Skip to main content

Brighton


Our holiday has moved on to the south coast now. Our initial impression of Brighton wasn't great, as it was cool, grey and windy when we arrived, and the hotel was in a rather run-down square with peeling paint, surrounded by tower blocks and a ruined, burnt-out pier. Of course, it's not all like that. It's turned out to be a very colourful town, a strange mix of elegant and tacky, often in the same street - a bit like London crowded into a much smaller space.

I have to give a black mark to Brighton Museums. Although they charge £8.50 admission to the Royal Pavilion for tourists, they say "Filming and photography within the Royal Pavilion is not permitted anywhere in the building. However, access may be agreed for professional projects." There are already unofficial restrictions on photography in many public places (because of illogical fears over terrorism and child protection) and the last thing we need is for museum administrators to take a mean attitude. Visitors are obviously going to want to take photos and this arbitrary restriction suggests to me that they're only after our money.

On the positive side, admission to - and deckchairs on - the remaining Brighton Pier are free, and there were no restrictions on taking photos there.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New Who

The name at the top of the bookmakers' lists this summer for the next Doctor Who was Peter Capaldi. I was interested to see the list but pooh-poohed this, as it seemed the production team were set on casting only young actors - I think it was even said at one point that only someone in their 20s could keep up with the pace of production. I was delighted to hear back in August that the rumours were, in fact, true. The choice pleased me for two reasons - firstly, as a long-term fan of the programme (except for the awful period in the 1980s when the production went badly astray) I wanted to see a Doctor with the authority that only an older man could have; secondly, I knew Peter back in the 1970s as a fellow fan - we're the same age and I've followed his career since the 1980s. I had met Jon Pertwee a couple of times, during the making of Death to the Daleks and Planet of the spiders , and got to know Peter through the Jon Pertwee fan club (started by an old school friend,
1 comment
Read more

JP at Theatre Royal, 1975

Another photo to accompany my bit from yesterday. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of these occasions where it doesn't look as if I'm about to vomit. Maybe it's not a bad thing, then, that the image quality is so poor...
Post a Comment
Read more

BFI Mediatheque

On a recent visit to London we discovered the excellent BFI Mediatheque where we watched films about the less-advertised recent history of  London like London in the raw . The Mediatheque is described as a "digital jukebox" and you can spend up to two hours in a session there. A much better film that we also saw is The London nobody knows . This is a melancholy trawl around some of the ruins and forgotten bits of London in the late 1960s with James Mason. Unfortunately this one isn't available on DVD and, as far as I know, the only place to see it is at one of the four mediatheques around the country . These are great free resources for anyone who is into film or television so, if you’re in London or one of the other three locations, have a look.
3 comments
Read more