Brighton Lights 2015

Stand up, stand out

Richard Shayler is championing bravery, and a powerful start to 2015

2015 is here! It’s only seventy-five years before it’s the year 3000. We’ll all live underwater by then and our great great great grand-daughters are all going to be pretty fine. Well according to Busted they will be …
What’s going to happen this year, though? Hopefully all the war and hardship occurring in the Middle East will finally end. Russia will stop behaving like their weather system – cold and hard. North Korea will champion a democratically elected government. Palestine and Israel will both wake up one day and forgive and forget. The entire world will work together to save our incredibly fragile climate, atmosphere and ecosystems. Americans will stop voting republican. China will finally let their people have a voice. And we’ll all spend a lot more time with our friends and families.

Too much emphasis has been put on status, money and power. Too many people have become blinded by greed and narcissism. 2015 should be the year of the selfless, not the selfish. The year of the kind and not the killed.

The time for change has been and gone. It’s now time for an international solidarity; we should all think of ourselves as members of the world. We should respect and enjoy any other member of our species’ company. Respect them, as we would like to be respected. Be tolerant to their beliefs and hopes, accepting of their fears, accommodating of their dreams.

This is the year of the goat. Goats like to be in groups and are honest and intimate. I believe we should all look to the goat and start employing a lot more honesty in our lives, with our friends, families and loved ones.

Open yourselves up to one another and see what happens. I feel a lot of the love has vanished – love replaced by fear, scared to help because you don’t know the agenda of others. Are they really in need or is it just a scam? Why should I help him, he’d never do the same for me?

I hear these things a lot and it saddens me deeply. It upsets me because I know that these people will pass on this fear to their children, and they will do the same for theirs. We need a generation that embraces this fear and overcomes it. A brave and headstrong group who know their right from wrong. A generation who stand up for themselves and protest at what they don’t believe in. Against tuition fees perhaps and undemocratic governments … Oh hang on, maybe this is the generation we’ve been desperately waiting for? Let’s hope so!

Brighton Lights is a show worked on by a team of people without fear or angst. Every week we all work together to ensure the best program comes out at the end. We’ve got an amazing year planned championing local bands, amazing characters around Brighton, and of course air guitar … you’ll have to watch for this all to make sense, Wednesday to Saturday at 7pm, on Freeview Channel 8, Virgin Media Channel 159 and live online @ www.thelatest.tv. Give us a chance, don’t be scared …