Brian Mitchell and Joseph Nixon’s thoroughly scurrilous Brighton column
Predictions
Yes – once again we at Bare Cheek have been scattering chicken entrails and scrutinising tea leaves like men possessed to predict what will occur in the coming year.
JANUARY
Everyone keeps the snow boots, tire-chains, and industrial-sized bags of rock salt they cannily purchased last October close at hand, but it fails to snow at all, electing instead to remain cold, damp, grim, and grey. Four more shops close down in the city without warning.
FEBRUARY
The weather continues to be grey, cold, clammy and depressing, but the council decide to cheer everyone up by shutting all of Brighton’s major roads for roadworks while also closing the library all month for no apparent reason. Bus fares go up.
MARCH
The second everybody packs away all their cold-weather gear it starts snowing and doesn’t stop for three days. Half of Brighton thinks this proves global warming is real and the other half think it proves it isn’t. 14 pubs close down.
APRIL
Matt Whistler jumps off the pier dressed as a cyberman while singing ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ in his latest stunt for the TV cameras. Six more shops on Western Road close down.
MAY
The Brighton Festival continues to be dominated by large, unwieldy, London-based physical theatre companies, performing half-thought-out ideas which will receive critical plaudits despite no ordinary member of the pubic ever seeing them. 11 more pubs close down.
JUNE
A chain of shops regarded as being the very backbone of the UK retail world goes into receivership, leading to a lot of eulogies in the national press from people who never shopped there in the first place. More shops selling rugs and lava lamps rush in to plug the gaps.
JULY
Despite the opening ceremony being massively unimpressive, Olympic fever strikes Brighton, with thousands transfixed by the whole tedious business. Some Croatian shot-putter becomes the ‘unlikely heroine’ of the event when her vest splits or something and Revenge hold a night where you have to dress up as her.
AUGUST
Brighton Pride is largely incident free, as always. 25 more pubs close down. Bus fares go up again. The Brighton wheel falls off its moorings and rolls into the sea.
SEPTEMBER
The Food Festival Market continues to fill the whole of the town centre with the smell of wok-fried, ginger-infused king prawn. Six more pubs close down. Despite this happening every week, people keep repeating the old ‘enough pubs to go in a different one each day of the year’ chestnut.
OCTOBER
The comedy festival is once again dominated by interchangeable TV panel show comedians whose sets could all be performed by each other without anybody really noticing. Everyone gets their snow gear at the ready, congratulating themselves on their acumen, unaware that it won’t actually snow until next April.
NOVEMBER
Lewes gets itself into trouble by burning an effigy that is both racist and libellous, leading to an endless debate. The economy plunges ever more perilously towards total collapse, and 23 shops and 35 pubs close down. The bus company reacts by putting up fares.
DECEMBER
Panicking, the shops all start their sales on 1 December, completely confusing everyone. Some people are so confused they actually consider purchasing something from one of those wooden shacks outside Churchill Square shopping centre. Bus fares go up again.
