlour getting the recognition she deserves. The Chilli Pickle’s founder Alun Sperring received an award, as did Olivia Reid from Terre a Terre, Andrew Cheesman from City Cabs, and Carla Termaat from the wonderful seafront boutique hotel, Drakes, with the best bath in the world! (We’ll be covering all award winners in a couple of weeks’ time).
There are only 73 miles from the cliffs of Seven Sisters to the cliffs of Normandy in France. We are also a city of sanctuary, a city people come to be free more than perhaps any other. Increasingly too we are seeing guests from China and Japan and Asia. So, even with Brexit, we remain European, free and global. And we’ll continue to look positively to the future.
We have all heard of Article 50 but do you know what Article 10 is? It’s the right to free expression and let’s trust that in Brighton we’ll never lose that. Well said Warren!
