Bare cheek: Hove factually

Five things you never knew about fantabulous Hove

1 Prior to his assassination by US Special Forces in Pakistan in 2011 Osama bin Laden is reputed to have spent some time living on Blatchington Road, where he devoted his time to making plastic models and cultivating tea roses.

2 In cockney rhyming slang “Hove” means any soft drink, the derivation being “Hove and Portslade – Lemonade.”

3 An ancient legend states that Hove’s famous floral clock is actually a watch on the wrist of a sleeping giant who is buried beneath Palmeira Square. Apparently this giant will rise and lay waste to the surrounding area if the Hove Lagoon Model Yacht Club is ever disbanded.

4 Though it is well known that Eskimos have 50 words for snow, what is less well-known that they have, in fact, 75 words for “Hove”. Why an indigenous people should have such a large number of words for a place many thousands of miles away from its nearest settlement is a mystery.

5 After running up bad debts during the 1990s, Hove was forced to put itself up for sale. It was purchased by Frasier and Cheers actor Kelsey Grammer in 1997. Unfortunately the Hollywood star’s attempts to rebrand the city “Kelseyville” were unsuccessful and he sold it on to fellow actor Mickey Rourke, who owns it to this day.

WHAT WAS THAT?

Can’t remember the name of a book, film, song or thing? Mike Hunter is the man with the answers

Dear Mike,
When I was a lad at school, I remember one summer we all got a day off for a big celebration.

There was a lot of hoo-hah in the lead up to it, with commemorative plates and mugs and little plastic Union Jack on sale everywhere you looked, loads and loads of mentions on the telly, and some bloke from the bank came to our class to hand out specially-minted coins in presentation wallets that we weren’t allowed to spend on sweets.

Our street was festooned with bunting, and all the houses along it poured out their chairs, tables and table cloths into the road for a giant party. There was a lot of talk about V.E. Day from all the grown ups that remembered it (and some who didn’t), and everyone sang ‘God Save The Queen’, patriotic songs and old-time sing-alongs until they were hoarse. It was dismal.

I have long forgotten the name of this occasion, but, now I am a father, I mean to spend my remaining years campaigning against whichever god-awful institution inflicted it upon us, so my children need never endure its like.
Please can you help?
Yours, Richard Stone,
Southwick.

Dear Richard,
You might be getting ‘Silver’-haired but your memories of this event seem less than precious. Prepare for ‘Jubilee’tions, because I can reveal to you that the name of this special event was none other than the one-hundredth broadcast episode of ‘Food and Drink’ with Jilly Goolden and Michael Barry. Keep those queries flooding in!
Yours, Mike.

In & Out

In
• Pumice stone
• Pete Murray
• Not knowing whether your cough is dry, wet, or chesty
• Keel hauling
• Swimming socks

Out
• Myspace
• Derek Batey
• That joke, the punchline of which is “Missus, if you’re selling those puppies, I’ll have the one with the wet nose”
• Usury
• Rat poison

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