City Speak: Emily Sargent

I’m two and a half months in to my stay here, and I am still feeling big love for Brighton. Brighton is my homeboy.

I’ve seen some sights; the beach… the supermarket… the Lanes… the pier… Although my trip to the pier was a little tainted by high winds and hostile birds.

But a lovely man there called Steve, who sells mussels in tubs, told me all about how our country was unfathomably crippled by the Olympic backlash. Especially Brighton.

“Look at Beijing. Hmm? Yeah. [Intense eyes]. It’s always the same.”

Steve couldn’t dampen my spirits though. I was on a roll. I strode away from him and his mussels, lashed by the rain but coming over all Heathcliff, and embraced my stirred emotions.

I have also made friends in an Italian coffee shop – which makes me feel incredibly continental – and I like being a regular.

“Small cappuccino?!” The hilarity of a predictable order is an enjoyable joke for all involved, and so I say: “That’s right! I would have a large but I don’t want to have a nervous breakdown!”

This receives a mixed response; in hindsight I should have explained it was my third coffee of the morning. They now eye me with caution.

I hope they are authentically Italian, by the way, and it’s not just an accent and 50 boxes of panettone in the window. (When I was 16, I went out with a boy who told me he was called Francesco Garcia from Italy and wore a blue ‘ITALIA’ football T-shirt every day. Turned out he was Iranian, but I commended his disguise.)

I like the North Laine a lot. They feature on my walk home from college every day, so I usually stop in and browse. Being in the market for a spot of wall art the other day – a poster, or some other non-expensive piece of paper, I went into a shop. I talked to someone for a good 15 minutes about a picture thinking I’d be looking at an IKEA ‘Picasso animals’ £30 – alas it was £1,600.

Obviously I didn’t want to look like a total idiot, so I tried to conceal my stunned choke with a sneeze.

No but they’ve got a lot going on there generally – a falafel bar? What an exotic delight. We don’t see so much falafel up North. And I love the vintage clothes shops.
I was having a debate with a friend about them the other day though – she’s not such a fan, and I can understand why.

No matter how much cooler or better for the planet it is, I do have to fight the urge still to wonder if the person that owned the thing previously was a bit gross. You know, bit whiffy. Bit greasy.

You can’t say that though. Instead you have to choke down the dead sheep smell steaming off the jazzy ’80s knitwear and blame it on someone else nearby with a comedy grimace.

I regularly walk past a shop selling Native American things, and, on a daily basis, wonder if a headdress would be a commanding look – I’ve been working on my assertiveness. I think it could aid progress; job interviews and things.
I’ve toyed, too, with a journey into the dark arts on account of the shop that sells orbs and velvet.

I am easily influenced.

So I think I’ve made progress overall; ticked a few things off the list. I thought to accommodate myself further with the locals I’d try my hand at carolling (’tis the season) but I tried it out on someone from the course and they reckoned I would likely be attacked. Even if I appeared bearing mince pies.

As such I’m looking for alternative ways of being festive around town, any suggestions are welcome…