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.