Tuba or Not Tuba?

Here is the 13th of 25 stained glass window designs on the Palace Pier which AI and I are using as inspiration for some of these BrightonBeach365 daily posts - see Stained Glass Window 1 for background.  The image shows the backs of two uniformed figures, possibly musicians, wearing dark caps with red bands. They are holding brass instruments, one of which appears to be a trombone and another a tuba. The background consists of a clear blue sky with stylised horizontal lines, suggesting a scene of a marching band or parade.

A limerick starter

Two bandsmen set off with a grin,

But one had his slide stuck right in.

He puffed and he blew,

Till his face turned bright blue —

Then sneezed, and played jazz on his chin!

The Case of the Missing Marching Band OR Tuba or Not Tuba? (From a recently-found episode of The Goon Show.)

FX: [Sea gulls. Waves crashing. Brass band warming up tunelessly.]

SEAGOON: Good morning! I am Major Horatio Seagoon, OBE, MFI, RSVP. I have come to Brighton Beach on a matter of national importance.

FX: [BAGPIPE WAIL]

SEAGOON: Shut that manhole cover, Eccles!

ECCLES: Sorry, I thought it was a new type of sunhat.

SEAGOON: It’s got wheels on it and says ‘Brighton Borough Drainage Department’!

ECCLES: Modern millinery, man!

SEAGOON: Silence! Now, according to confidential government memos, intercepted via a fortune cookie in Worthing, an entire marching band has gone missing from the seafront.

GRYTPYPE-THYNNE (smooth): Ah yes, the Royal Regiment of Reversible Saxophonists. Last seen marching confidently into the sea during a rendition of Anchors Aweigh.

SEAGOON: You mean they drowned?

GRYTPYPE: Not exactly. They’ve formed a successful underwater jazz trio off the coast of Rottingdean.

SEAGOON: By gad, we must rescue them before they collaborate with French crabs!

FX: [Marching footsteps, slowly getting squelchier]

BLOODNOK (exploding out of nowhere): Ahh! Not them again! I still owe the euphonium player two guineas and a cod.

SEAGOON: Where were you when the band disappeared, Colonel Bloodnok?

BLOODNOK: Nowhere suspicious! Merely camouflaged inside a tuba disguised as a deckchair.

FX: [Deckchair collapses with a metallic clang. Distant tuba fart.]

ECCLES: Ooooh! I think I sat on a B flat!

MINNIE (sing-song): Henry, Henry! There’s a man in the shrubbery playing a clarinet with his nose!

HENRY: That’s not a clarinet, Minnie. That’s my bicycle pump.

MINNIE: Then who’s playing the triangle with our haddock?

FX: [Loud triangle ding. Distant fish slap.]

SEAGOON: Enough! We must assemble the backup band!

FX: [Horrible discordant crash of spoons, combs, and someone playing a mop]

ECCLES: I got my washboard tuned to C-sharp! But it only plays in the rain.

GRYTPYPE: Congratulations. You are now all part of the official Brighton Beach Auxiliary Marching Misband.

SEAGOON: Forward! Left–right–left–ooh!

FX: [Marching. Then a mass splash.]

BLOODNOK: Wait, wait! The tide’s back in! ABANDON INSTRUMENTS!

FX: [Chaotic retreat, a trombone honks like a goose.]

OMNES (singing): ♪ For we are the band that sank with pride, Near Brighton’s bins and paddle tide. . . ♪

VOICEOVER (LEWIS): And so ends The Case of the Missing Marching Band, sponsored by the National Society for the Prevention of Seaside Serenades.

FX: [Final tuba bloop, fading under waves.]

Brighton’s biggest bash

Today’s Pride parade - the city’s biggest and most colourful annual event - set off at 11 am from Hove Lawns, gathering thousands of float‑decorated participants, drag performers and rainbow‑clad marchers who made their way east along the iconic seafront promenade. They proceeded along Kingsway to turn into West Street and North Street before winding past Old Steine and heading up toward London Road and Preston Road on its way to Preston Park, where the music festival begins.

This procession continues a legacy stretching back to the Sussex Gay Liberation Front’s first demonstration in October 1972, followed by Brighton’s inaugural Pride Week in July 1973 - a protest‑cum‑carnival walk along the waterfront ending with a beach gathering. After a hiatus, modern Pride returned in 1991, growing rapidly through the 1990s, and by 1996 the parade consistently began on the seafront with a major festival in Preston Park.

A watershed moment came in 2011 when financial collapse forced the new Brighton Pride CIC to introduce fencing and ticketing for the Preston Park event, while preserving the seafront parade as free. That move stabilised the event and enabled the creation of a Social Impact Fund which now supports local LGBTQ+ groups.

The COVID‑19 pandemic marked another turning point: both 2020 and 2021 festivals were cancelled (the 2020 edition was replaced by streamed content), breaking the Pride tradition for the first time. In 2022 Pride returned in full force - with headliners Christina Aguilera and Paloma Faith - and a revived focus on activism as well as entertainment. 2023 emphasised trans rights and global solidarity; 2024 featured themes of environmental activism and celebration, headlined by Girls Aloud and Mika.

Economically, Brighton Pride is one of the city’s most vital events. It draws up to 500,000 people over the weekend, accounting for an estimated two per cent of the city’s annual tourism in a single day and generating approximately £30 million in visitor spending. Since 2018 the event has delivered consistent economic benefits and raised more than £1 million annually for community grants.

This year 2025 brings further evolution. The theme - ‘Ravishing Rage’ - signals both celebration and resilience, and the event introduces major improvements following widespread community consultation. Notably, the Pride Village Party stage in Kemptown has moved from St James’s Street to Marine Parade, which will remain open for pedestrian and vehicle traffic, while Marine Parade will host a new Street Party featuring outside stages and entertainment.

On the festival front, 2025’s Pride on the Park takes place in Preston Park on 2-3 August, headlined by Mariah Carey in a UK festival exclusive - her long‑awaited performance originally planned for 2020 - and supported by acts including Sugababes, Fatboy Slim, Confidence Man, Loreen, Will Young, Natalie Imbruglia, Ashnikko, Slayyyter and Sister Sledge. Hayu, the NBCUniversal reality streaming service, is this year’s headline sponsor, enabling over 150 LGBTQ+ performers across multiple immersive stages.

In sum, today’s procession along Brighton’s seafront is not simply a visual feast - it’s also part of a five‑decade arc of protest turning into celebration, of financial crisis becoming a sustainable model, of pandemic pause and triumphant resurrection, and of ever‑greater economic and cultural significance to both city and community. For further information see Time Out, Brighton and Hove Council, and Wikipedia.

On the Beach hit by weather

Thousands of music-lovers were evacuated from Brighton seafront yesterday evening after a Met Office yellow warning for thunderstorms prompted a swift and precautionary response from organisers of Brighton’s On The Beach festival. The warning, which forecast heavy rain and potential flooding, led to what some described as a ‘Code Red’-style evacuation. Crowds were seen leaving the site in orderly fashion just after 6pm as thunderclouds gathered and conditions deteriorated.

Drone footage - from Sussex Express - captured the mass movement away from the beach, with stewards guiding people safely from the festival grounds. The yellow warning had been issued earlier in the day, but organisers initially proceeded with caution. At 5.30pm, a statement on the festival’s Instagram page confirmed that the show would go on - ‘The weather forecast from the Met Office is now clear skies for the rest of the evening, but prepare for change.’

However, the skies did not stay clear. As heavy rain swept in and lightning was reported nearby, the decision was made to evacuate the site. Aerial photographs published by the Sussex Express showed thousands leaving the seafront just as the storm arrived. Emergency services assisted the evacuation, with no reported injuries or arrests.

By around 7.30pm, conditions improved and the yellow warning was lifted. Festival organisers reopened the site and revised the schedule, allowing the evening’s acts to proceed under clearer skies. The Argus reported that fans praised the organisers for ‘putting safety first without cancelling the whole evening’.

While no official ‘Code Red’ declaration was made, the phrase circulated widely among attendees as a way to describe the highest level of threat response used in emergency planning. The sudden storm interrupted the rhythm of the evening, but the quick return of music and clear skies by nightfall brought the crowd back together.

Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm

Today, Bloc Party headline On the Beach, the annual summer music festival that transforms Brighton’s seafront into a large-scale open-air concert venue. Held each July, the event draws thousands of fans from across the UK to the city’s iconic shingle beach. With the Rampion wind farm on the horizon and stages set just metres from the tide, the festival once again brings live music to one of the most distinctive coastal settings in the country.

On the Beach began in 2021, building on Brighton’s long love affair with large-scale seaside music. It channels the same spirit that drew quarter of a million people to Fatboy Slim’s chaotic beach show back in 2002 - a landmark event that still hangs heavy over Brighton’s pop-culture memory. Unlike that free-for-all, the modern festival is carefully ticketed and spread over several weekends each July, bringing big-name DJs, rock bands and indie outfits to stages erected almost within reach of the tide. Past years have seen Royal Blood, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, The Kooks and The Libertines claim the beach. This summer’s run continues the tradition, with today’s billing dedicated to a more guitar-driven, indie flavour.

At the heart of it all are Bloc Party, who tonight perform their seminal debut album Silent Alarm in full, marking twenty years since it first tore through the UK charts. Released in 2005, Silent Alarm fused jagged post-punk guitar lines, urgent dance rhythms and raw, nervy vocals into a sound that defined an era of British indie. Songs like Banquet and Helicopter became anthems in sticky clubs and muddy fields alike. Over the two decades since, Bloc Party have shape-shifted through electronic experiments, introspective rock and propulsive returns to form, all without losing their taste for sharp edges and restless energy.

Frontman Kele Okereke has cited everyone from The Smiths to electronic pioneers like A Guy Called Gerald as influences. Guitarist Russell Lissack, meanwhile, has a side passion for rescuing stray cats and once briefly joined Ash on tour. Joining the two founders of the band on stage will be Louise Bartle on drums and percussion - officially part of the band since 2015 - and Harry Deacon, who took over bass duties in 2023.

Sharing the stage with Bloc Party today are Everything Everything, the Manchester art-rock outfit celebrated for twisting pop into clever, unexpected shapes, and Mystery Jets, long-time darlings of the indie circuit whose bright, slightly psychedelic songs like Two Doors Down still ring with youthful rush. They’re joined by Leeds newcomers English Teacher (see English Teacher on the beach, who played this very location a couple of months ago) and Liz Lawrence, the genre-hopping singer-songwriter whose crystalline vocals have become a Brighton favourite. Rounding out the bill are FEET, bringing fresh energy off the back of their new album, and Martial Arts, a rising local band adding yet more sun-soaked guitar sparkle to the beach.

The Great Omani

Twenty-five years ago, Brighton’s seafront bade a flamboyant farewell to one of its most extraordinary residents: Ronald Cunningham, better known by his stage name, ‘The Great Omani’. On 10 July 2000 - his 85th birthday - Omani staged what he declared would be his final stunt, astonishing a crowd at the Norfolk Hotel by escaping from handcuffs while both his arms were set ablaze with lighter fluid. Frail, in a wheelchair, and undergoing treatment for kidney dialysis and cancer, he ensured that his last act was as daring and theatrical as the countless spectacles he had performed along Brighton’s historic front - many of them centred on the West Pier, the backdrop to some of his most audacious feats.

Living modestly at 10 Norfolk Street, Cunningham was a true local legend whose improbable career as a stuntman and escapologist spanned nearly half a century. Born into a wealthy family, he drifted through his early years without ambition until a twist of fate changed everything. As he browsed in a London bookshop, a volume of Houdini’s tricks fell from a shelf and landed squarely on his foot. ‘That moment changed my life,’ he later said. Taking it as a sign, he resolved on the spot to become a stuntman, adopting the name ‘The Great Omani’ simply because, in his words, it sounded ‘exotic and exciting, just like Houdini’s’.

His acts were as audacious as his origin story. Omani became the first man to travel from London to Brighton on a bed of nails, then made the return journey entombed in a ton of concrete. In a heartfelt homage to his idol, he staged a dramatic underwater escape from Brighton’s West Pier - echoing Houdini’s own feats of the 1920s. According to The Argus, ‘The Great Omani could be regularly seen jumping from the end of the West Pier, wrapped in chains and on fire’. His repertoire included smashing bottles on his throat with a hammer, diving through flaming hoops, and extricating himself from burning structures - stunts performed with a blend of swagger and scrupulous preparation. Remarkably, across his long career, he was only seriously injured twice, both times due to mistakes by assistants: once when a cardboard house was set alight with petrol poured inside, another time when a leaking fuel can caused minor burns during a flaming dive.

That final spectacle on his 85th birthday was meant to be his swan song (see this video at Youtube - the source of the screenshot above), yet in true Omani fashion he couldn’t resist also marking his 90th birthday with a last defiant farewell (see My Brighton and Hove). He died in 2007. Further information is available online at Wikipedia, but also in The Crowd Roars - Tales from the life of a professional stuntman The Great Omani which can be freely downloaded as a pdf from QueenSpark Books.

The Pier first sees red - in neon

Exactly one hundred years ago, on 11 July 1925, The Brighton & Hove Herald reported a dazzling leap into modernity: the first brilliant neon sign blazed across the front of the Palace Pier. It was a spectacle the likes of which the town had never seen - a vivid red beacon spelling out Palace Pier, its letters edged in electric blue, visible from a considerable distance along the bustling seafront. This photo - courtesy of Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove - is dated to 1925 (though I know not if it actually includes any neon illumination).

At the time, neon was still a novel wonder. Invented by French engineer Georges Claude and first unveiled to the public at the Paris Motor Show in 1910, neon signs were a marvel of engineering and chemistry, harnessing the glow of electrified gas to paint the night in colours more vivid than anything achieved by traditional incandescent bulbs. In Britain, neon advertising only truly began to catch on in the early 1920s. Londoners were awestruck by neon displays on places like Hammersmith Bridge, and Brighton was determined not to be left behind.

The Brighton & Hove Herald of 11 July 1925 was almost breathless in its report, explaining that the new Palace Pier sign was among the first uses of neon illumination in the town - part of a wider effort to give the seafront a ‘brighter aspect by night’. The paper described how ‘huge shaped glass tubes’, bent to form the letters, were filled with neon gas which glowed fiercely under electrical charge, producing a luminous red unlike anything seen before. Surrounding blue lamps heightened the effect, creating what the Herald called ‘a colour combination that was quite attractive.’

The article goes on to give more details; ‘The words of the sign are formed by vacuum tubes charged with neon gas and electricity, which produces the brilliant light. The sign on the Pier takes 8,000 volts (alternating current), but it is so cheap in consumption of current that it costs only 2 1/2 d. an hour to run; and after the sign has been lit for a month that amount will be reduced to 2d. With the aid of a little lunar limelight, a wonderful colour effect was obtained on Tuesday night, but this was for ‘one night only.’ A great orange-coloured moon rose out of the wall of dark over the sea, and the orange of the moon and the flaming ruby of the sign produced a colour combination that was quite impressive.’

This local marvel was part of a global neon boom that would come to define the visual culture of the 20th century. Within a few years, neon would spread to Blackpool’s promenades, Piccadilly Circus, and Times Square, becoming synonymous with nightlife, glamour, and the thrilling energy of modern cities. But on that July evening in 1925, Brighton stood proudly at the forefront of this new luminous age.

Glitzy history of sunglasses

Sunglasses - such as these photographed on Brighton Beach - have a curious, winding history that stretches far beyond mere fashion. Long before glossy magazines or film stars, people sought ways to shield their eyes from the sun’s harsh glare. The Inuit crafted slitted goggles from walrus ivory to narrow the world into thin bands of light, protecting themselves against snow blindness. In ancient Rome, it’s said (but also disputed) that Nero watched gladiators through polished emeralds, delighting in both spectacle and subtle shade.

Centuries later, in twelfth-century China, smoky quartz lenses appeared not to protect eyes from sunlight but to conceal them. Judges wore these dark panes in court, their eyes unreadable behind flat stones, masking any flicker of bias. By the eighteenth century in Europe, tinted lenses gained a new reputation, believed to ease particular visual ailments - blue and green glass held out as hopeful remedies.

It was only in the modern age that sunglasses began their true march into everyday life. In the roaring 1920s and 30s, seaside holidays and open-top cars demanded tinted spectacles. Sam Foster seized the moment in 1929, selling mass-produced sunglasses on the Atlantic City boardwalk, delighting beachgoers who craved a touch of glamour with their sunburn. In 1936, Edwin H. Land introduced Polaroid filters, cutting glare with clever chemistry and forever changing how sunlight met the human eye.

War gave sunglasses another push. In the 1940s, Ray-Ban designed protective eyewear for American pilots, launching the aviator - a shape that would later slip from cockpits into cocktail bars with effortless ease. By the 1950s and 60s, sunglasses were not simply practical shields; they were signatures of style. Audrey Hepburn’s enormous frames, James Dean’s brooding lenses - they didn’t just hide eyes, they created mysteries.

Today, sunglasses straddle the line between science and seduction. They promise UV protection, polarisation, sharp optics. But they also whisper of disguise, of attitude, of watching the world from a place just out of reach. More on this from Wikipedia, Bauer & Clausen Optometry, and Google Arts and Culture.

Burchill on the beach

‘The revamps, the facelifts and the attempts by a clumsy council to write the indigenous Brighton working class out of the upwardly mobile picture are real enough. But on the beach, you get the distinct feeling that Brighton will never completely pull its socks up.’ This is the Brighton treasure Julie Burchill - 66 years old today - writing about the seafront nearly two decades ago.

Born in Bristol in 1959, the daughter of a communist factory worker and a dinner lady, she left home at 17 for London to work at the New Musical Express. She quickly made a name for herself with a brash, slangy style and fierce opinions. Alongside fellow writer Tony Parsons, she helped define the paper’s punk-era voice, becoming a leading figure in a new, confrontational brand of journalism.

In the 1980s Burchill moved from music writing into broader columns and cultural commentary, writing for The Face, The Sunday Times, and The Mail on Sunday. She also spent several years as a star columnist at Cosmopolitan, where her wit and provocations reached a wide female readership. Her work was marked by controversial takes on everything from feminism to class, and she revelled in the notoriety. 

In 1991, Burchill with her husband Cosmo Landesman and Toby Young launched a short-lived magazine, Modern Review, under the slogan ‘Low culture for high brows’. Also in the early 1990s, Burchill relocated to Brighton. She became one of the city’s most talked-about residents, living out her fondness for seaside sleaze, nightlife and scandal. In 2007, she co-wrote Made in Brighton with Daniel Raven, a rollicking blend of personal memoir and city guide, paying tribute to Brighton’s gay culture, drugs scene, and enduring flair for eccentricity. The book can be previewed on Googlebooks. Here is a sample.  

‘Charlotte [Raven, fellow writer on the Modern Review] also called the old neglected seafront ‘a wonderful prompt for human narratives’ - and looking at the pristine Artists Quarter, Fishing Museum and Volleyball Court, where one’s responses are all cued up and ready to go, you could argue that prosperity has been paid for with sheer seedy character. And that this could be a chic, bustling promenade anywhere from Positano to San Francisco, as the beautiful people linger over a latte and plan a hard day’s antique shopping.

But I’m nit-picking. When it still feels like an honour to live somewhere after eleven years, how bad can it be? And it’s still so not London! Beyond the Palace Pier going east towards the Marina, the chill, slick hand of the style police has not yet crushed Brighton’s grand tradition of agreeable, ramshackle blowsiness, and you can still ride the quaint Volks Railway past the abandoned Peter Pan’s Playground and the desperately dated, utterly adorable ‘nudist beach’. Here Little Englander Modernists like me can find the rusty radiance of the resistance to the global village and the Euro-portion which is summed up in the county motto of Sussex: We Won’t Be Druv.

The revamps, the facelifts and the attempts by a clumsy council to write the indigenous Brighton working class out of the upwardly mobile picture are real enough. But on the beach, you get the distinct feeling that Brighton will never completely pull its socks up. Already the white-flight London breeders who came here to create a vast Nappy Valley - a kind of Clapham-on-Sea - are appalled by our unparalleled drug-taking [. . .] and assorted high jinks. Even between the piers, where the gentrification is most obvious and where every citizen should in theory be shopping for hand-painted objets, the vast dope cloud still rises, like a phoenix in reverse, silently and smilingly refusing to be born-again as an on-message, user-friendly unit of the ongoing British economic miracle which has seen us over the past decade come to work the longest hours in Europe - and along the way become one of its most miserable nations. But time passes so quickly in the blameless, shameless sun, on the eternal beach, where the going out and coming in of the ocean makes the only real sense. A working day can be lost forever in the blink of an eye, in forty winks, in a couple of cans of Stella and a cheeky spliff. And a good thing too.

[. . .]

Now I am one of those maddeningly jammy dodgers. I’ve been here in Brighton for twelve years, and the weird thing is that in the best possible way it still doesn’t feel like home. Instead it feels like I somehow got out of going home - time and time and time again - and that I escaped from the life that had been mapped out for me in the landlocked limbo of London; the slo-mo, stressed-out, wound-down fatalism of growing up and growing old. Now that’s lucky, if you like.’

The top photo is accredited to Dan Chung in a 2014 Guardian article. More on Burchill can be found at Wikipedia,

Happy splashing

Brighton’s popular Kings Road paddling pool is set to reopen today, 1 July, following weeks of essential repairs that saw the site drained, resurfaced and chemically balanced to ensure safety for thousands of expected summer visitors. According Brighton and Hove Council, the pool, nearby the West Pier, had been closed for work repair on its rubber-crumb flooring and to coordinate with the ongoing maintenance of the nearby A259 arches.

Councillor Alan Robins said the council understood how much families value this facility, calling it ‘a fantastic resource’ that provides ‘somewhere free where families can spend the day, make lifelong memories and, hopefully, enjoy the good weather this summer’. Councillor Trevor Muten added that the city had worked closely with Freedom Leisure, the operator responsible for the pool, to get the site ready in time for the school holidays. Longer term, the council plans to consult local residents on the paddling pool’s future once the arches project is complete.

There has been a seafront paddling pool more or less at this spot for generations. A larger, rectangular paddling pool was built here in the 1950s, just west of the West Pier’s landward remains, roughly opposite Regency Square - this photograph of it was published in The Argus some five years ago without any source or accreditation). When it was demolished either in the late 1970s or early 1980s, the site was repurposed first as tarmac and later partially used for skateboarding. In the early 2000s, as part of wider seafront improvements tied to the new seafront cycle lanes and landscaping, the new circular Kings Road paddling pool was constructed on approximately the same footprint, just slightly adjusted to fit the redesigned seafront layout.

The old paddling pool is fondly remembered, as recorded on the My Brighton and Hove website. Residents have shared stories of learning to swim there as toddlers, recalling sun-warmed concrete, splashes under clear skies, and the happy crush of families seeking relief from the heat. Here is Chris, for example, remembering the late 1960s: ‘’I used to go to the paddling pool with my mum and dad in the mid- to late 60s, before I was ready to “progress” to the sea or the King Alfred. I have vivid memories of the place to this day. I used to put my hands on the bottom and lay forward to “walk” along on my hands, pretending to swim. I also recall the paving around the pool where we’d lay out our towels/blankets and have the drinks and sandwiches we’d brought. Most of all, I remember the water as being wonderfully blue and clean – though with all those toddlers, I imagine it wasn’t quite that pure!’

The modern pool was briefly closed in 2023 after a dead seagull was found floating in the water, prompting a deep clean. Just last year, a spell of very hot weather caused minor surface damage that forced another temporary shutdown. Sporadic vandalism has also led to closures in the past, with glass or debris sometimes thrown into the pool. But now it’s open again, so happy splashing!

Mid-air fighter pilot thrills!

Ever experienced mid-air fighter pilot thrills? Ever been on the Palace Pier’s Air Race ride? This attraction has become a staple of the pier’s amusement offerings since its installation around 2016. Manufactured by Italian ride designers Zamperla, the award-winning Air Race is known for its compact design and intense looping motion, simulating the feeling of a high-speed aerobatic display.

The ride consists of plane-shaped pods mounted on rotating arms. As the central hub spins, the arms swing outward, causing the pods to loop vertically and invert. The result is a disorienting two-minute experience delivering forces said to be up to 3G. Riders are secured in over-the-shoulder restraints, and the ride is accompanied by engine sound effects and commentary mimicking an air show.

Brighton’s Air Race replaced or supplemented older children’s rides as part of the Brighton Pier Group’s post-2010 modernisation strategy. It operates as part of the pier’s token- or wristband-based amusement park at the far end of the structure. Its height and movement make it visible from the promenade, contributing to the pier’s profile as a destination for thrill-seekers as well as traditional day-trippers.

The ride has been in the news. On 8 April 2019, a component came loose during operation and struck a teenage boy in the leg, causing minor injury. Emergency services responded, and the Health and Safety Executive launched an investigation. The ride was temporarily closed and inspected by the manufacturer. The incident, reported by multiple national outlets including BBC News and ITV News, was one of the few recent mechanical accidents on Brighton Palace Pier. No serious injuries were recorded.

The Air Race is not unique to Brighton. The same Zamperla ride model is installed in several locations around the world. Notable examples include Luna Park in Coney Island, New York (opened 2010), and Drayton Manor in Staffordshire (opened 2014). Other installations exist in Australia, Canada and at travelling fairs in Germany. According to Zamperla’s website, the Air Race won a Menalac Best New Products award in the FECS category (European fairs and traveling attractions) within the 2011-2020 timeframe.

Stormzy stars in Brighton short

Stormzy’s new short film Big Man, much of it shot in Brighton - on the beach and the pier - marks the artist’s first leading role on screen. The 20-minute film, directed by Oscar-winner Aneil Karia and released this month, was shot entirely on the latest iPhone and produced by #Merky Films in collaboration with Apple.

The short film follows Tenzman, a former star adrift in a creative slump, who reconnects with joy and purpose after an unexpected encounter with two young boys (played by Klevis Brahja and Jaydon Eastman). Their adventure takes them to Brighton Beach, where scenes of them running across the pebbles, trampolining and eating chips together capture moments of emotional clarity for Stormzy’s character. 

Stormzy himself was born Michael Ebenazer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr. in Croydon in 1993. He rose to fame in the mid-2010s with tracks like Shut Up and his debut album Gang Signs & Prayer, the first grime album to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart. In October 2015, he played at the Brighton Beach venue, Concorde 2, during his first-ever UK headline tour. A year later he was back in town performing a high‑energy set at the Dome during The Great Escape festival.

Known for his political engagement and cultural influence, Stormzy has since expanded his impact beyond music, launching a publishing imprint, founding #Merky Books, and supporting educational and justice initiatives. Big Man signals a new creative chapter, blending music, narrative, and location in a quietly ambitious short film rooted in real emotion and recognisable British landscapes.

The film, from which these screenshots were taken, can be viewed at Time Out's website.

Cosmo Sarson, wasn’t it?

[Scene: Brighton Palace Pier. Two seagulls, Eric (taller, dafter) and Ernie (shorter, primmer), are sitting comfortably on large deckchairs near the funfair. With apologies again to Morecambe and Wise. See also Bring me . . . a sausage roll!]

Eric: You ever notice how humans scream before the rollercoaster even drops?

Ernie: [Laughs] Pre-emptive panic. Like you when someone sneezes near a pasty.

Eric: Hey - better startled than snatched. I’ve seen what toddlers do to feathers.

Ernie: [Laughing again] True. One of them tried to share their sausage roll with me once. By throwing it at me.

Eric: Ah, the Brighton welcome.

Ernie: Still, better than the ghost train. That thing rattles like a pigeon in a crisp tin.

Eric: And yet, it’s us who got painted, Ernie. Deckchairs, dignity… and just a hint of smug.

Ernie: Cosmo Sarson, wasn’t it?

Eric: Yep. Bold colours, big brushstrokes - a proper seaside tribute. They call it Laughing Seagulls.

Ernie: Well, we are hilarious. Especially you during bin collection.

Eric: It’s performance art. I’ve told you.

Ernie: Cosmo got the vibe, though. Two old birds watching the world flap by. Captured our best side - both of them.

Eric: He said it was about friendship, joy, resilience.

Ernie: And snacks, surely? 

Eric: Snacks are implied.

Ernie: You know, I’ve never actually sat in a deckchair before.

Eric: You are now. In glorious, fifteen-foot seaside Technicolor.

Ernie: Not bad for a couple of ferals, eh?

Eric: Not bad at all. Now - watch that one on the helter-skelter. He’s gonna lose his hat and his lunch.

[Both laugh]

Glorious Day in Hove

The inaugural Glorious Day Festival is set to bring a fresh wave of house, funk and soul to Brighton’s Hove Lawns today. Running from 1pm to 10:30pm, with last entry set at 4:45pm, the boutique seaside event is aimed at an 18+ audience and promises a sunset soundtrack from some of the biggest names in dance music. Headliners include Soul II Soul, Grammy-winning DJ Roger Sanchez, Mark Knight, Norman Jay MBE, Danny Rampling, Julie McKnight and Smokin Jo.

Organised with the backing of Brighton & Hove City Council’s Outdoor Events team, Glorious Day positions itself as a one-day celebration with a single-stage setup, beachfront vibes and a carefully curated lineup. The event is ticketed through platforms such as See Tickets and Skiddle, with early bird prices from £39.50 and VIP upgrades available. It joins a packed local summer schedule alongside Brighton Pride, The Great Escape and other major music events, but is billed as bringing a more relaxed, refined edge tailored for a discerning crowd.

The festival takes place on Hove Lawns, a council-owned green space along Brighton Beach, long used for community celebrations and seasonal events. Festival-goers can expect a wide range of food and drink vendors, free water stations and a no-camping format. Blankets are allowed but camping chairs, windbreaks, gazebos and outside food or drink are not permitted. With a ‘Challenge 25’ policy in place, all attendees must bring valid photo ID.

The lack of a publicly-credited promoter for Glorious Day Festival suggests it is being run by a small, possibly local, independent events team operating under the festival’s brand name rather than a known production company. This is common for boutique seaside festivals, where organisers often handle bookings, branding and logistics internally while partnering with established ticketing platforms. To stage an event on Hove Lawns, the team would have needed to apply through Brighton & Hove City Council’s Outdoor Events team, who oversee permissions for use of public space, ensure compliance with safety and licensing regulations, and coordinate site access, noise management and emergency services. The council’s role is to facilitate rather than produce such events, meaning the festival’s creative, financial and operational planning rests entirely with the private organisers.

End of the Pier Show

A new chapter in Brighton Beach entertainment - or rather an old chapter renewed - is set to open in Brighton this summer, according to the Brighton and Hove News. The Palace Pier Performers - led by local panto favourites Allison Ferns and Jack Pallister - are preparing to revive a once popular theatre genre - The End of the Pier Show - on Brighton Palace Pier. 

Auditions, described as ‘a kind of Brighton’s got talent,’ will take place on 1 July at Horatio’s, with the first performance scheduled for 11 August and a run through 22 August. According to Brighton and Hove News, the organisers promise a contemporary twist on the classic variety format, seeking dynamic performers who can sing, dance, and act, and emphasising inclusivity for applicants of all backgrounds. Anne Ackord, chief executive of the pier was quoted as saying: ‘I am delighted to both revisit the past and create new memories for today’s visitors with the return of the iconic end of pier entertainment.’

Allison Ferns reflected: ‘My first ever proper job was on the Palace Pier selling seafood and Brighton rock and so it feels really special to be back here. In fact, I’m very much going back to my roots as my first ever performing job was in an end of the pier show in Eastbourne.’

This revival draws on a rich tradition that began in the late Victorian era, when pleasure piers across Britain built theatres at their seaward ends to host variety shows for holidaymakers. End of the pier shows became a hallmark of the British seaside, offering affordable entertainment that mixed comedy, music, dance, and novelty acts for generations of visitors. Though their popularity declined with changing holiday habits in the late 20th century, the format remains a cherished part of coastal culture.

Indeed, today, such anachronistic entertainment has largely disappeared. The Cromer Pier Show with over 70,000 visitors annually is a rare exception - this publicity still (!) can be found at the DayVisits website. 

Dombey’s son on Brighton Beach

Charles Dickens, who died 155 years ago today, knew Brighton well. He first visited the seaside resort in October 1837 and returned frequently over the next 30 years, often staying at the Bedford Hotel (now replaced by the modern Holiday Inn on the seafront following the original building’s destruction by fire in 1964). He also lodged at the Old Ship Hotel and with friends in private residences. While in Brighton, Dickens worked on parts of several novels, including Bleak House, Barnaby Rudge, and most notably Dombey and Son.

Dickens appreciated Brighton not just as a place to write, but to observe. In a newly discovered letter, he wrote: ‘I feel much better for my short stay here, also the characters one meets at these seaside places.’ In 2012, a blue plaque was unveiled on the Holiday Inn to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth, commemorating his strong links to the town. Further details of his Brighton connections are available at the Brighton & Hove Museums website.

In Dombey and Son, the Brighton coast plays a central symbolic and narrative role. The novel, a meditation on pride, emotional repression, and redemption, follows the life of Paul Dombey, a cold, ambitious businessman obsessed with his shipping empire and the hope of passing it to a male heir. The story opens with the birth of his son, Paul Jr., and the simultaneous death of his wife. Dombey’s daughter, Florence, is largely ignored - valued neither in business nor lineage.

The frail and introspective Paul Jr. is advised to spend time by the sea for his health, and so he and Florence are sent to Brighton. They stay first at the austere Mrs. Pipchin’s boarding house and later at the school of the formidable Dr. Blimber. These episodes mark some of the most poignant and poetic passages in Dickens’s writing, in which Brighton Beach becomes more than a setting: it is a landscape of revelation, sorrow, and spiritual inquiry.

In chapter eight, we discover Paul’s favourite place is not among the bustling crowds, but a quiet, remote stretch of beach, where Florence reads to him and he reflects deeply: ‘His favourite spot was quite a lonely one, far away from most loungers; and with Florence sitting by his side at work, or reading to him. . . he wanted nothing more.’ He becomes fascinated by the sea, sensing a hidden language in the endless waves: ‘The sea, Floy, what is it that it keeps on saying?’ She told him that it was only the noise of the rolling waves. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘But I know that they are always saying something. Always the same thing.’

The beach also gives Dickens the chance to provide Paul with limited social interaction: a daily encounter with a gruff, elderly fisherman - ‘a weazen, old, crab-faced man in a suit of battered oil-skin’ - adds colour to his otherwise quiet days. Yet solitude and introspection dominate: ‘Another time, in the same place, he fell asleep, and slept quietly for a long time. Awaking suddenly, he listened, started up, and sat listening.’

The Victorian Web website has several illustrations of Brighton Beach from different editions of Dombey and Son. The one immediately above is by Harold Copping for Mary Angela Dickens’s Children’s Stories from Dickens and the one above that is by W. L. Sheppard for the 1873 American Household Edition of Dombey and Son.

One cannot say the novel ends happily since despite the hopeful associations of sea air and convalescence, Paul’s condition worsens, and he dies young. Florence is heartbroken and the emotional void between her and her father deepens. Nevertheless - this is Dickens after all - there is, ultimately, a sense of moral reckoning and eventual redemption.

Beyond writing retreats, Dickens’s relationship with Brighton was also marked by performance. He gave several public readings in the town, including a much-admired appearance at the Royal Pavilion on 9 November 1861, where his dramatic rendering of scenes from his novels drew packed audiences. Brighton featured again on his Farewell Reading Tour in 1867-1868, during which his health was already deteriorating. Indeed, he would die on 9 June 1870, Much more on Dickens can be found at Wikipedia.

Upside Down Houses on a roll

The Upside Down House on Brighton Beach stands out as a unique tourist attraction, thoughtfully designed and built as a temporary experience for visitors. This quirky structure was the brainchild of Tom Dirse, CEO of Upside Down House UK Ltd, who first introduced the concept in Bournemouth in 2018. Since then, the idea has expanded to six locations in the UK (with four more managed by a partner company). Indeed, the concept seems to be on a roll worldwide with topsy-turvy houses opening from the US to Thailand, Estonia to South Africa.

Brighton’s Upside Down House opened its doors in May 2019, perfectly positioned on the seafront between the i360 and the bandstand. Its vibrant turquoise exterior complements the iconic colours of the city’s coastline, making it a striking feature along the promenade. Inside, it features a variety of themed rooms - including a kitchen, dining room, bathroom, bedroom, music room, and vault room - all with furniture and décor attached to the ‘ceiling’ for surreal photographic opportunities. The interior design is said to draw on Brighton’s diverse cultural, music, and arts scene, with elements such as a bespoke gaming area, a jukebox, a vintage bicycle, and a replica Mona Lisa.

The attraction appears to be part of a global trend of topsy-turvy constructions, with similar installations found across Europe, North America, Asia, and beyond, often as standalone tourist sites or within amusement parks and museums. Apart from at least ten in the UK there are certainly 20 more well-known ones worldwide (though the actual number is likely to be higher).

My own (un-modified) upside down photograph of Brighton’s Upside Down House inspired me to collage together a few photos found online of other similar attractions. I’ve modified those pictures by rotating them through 180 degrees, and then slightly cropping/straightening the results. Locations:  Orlando, USA (top right), Broederstroom, South Africa (bottom right), Szymbark, Poland (top left), Tartu, Estonia (bottom left). Incidentally, the original Upside Down House concept is credited to the one at Szymbark which opened in 2007 as a tourist attraction and a social commentary on the communist era.

Korwar’s Percussion Parade

Yesterday, 25 May and the last day of the city’s May festival, Brighton Beach was pulsing with rhythm and colour as acclaimed percussionist Sarathy Korwar led an exuberant 30-piece band in Percussion Parade, a vibrant celebration of multicultural music.

Korwar - an award-winning drummer, composer, and bandleader - is renowned for his innovative fusion of jazz, Indian classical music, and contemporary sounds. Born in the US, he grew up in Ahmedabad and Chennai, India, where he began studying tabla at the age of 10. His early musical influences included Indian folk songs and American jazz artists like Ahmad Jamal and John Coltrane. At 17, he moved to Pune to study Environmental Science but ultimately dedicated himself to music, training under tabla maestro Rajeev Devasthali and expanding his skills to the Western drum kit. 

In 2009, Korwar relocated to London, earning a Master’s degree in Performance from SOAS, University of London, where he focused on adapting Indian classical rhythms to non-Indian percussion instruments. His debut album, Day To Day (2016), released on Ninja Tune, blended field recordings of the Siddi community in India with contemporary jazz and electronic music. His 2019 album, More Arriving, featured collaborations with South Asian rappers and poets, addressing themes of immigration and identity; it received critical acclaim and won Best Independent Album at the AIM Awards in 2020. In 2022, he released KALAK, an album exploring ‘Indo-futurism’ and cyclical time concepts, which was lauded by critics and featured in several year-end best album lists.

For Percussion Parade, Korwar assembled a 30-piece band featuring some of the southeast’s finest young musicians, brought together by Create Music. The ensemble performed music specially composed for the festival, blending influences from futuristic folk, South Asian temple processions, UK carnivals, and traditional marching bands. A large number of spectators gathered nearby the Piazza and the West Pier Spiral to listen to the thunder of drums, the shimmer of cymbals, and the infectious energy of a community united through rhythm. 

The Golden Gallopers

We are lucky to have the GGs on Brighton Beach, better known as the ‘Golden Gallopers’, a fairground ride that surely captures the spirit of traditional seaside entertainment. 

This carousel was built in 1888 by Frederick Savage, a pioneering 19th-century English engineer and inventor who transformed the world of fairground machinery. Savage, based in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, developed steam-powered systems for carousels, including the ‘galloping horse’ mechanism that gave ride-on horses their signature rise-and-fall motion. His roundabouts were exported around the world and laid the foundation for what became known as the golden age of mechanical fairgrounds.

The Brighton carousel originally toured the North of England before being exported to the USA by an American collector. After some years abroad, it returned to the UK and eventually found a permanent home on Brighton beach. Over the course of its history, the ride has undergone a number of restorations, including a key rebuild by Savage’s company to convert it from a ‘dobby set’ (with stationary horses) to a full galloper ride using overhead cranks and a rotating platform. The original steam engine was removed in 1949, and the carousel has since run on electric power.

The carousel has been operated on Brighton beach since 1997 by Owen Smith - Smith’s name is proudly painted on the ride’s canopy, and he continues to manage its seasonal appearance and upkeep. The carousel typically operates from Easter to September and is dismantled each winter for protection. A notable feature of the ride’s operation is its annual rebuilding each March, when it is reassembled on the beach. This process has been documented in a sequence of photos by Tony Mould, who also recorded the names of all the carved horses, each one individually painted and named - see My Brighton and Hove. (However, these photographs are my own.)

Today, the Golden Gallopers carousel remains a much-loved landmark on Brighton’s seafront. It stands, one might say, as a living tribute to Frederick Savage’s mechanical ingenuity and to the commitment of its current operator, who ensures the carousel continues to delight new generations of visitors with the colour, motion, and music of a bygone era.

I am Brighton

This day seven years ago, Century published Dorothy Koomson’s The Brighton Mermaid. Said to be a gripping thriller, it follows the story of teenagers Nell and Jude who find the body of an unidentified young woman on Brighton beach. On her right arm is the tattoo of a mermaid, and below it are etched the words ‘I am Brighton’. The narrative shifts between past and present as Nell tries to uncover the truth about her death and the disappearance of Jude 25 years later. 

Koomson is a Brighton-based British novelist and journalist, widely regarded as one of the UK’s most successful Black authors of adult fiction, with her books translated into over 30 languages and sales exceeding 2.5 million copies in the UK alone. Born in London to Ghanaian parents, she wrote her first novel at age 13 and later earned degrees in psychology and journalism from Leeds University. She began her professional writing career in women’s magazines before publishing her debut novel, The Cupid Effect, in 2003. Her third novel, My Best Friend’s Girl, became a major bestseller, and The Ice Cream Girls was adapted into a successful television drama. 

The Brighton Mermaid - first published on 17 May 2018 - is said to be fast-paced and thrilling, and to explore ‘the deadly secrets of those closest to you’. Here is the moment, right at the start of the book, Nell is narrating, when the reader is first taken on to Brighton beach. It is 1993. 

‘From the promenade, I’d spotted her down on the beach, the light of the almost full moon shining down on her, and said we should check to see if she was all right. Jude had wanted us to keep going, getting back to her house after we’d sneaked out was going to be tricky enough without getting back even later than 3 a.m., which was the time now. But I’d insisted we check. What if she’d twisted her ankle and couldn’t get up? How would we feel, leaving someone who was hurt alone like that? What if she’s drunk and has fallen asleep on the beach when the tide was out and is now too drunk to wake up and pull herself out of the water? How would we live with ourselves if we read in the paper in the morning that she’d been washed out to sea and had drowned?

Jude had rolled her eyes at me, had reminded me in an angry whisper that even though our mums were at work (they were both nurses on night duty), her dad was at home asleep and could wake up any minute now to find us gone. He’d call my dad and then we’d be for it. She’d grumbled this while going towards the stone steps that led to the beach. She was all talk, was Jude - she wouldn’t want to leave someone who was hurt, she would want to help as much as I did. It wasn’t until we’d got nearer, close enough to be able to count the breaths that weren’t going in and out of her chest, that we could to see what the real situation was. And I said that thing about her being asleep.

‘I’ll go up to the . . . I’ll go and call the police,’ Jude said. She didn’t even give me a chance to say I would do it before she was gone - crunching the pebbles underfoot as she tried to get away as fast as possible.

Alone, I felt foolish and scared at the same time. This wasn’t meant to turn out this way. We were meant to come to the beach and help a drunk lady and then sneak back to Jude’s house. I wasn’t supposed to be standing next to someone who was asleep but not.

She must be cold, I thought suddenly. Her vest top was soaked through and stuck to her body like a second, clingy skin; her denim skirt, which didn’t quite reach down to her knees, was also wringing wet. ‘I wish I had a blanket that I could pull over you,’ I silently said to her. ‘If I had a blanket, I’d do my best to keep you warm.’

It was summer, but not that warm. I wasn’t sure why she was only wearing a vest, skirt and no shoes. Maybe, I thought, her shoes and jumper have already been washed out to sea.

I leant forwards to have another look at her. I wanted to make her feel more comfortable, to move her head from resting on her left arm at an awkward angle, and stop her face from being pushed into the dozens and dozens of bracelets she wore on her arm. Thin metal ones, bright plastic ones, wood ones, black rubbery ones, they stretched from her wrist to her elbow, some of them not visible because of where her head rested. I wanted to gently move her head off her arm and lay it instead on myrolled-up jacket. I didn’t dare touch her though. I didn’t dare move any nearer, let alone touch her.

Her other arm, the right one, was thrown out to one side, as if it had flopped there when she’d finally fallen asleep. That arm had only one slender silver charm bracelet, hung with lots of little silver figures. That arm’s real decoration, though, was an elegant and detailed tattoo of a mermaid. My eyes wouldn’t leave the tattoo, which was so clear in the moonlight. Usually when I saw tattoos they were a faded greeny-blue, etched into peach or white skin, but this one was on a girl with the same shade skin as me. Deep black ink had artistically been used to stain and adorn most of her inner forearm. I leant a little more forwards, not wanting to get too close, but fascinated enough to want to have a better look. It was truly beautiful, so incredibly detailed it looked like it had been carefully inscribed onto paper, not rendered on skin.

I could see every curl of the mermaid’s short, black Afro hair; I could make out the tiny squares of light in her pupils; I could count every one of the individually etched scales on her tail, and I could see droplets of water glistening on the bodice, shaped of green seaweed, that covered her torso. The mermaid sat on a craggy grey rock, her hands demurely crossed in her lap, smiling at anyone who cared to look at her.

I couldn’t stop staring at her. She was mythical, she was a picture, but she was also like a siren at whom I couldn’t stop staring. In the waters beneath the mermaid’s rock, there were three words in a swirling, watery script: ‘I am Brighton’.

English Teacher on the beach

Later today, Brighton Beach will host English Teacher, the Leeds-based indie rock band whose meteoric rise has captivated the UK music scene. The band will appear at 10:15 pm on The Deep End stage, one of the main venues of The Great Escape, the annual new music festival that transforms Brighton (and part of the beach) into a hub for emerging artists from around the world.

English Teacher formed in 2020 when vocalist and rhythm guitarist Lily Fontaine, lead guitarist Lewis Whiting, bassist Nicholas Eden, and drummer Douglas Frost met at Leeds Conservatoire. Prior to this, they performed under the name Frank, exploring dream pop influences. Their transition to English Teacher marked a shift toward a more incisive and experimental sound, blending elements of post-punk, art rock, and indie.

English Teacher’s debut single, R&B, released in 2021, garnered critical acclaim for its candid exploration of race and identity within the indie rock landscape. This was followed by the 2022 EP Polyawkward, which NME praised as lively art-punk with a lyrical edge. The band’s growing reputation led to a performance on Later... with Jools Holland in November 2023, further cementing their status as rising stars.

Released in April, 2024, through Island Records, This Could Be Texas showcases English Teacher’s distinctive blend of surrealism and social commentary. Produced by Marta Salogni, the album delves into themes of identity, social deprivation, and political mismanagement, drawing inspiration from Fontaine’s upbringing in Colne, East Lancashire. Tracks like The World’s Biggest Paving Slab and Not Everybody Gets to Go to Space exemplify the band’s ability to intertwine poignant narratives with inventive musical arrangements.

The album’s critical success culminated in winning the 2024 Mercury Prize, making English Teacher the first non-London act to receive the award in nearly a decade (see also BBC report). Judges lauded the album for its ‘originality and character,’ highlighting its ‘winning lyrical mix of surrealism and social observation’ and its ‘fresh approach to the traditional guitar band format.’

For more on English Teacher visit their website, or Wikipedia. The video still above is taken from the band’s The World’s Biggest Paving Slab video on YouTube.