Hoarder! Hoarder!

In the course of my life I've had six house moves. This averages out to a move about every nine years. Most of them happened when I was quite young, so I didn't get fully involved in the trauma that is The House Move. But my most recent one was just under three years ago, when I upped sticks from London to the comparative peace of East Sussex. And I discovered that a move gives you the opportunity to go through your possessions and, hopefully, have something of a clearout, so that you start life in your new house with rather less clutter. What a pity I failed to use the opportunity. As a consequence, I am now, three years later, still making weekly trips to the charity shops and the Council tip, getting rid of the stuff that, had I disposed of it earlier, would have saved me a good few pounds by enabling me to hire a smaller removal van.

But I do struggle to give things up. Ask Mrs H and she'll quite happily tell you. I have more books than you can shake a stick at. I have a shed full of odds and ends that I've been collecting for years, in the belief that they might one day 'come in handy'. And drawers full of fossils, miscellaneous pebbles picked up from beaches, old pens, bits of electrical equipment and beer mats that I can't bear to throw away. The declutter experts advocate getting rid of something if you haven't used it for a given period - six months, for example - but I find it nigh on impossible to ditch things that I haven't used for half a lifetime. Or more. I have tried to declutter; heaven knows I've tried; but I invariably get stuck after the first item. And that first item is usually a bus ticket or a till receipt.

So, I'm a rubbish declutter-er. But just lately I've begun to wonder whether I shouldn't have hung on to all of it. For in the North Laine area of Brighton there is a large emporium called Snooper's Paradise, wherein a positive gallimaufry of antiques, curios and collectibles are for sale. Walking round Snooper's Paradise is like taking a stroll through your life. A bit like a near-death experience, only in slow motion. I was in said emporium a couple of weeks ago, and saw a good many items from my past. I used to store my fossils and sea shells in old Havana cigar boxes; the shop had them for six pounds each. My father cleverly rigged up an internal telephone system in my bedroom so my mother could phone me when dinner was on the table. Those same telephones, long since gone to landfill, are now worth around £100. And old bits of military clothing which I picked up for pennies at jumble sales in the sixties when such things were in favour (blame the Sergeant Pepper album) now cost as much as a new suit.

So, dear reader, I've come to a decision. I shall call a halt to any kind of de-cluttering. I wil start to fill my house with piles of newspapers, empty bottles and cans, and my garden with redundant bits of furniture. And I shall retain every book, CD, electronic gadget, empty takeaway carton and any other object that passes my way, on the off-chance that it may, at some point in the distant future, be worth a few bob. OK; if you visit me you might have to wipe your feet when you leave the house; but on the plus side, I think I'll soon have my very own documentary series on TV.

Warning No. 2 - Contains nudity, sex and swearing

So if you are easily offended, please look away now.

'Brighton is still very gay and full of balls', it's been said. And it was to Brighton that I betook myself the other day, intending to have a mouch round the shops. And mouch I did, in a very slow and idle manner, rather characteristic of Brighton itself. The short walk from Brighton Station to the North Laine area (one of the more interesting bits of the city) is rather dull, characterised by employment bureaux specialising in the hiring of medical staff, second-hand shops dealing in old banknotes, stamps and model railway bric-a-brac, and rather seedy-looking newsagents selling unpronouncable Polish beers, but the traveller is ultimately rewarded, of which more later.

Just before you arrive at North Laine, and almost opposite the Cuttlefish Organic Hairdressers, you encounter a rather dour-looking building on the way there called The Galeed Strict Baptist Chapel. In what way is it strict, I wonder? Does the minister with his carefully-tonsured chin beard and black stove-pipe hat look daggers at any latecomers as they sneak into the back of the chapel? Or do they take a fierce delight in having the temperature of the baptismal pool close to freezing point? Or does the congregation indulge in an orgy of tutting every time a gaily (without connotation) dressed individual saunters past? In any event, I wasn't about to find out, so I toddled on to the shops.

I suppose North Laine would describe itself as 'trendy'; possibly 'off-beat'. It's certainly that. It contains a myriad of small shops that provide more quirky goods, services and foodstuffs than you can shake a shamanic fortune-telling stick at. Do you want to buy a 'Bananaman' t-shirt? Have yourself tattooed? Get a tarot reading? Toast the fine weather in a glass of wheatgrass with added guarana (I thought that was the stuff seagulls are always depositing on my car...or is that guano)? Or even buy some vegetarian shoes? Then North Laine's your spiritual home. And if you should get the urge to dress as a pirate, a parlour maid, a burlesque starlet, complete with tassels, or even a bumble bee, the necessary items can be found in this small area of Brighton.

At this point, I'm afraid I have to express a rather childish delight in the variety of greetings cards to be found in North Laine. Clearly at some point, a group of tanked up students got together round a table littered with lager cans and empty KFC boxes and said, 'Now, what can we do to offend the maximum number of people?' and came up with a variety of ideas: a doctor, white coated and stethoscoped, exclaims, 'Here's my diagnosis - you're a wanker.'; another card notes, 'You're a genius! Pity you're such an arsehole...'. There were many other cards of an equally diverting nature, but I would blush to repeat them here...

Having had my fill of North Laine, I took a walk across Old Steine, past the Victoria Fountain and War Memorial with its sadly green and stagnant pool of water, and into St. James' Street, Kemp Town. Now, Kemp Town, the brochures will tell you, is home to Brighton's gay 'community'. I'm afraid I have always felt rather uncomfortable with the notion of splitting the population into separate 'communities' - The Bengali Community, The Chinese Community, and so on - it's something the media does all the time, and creates the assumption that every member of that 'community' thinks/feels/acts in the same way. Clearly not so. Within the 'gay community' (which makes up around a quarter of Brighton's population) there must be Conservative and labour gays, lesbians who like a drink or who have chosen to be teetotal, gay men who collect stamps, spot trains, hate Judy Garland. Anyway, be that as it may...

Kemp Town has a village feel. Most of the shops are small independents; the cafe, the barber, the Bona Foodie grocers. I wasn't sure whether this latter shop was Italian owned, or whether this 'Bona' was Polari for 'good'; Polari was a kind of slang devised and used by gay people in the 1960s, when homosexual acts in private were still a criminal offence and gay people needed a means of communication that excluded 'outsiders' - rather like cockney rhyming slang. A good example of Polari can be heard on Round the Horne, a 1960s radio programme in which comedian Kenneth Horne would converse with two gay men - Julian and Sandy - who dusted their conversation liberally with Polari. In my naivety (be fair...I was only ten years old!) I just though Julian and Sandy were two men who spoke funny. Sadly, I didn't meet either Julian or Sandy in Kemp Town; but I did encounter some curious incidents. I saw a woman carrying an English bull terrier. Then, moments later, I saw another woman carrying an English bull terrier. At this point, I thought 'perhaps it's some kind of fashion statement. Either that or there's a ban on dog leads'. But my latter thought was confounded moments later when I saw a gentleman out for a constitutional with another gentleman...on a lead. I saw a newspaper bill-board with a headline one could only find by the coast: 'Body found near crazy golf course'. And, in a gay greeting card shop, another of those cards that Brighton seems to specialise in: 'It's not homophobia - everyone hates you'. Many of the shops were flying rainbow flags; and this, coupled with the area's quietness after the roaring traffic in Old Steine, meant I felt as if I was in some small independent country; a kind of gay Vatican City within the City of Brighton. But without the Swiss Guard or the nuns.

Nor were there any nuns in Brighton Museum. But there was a pair of breeches (fifty two inch waist) belonging to the Prince Regent (later George the Fourth), worn during his sojourn at the palace better known as the Royal Pavilion. Apparently, 'Prinny' had a hatred of the new-fangled trousers that were becoming fashionable around 1810; so much so that he banned trousers from Court until 1815. It's believed that Prince George's dalliances with sundry ladies was emulated by his hangers-on at the Brighton Court, which led to Brighton becoming a magnet for those intent on affairs, sexual encounters and 'dirty weekends'.

The dirty weekend has become a bit of a standing joke; all rather Max Miller or Carry On. In less enlightened times teenagers would turn up at Brighton B and Bs on a Friday night, claiming to be 'Mr and Mrs Smith', but very rarely fooled the Dragon in the shape of the Seaside Landlady. Back in the 1930s, men who wanted to divorce their wives would rent a room in a Brighton boarding house, and pay a chambermaid to 'discover' them in bed with a prostitute. These days, the dirty weekend is all but defunct. One academic noted that 'people no longer come to Brighton for a dirty weekend; they move to Brighton to have a dirty life'. Interestingly, Brighton Museum also has a small glass case that details the Dirty Weekend. Amongst the treasures it contains are a couple of telephone box 'flyers'. The first features a buxom young woman exhorting us to 'lick my melon's'; clearly a crime against punctuation. The second exclaims, 'Transexual - tits and tackle - twice the fun all in one,' which I'm afraid rather left me lost for words. Not a common occurence.

I was still deep in thought when I arrived at the entrance to The Lanes, Brighton's jewellery and antique corner. But all this changed when I saw an elderly, bearded gent, sitting on the pavement, surrounded by little bits of origami that he was trying to sell for a few pence. I was both pleased and surprised to see him. I thought his business had folded.

Oh, and the chap who said, 'Brighton is still very gay and full of balls'? It was poet Samuel Rogers, speaking in 1829.

London Sur Mer

I'm conscious of the fact that this is my second posting this month with a French title. I apologise. I shall try to be more inventive demain.

We took a little trip to Brighton today. Brighton, beloved of the Prince Regent, and the first resort to make sea bathing popular. This latter claim to fame was a the result of a paper published by Dr Richard Russell, MD FRS, in 1750, 'Glandular Diseases, or a Dissertation on the Use of Sea Water in the Affections of the Glands'. The good Dr Russell recommended that those who wished to be cured of such ailments should not only bathe in the sea, but drink the stuff as well. Russell himself lived in Lewes, but recommended his patients take to the water (and take the water) at the nearest seaside town...Brighton.

Our visit today did not involve the imbibing of sea water; no. It was to see the comedy Lloyd George knew my father at the Theatre Royal, a 'proper' theatre with gilded mouldings, etched glass, velveteen seats...and very little leg room. Were Victorian Brightonians tiny people with little legs, I wonder? If so, then they must have suffered alongside London theatregoers, for I have never found an old theatre with anything approaching a decent amount of leg room!

We went to the matinee performance. Now, in London the matinee is beloved of the student on a budget. In Brighton, however, the pensioner is king (or queen) of the matinee. Dear friends, it would probably not be an exaggeration to say that Mrs. Hale and I were a good two decades younger than the bulk of the audience. We were surounded by sweet old ladies reminiscent of Miss Marple, who probably live in Rottingdean or somewhere equally pleasant, and their husbands, decked out in crimplene slacks and those light-coloured shoes beloved of the elderly. I felt as if I had wandered onto the set of the remake of Cocoon. All around me I could hear prostates popping like champagne corks, and the crackle of newly-permed hair. None of which is true.

The play, which starred Edward Fox (at his spendid best) and Claire Bloom, was a gentle drawing-room comedy of a type I haven't seen for years, and seemed ideally suited to the (mostly) elderly audience, who roared with laughter at the jokes and applauded politely for just long enough at the final curtain. I did say to Mrs. Hale before the play started that I hoped it would not be too dramatic, as some of our fellow theatregoers didn't look as if they could stand anything too shocking. But I needn't have worried.

Afterwards, we sallied forth onto the streets of London on Sea, as Brighton is sometimes called. And yes, I can see why. We encountered Big Issue sellers, a couple of Greenpeace Chuggers who greeted us like long-lost relatives, saw a small posse of street drinkers engaged in polite conversation within the environs of a bus shelter, and came across The Temple That Is Primark. But get away from all of these things; wander round the jewellery quarter that is The Lanes, visit the quirky shops in North Laine, or just enjoy a couple of hours looking at Brighton's distinctive architecture, its narrow streets and squares before rounding off the day at a decent seafood restaurant. That's the Brighton for me.

I think I'm going to like living down here. And the Tourist Board aren't paying me a penny. Honest.