The Seaford Chalk Formation

Found on the beach: a lump of wave-worn chalk cracked open to reveal the dark, honeycombed core of a Cretaceous burrow network. The white outer shell is soft Upper Cretaceous chalk, the familiar coccolith-rich limestone that forms the cliffs east of Brighton. Inside lies its harder counterpart, flint, formed when silica gel precipitated around voids in the ancient seabed. Over time the chalk eroded faster than the flint, leaving the interior exposed like a miniature cavern.

The tubes and chambers belong to Thalassinoides, the dominant burrow system of the Seaford Chalk Formation. Created by small crustaceans on a warm Cretaceous sea floor some 85 million years ago, Thalassinoides form semi-ordered meshes of uniform cylindrical tunnels. In life these burrows aerated the soft carbonate mud; in death they provided ready-made moulds for the silica that later hardened into flint. The network here is unusually clear: a continuous dark core threaded with branching passages, visible from several angles where the chalk shell has been scoured away.

Nothing in the piece is modern. The perforations are not the work of piddocks or contemporary worms but the preserved architecture of Cretaceous seabed life, frozen in flint and released again by the waves. What looks at first like an odd skull-shaped pebble is in fact a three-dimensional cross-section through an ancient ecosystem - a Brighton Beach fossil in miniature, shaped by crustaceans, lithification and the long slow abrasion of the Channel.

Sources: The British Geological Survey; Wikipedia; Earthwise

Lost Mary found

Found on the beach: Lost Mary. This BM6000 Triple Berry disposable vape is a sub-brand of Elf Bar, made by Shenzhen iMiracle Technology in China. It is a high-capacity, single-use device with a lithium-ion battery and pre-filled nicotine salt e-liquid, non-refillable and not intended for disassembly or routine recycling. According to Wikipedia, Elf Bar’s vapour products are known for their fruity flavours and colourful appearance and were, by 2023, the world’s most popular disposable e-cigarettes.

These vapes have become a common form of coastal litter across the UK. Beach-clean groups consistently report rising numbers of single-use vapes on Brighton’s shoreline, where they join other modern waste such as wet wipes and bottle caps (see this Argus article from 2023). The devices leak plastic fragments, residual nicotine solution and small amounts of battery metals into the environment and must be disposed of as electrical waste, though in practice most end up in general rubbish or on the street.

Nothing about the brand name ‘Lost Mary’ has an official explanation. It was probably crafted to sound personal and provide a narrative, suggesting a figure who is ‘lost’ in a way that aligns with the escapist themes often used in vape marketing, reinforced by pastel, dreamlike packaging. Some reviewers have speculated that ‘Mary’ nods to the slang ‘Mary Jane,’ giving the brand a faint counter-cultural echo without referencing cannabis directly.

UK Vape Scene offers this review: ‘I opted for the Fizzy Cherry flavour, and once the super-quick setup was complete, I was now ready to start vaping. My initial first few puffs on the device were great - the flavour was very tasty without being overly sweet, and Lost Mary seem to have nailed the airflow. There isn't any airflow adjustability which can sometimes be a problem with other kits, but for me the default setting on the BM6000 was just how I would have set it anyway. Although the flavour was great, the one thing I didn't like too much was the nicotine hit. Being someone who uses 10mg nic salts in my usual vape, doubling my strength to 20mg was something I couldn’t get used to right away. Don’t get me wrong, the hit was smooth and wasn't very harsh but it was noticeably more intense than what I usually get from my 10mg Ultimate Nerd Salts.’

Churning sea water

Found on the beach: sea foam. At first sight, there’s not much to the creamy-white frothy stuff that gets blown across the Brighton Beach shingle now and then, and, yet, look it up and you soon find yourself at the intersection of ocean chemistry, biology, and weather. 

When waves churn up water containing dissolved organic compounds - mostly proteins, lipids, dead plankton, fragments of seaweed, and microbial by-products - these act as surfactants, lowering surface tension and allowing bubbles to form and persist. The rougher the sea, the more vigorously the water column is mixed, drawing these organics from deeper layers to the surface. Brighton’s English Channel water, especially after storms that rip up seaweed beds, is particularly good at producing short-lived, bubbly foam.

A single litre of seawater can contain millions of phytoplankton cells, and when some species die off in blooms, the cellular breakdown releases long-chain molecules that are remarkably similar to the stabilisers used in food foams (like the head on a beer). That’s why foam can look so creamy despite being nothing more than air, water, and microscopic biological debris.

Globally, sea foam becomes more intriguing - and sometimes alarming. The most notorious examples are the ‘foam tsunamis’ of Australia’s east coast, where intense storm swell can drive metres-deep, cappuccino-coloured foam through seaside towns. In 2020 at Yamba and 2007 at Sydney’s beaches, whole cars disappeared under it. The foam itself was harmless; the force of the waves beneath it was not.

In California, the breakdown of Phaeocystis algal blooms has produced foam rich in proteins that can become irritant, stinging exposed skin. Conversely, along South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal coast, winter sardine runs produce a slick of fish oils that help create thick ivory-coloured foam valued by surfers because it flattens chop on the surface.

The strangest example comes from the North Sea, where researchers found sea foam rich in microplastics - tiny fragments that stick to the bubbles and are blown far inland, making foam one of the vectors by which coastal microplastic pollution travels beyond the shoreline. The foam acts like a sticky film, picking up plastic shards, tyre particles and airborne dust.

Foam can also carry nutrients and spores. After the giant Sargassum blooms in the Caribbean, decaying mats generate surfactants that fuel disproportionately large foam lines on beaches; these sometimes carry bacterial loads high enough to make cleanup crews wear masks. In contrast, in Iceland and parts of the Baltic, sea foam streaks can be associated with whitish pumice ash, swept into the surf after volcanic eruptions.

Even the colour can be telling. Most foam is white because the bubbles scatter light uniformly, but brown foam signals a higher concentration of organic matter; greenish foam often appears during phytoplankton bloom collapse; and pinkish foam has occasionally been recorded after massive blooms of pigmented dinoflagellates - the same organisms responsible for some red tides.

Brighton’s foam, by comparison, is modest, fleeting and almost always benign. It’s simply the English Channel exhaling - a reminder of the constant churning, mixing, and invisible biological life just offshore, thrown up in small bright heaps that the wind leaves on the stones for a few minutes before carrying them away.

More information can be found at National Ocean Service, Science Direct, Marine Insight and How Stuff Works. The photograph of foam on the beach at Yamba was found at the BBC (Nature’s Weirdest Events).

The European fan palm

Found on the beach: Chamaerops humilis, commonly known as the European fan palm. It grows low and wide on the shingle, its fronds rattling in even the gentlest seafront breeze, looking half like a survivor from some Mediterranean headland and half like an escapee from a forgotten Victorian planting scheme. Brighton Beach is one of the few places in Britain where this species seems entirely at home. The salt spray, the glare, the scouring winds that flatten other ornamentals all suit it perfectly, and its scruffy, sun-bleached skirt of old leaves gives it the faintly rakish air of a visitor who has stayed long enough to become a local.

Chamaerops humilis is the only palm native to continental Europe, growing naturally around the western Mediterranean from southern Spain to Sicily (see pic below from Wikipedia). It is a compact, clumping species, often forming several short trunks rather than a single tall one, and its fans are stiff, segmented and edged with tiny teeth. The fronds emerge a bold green but quickly fade to a straw colour in coastal exposure, creating the characteristic thatch of shredded leaves seen on the beach. In spring it produces small yellow flowers at the base of the leaf stems, followed later by clusters of reddish fruit that are technically edible but rarely palatable. What makes the species so useful in Brighton is its tolerance: it survives drought, cold snaps, poor soils and salt-laden winds, and will root happily in rubble or shingle where more delicate ornamentals fail.

Historically, the European fan palm has been familiar to travellers since antiquity, appearing in early herbal texts for its fibres, which were used for rope, brushes and stuffing. Its leaves were woven into mats, baskets and the rustic rain capes once worn by shepherds in Spain and Portugal. Renaissance gardeners admired it as a curiosity from classical lands and often tried to coax it through northern winters, though with little success until more robust varieties were introduced in the nineteenth century. By the early twentieth century it had become a reliable feature of British seaside towns, planted in the optimistic belief that palms could summon the air of a warmer climate. Brighton adopted the idea enthusiastically, dotting the seafront with species that could endure the Channel’s temperament, and Chamaerops humilis proved one of the hardiest.

The palm on the beach now stands as part of that long horticultural experiment, a living remnant of the city’s desire to appear just a little more southern than it really is. Walkers pass it without comment, but it quietly thrives, shrugging off winter storms and growing a little wider each year. It is both out of place and perfectly placed, a Mediterranean native that has found its own niche on an English shingle shore.

Sources: Royal Horticultural Society, Kew Gardens, Harrod Outdoors, Wikipedia.

The Thruster Buster

Found on the beach: a Thruster Buster single-shot firework, its casing damp and salt-streaked among the Brighton pebbles. The label still legible - ‘Shooting Direction’ helpfully printed for whoever last took aim - links it to Kimbolton Fireworks, one of the best-known British brands. Each tube launches a single 30 mm shell, a quick pulse of lift and colour before silence returns. 

Kimbolton began life in Cambridgeshire in the 1960s, its founder Reverend Ron Lancaster combining chemistry teaching with pyrotechnics. The company became a by-word for organised displays, providing fireworks for royal jubilees, university celebrations, and village fêtes alike. Though the business was sold after Lancaster’s retirement, the brand endures in the retail market - its modest ‘single shots’ now scattered through supermarket shelves and, it seems, Brighton’s shingle.

The Thruster Buster is a small and simple firework: one lift charge, one burst, a few seconds of applause in the sky. Retailers describe it as a low-cost alternative to a rocket, designed to minimise debris (an ‘eco-alternative’ to a stick rocket because there’s no wooden stick to litter the ground). On Guy Fawkes Night it might have soared high over Madeira Drive, blossoming briefly above the Palace Pier before falling unseen into the sea or onto the pebbles.

Two years of decadence

And there they were by the Brighton wall, under the rust-green iron of the boardwalk, sprawled out in the million-year pebbles, shoes kicked off like wreckage, tangled together the way kids do when the night before still hums in their blood. The mural above them, some half-face phantom in faded paint, eyes wide with knowing, words bleeding below - Two Years of Decadence - like a prophecy, like a joke, like a sentence we’re all already serving.

And the girl - she wasn’t tangled, no - she leaned off to the side, back against the cold flint wall, listening to her secret music, head tilted to the wide sea nobody could see from here, the sea that keeps time with all the broken beats of the city. She was cool, black coat wrapped around her, headscarf tight, like she’d been here forever, like she knew all the stories the gulls scream and the iron forgets.

It was all there: the damp stink of stone, the sound of a vans clattering above, the faint taste of salt and fried oil drifting from the pier, and the silence between kids who don’t need words, just bodies and the breathing hush of the sea nearby. Decadence? Hell, decadence is just the name the world gives you when you’re young and don’t care and you love too hard to bother about tomorrow.

And the mural - who painted it, who left it to fade? Maybe some kid from a different decade, maybe a dreamer who saw the same wreckage and thought: this is worth marking, this deserves a shrine. Two years, two minutes, two beats of the heart. All the same. The waves will come in and erase it anyway, like everything else.

(Written by ChatGPT in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac.)

The Brighton Behemoth

Found on Brighton Beach - Specimen BRB-2025-021: a weathered mass bearing uncanny zoological features, documented and classified under the provisional name Arboris behemothus. The initial field sketch depicts the living form as imagined by researchers: a hybrid organism with arboreal integument, pachydermal bulk, and a proboscis adapted for both foraging and respiration. While no living specimens have been observed, the morphology reconstructed from the find suggests an evolutionary convergence between megafaunal mammals and coastal flora, raising debate as to whether the remains represent fossilised biology or a natural artefact misinterpreted through pareidolia.

Specimen Data File – BRB-2025-021

Specimen Name: Arboris behemothus (colloquial: Brighton Behemoth)

Classification:

Kingdom: Animalia (disputed, hybrid traits with Plantae)

Phylum: Chordata (?)

Class: Mammalia (arboreal-adapted, extinct)

Order: Indeterminate

Family: Unknown

Discovery location: Brighton Beach, East Sussex, UK

Date of record: 13 October 2025

Collector: Anonymous beach observer

Condition: Semi-fossilised drift specimen, partially mineralised; internal cavities resembling pulmonary or ocular structures

Estimated size: 2.1 m length; 0.9 m maximum width

Surface characteristics:

External ridges resembling dermal armour

Hollow chambers suggesting respiratory or sensory function

Elongated protrusion consistent with feeding apparatus or proboscis

Proposed Origin:

        Arboreal megafauna species adapted to both woodland and coastal marsh environments, extinct c. 12,000 BP

Notable Features:

Cavities arranged in bilateral symmetry, resembling ocular sockets

Protruding snout-like structure

Evidence of prolonged exposure to saline and wave action

Remarks:

This specimen represents either the genuine fossil remains of an unknown taxon. Further study recommended. Or, an extreme case of pareidolia (human tendency to perceive creatures in natural forms). 

Leave No Trace

On Brighton Beach, just east of the Palace Pier, a bright collage of a seagull stands watch above the pebbles. Its blue feathers are layered over a city street map, and alongside it the words shout: Leave No Trace. The paste-up is by The Postman, a Brighton-based street art collective whose work has become part of the city’s visual fabric.

The Postman began appearing on Brighton’s walls around 2018, pasting up portraits of pop icons and local heroes in a vivid, pop-art style. Their pieces are instantly recognisable for their saturated colours, collage textures and playful humour. Over time they have moved from backstreet paste-ups to high-profile murals and commissions, but they continue to paste work directly into the public realm, where anyone might stumble across it on a morning walk.

The seagull piece feels especially at home by the beach. For Brighton, the gull is both nuisance and mascot, scavenger and sentinel. Its presence here, paired with the slogan, links directly to the council’s long-running campaigns to reduce litter left on the stones after busy weekends. Leave No Trace is an outdoor ethic borrowed from hikers and campers, urging visitors to take their rubbish with them and protect the natural setting. Seen from the shingle, it works as both a warning and a piece of local character.

Street art along the seafront is often fleeting - battered by wind, rain, and human hands. But for as long as it lasts, The Postman’s gull hammers home a simple seaside truth: the beach belongs to everyone, and what we leave behind becomes part of it.

One single anchovy

Found on the beach: a single small anchovy, its silver flanks and dark back glinting among the shingle. At first sight, one might mistake it for whitebait (which can often be beach-stranded en masse this time of year), but that term refers to the fry (juvenile) of sprat, herring, sardine or anchovy taken at only a few centimetres long. This specimen is a near-adult European anchovy Engraulis encrasicolus, identified by its projecting lower jaw, large eye and elongated body. Famous as the salty little fish you find on pizzas, anchovies are small and oily with a strong flavour. Widely used in Mediterranean cooking, they are also a key ingredient in Worcestershire Sauce. 

The European anchovy spawns from spring to autumn, releasing planktonic eggs that hatch within one to three days. The larvae feed on plankton and grow rapidly, reaching around ten centimetres within a year. Sexual maturity comes at about twelve centimetres, and most individuals live no longer than three years. They form large coastal shoals, moving to shallower water in summer and deeper in winter, and are a key forage species for seabirds, larger fish and marine mammals.

Commercially they are fished across the Mediterranean and Atlantic using purse seines and trawls, and are marketed fresh, dried, salted, smoked, canned and frozen. They are also processed into fishmeal and oil. Its strong flavour, developed especially in salting, has given it an enduring place in European cuisine. In the Mediterranean it is a major fishery; in British waters it is less heavily taken, but records exist along the Channel coast. The UK shore-caught record stands at a modest forty-nine grams off Hastings. The maximum recorded length is about twenty centimetres, although most range between ten and fifteen.

In 2009 - according to a report on the British Sea Fishing website - unusual climatic conditions brought exceptional numbers of European anchovies to the south west coast of England. Local trawlers quickly switched to the species and were landing tons each day in what was described as an anchovy ‘gold rush’. More on anchovies can be found at Wikipedia, Fishbase, and the Cornwall Good Seafood Guide.

A frilly crimson ruffle

Found on the beach: a frilly crimson tuft washed ashore, striking against the pebbles like a splash of paint. This is Chondrus crispus, better known as Irish moss or carrageen, one of the most distinctive of the red seaweeds. Its fronds are flat and forked, often 2-15 cm long, with tips that curl into a lacework of ruffles. The colour varies from greenish through deep red to purple, depending on age, light and water conditions. 

Like many algae, Chondrus has a complex life cycle that alternates between two diploid generations and a haploid gametophyte phase. Fertilised female fronds develop tiny cystocarps where spores form, and these are carried back into the sea to grow into new plants. This alternation of generations, shared across the red algae, means the seaweed thrives in different conditions and ensures its persistence around the rocky Atlantic coasts of Europe and North America.

Though small, Chondrus crispus has long had a large presence in coastal life. In Ireland it was gathered and boiled in milk to make a sweet blancmange, while in the 19th century it was sold as a remedy for coughs and chest ailments. Its processed extract - carrageenan - is now a global commodity, valued for its ability to gel and thicken. 

Food scientists prize the seaweed’s stabilising properties, and it turns up in ice cream, custard, yoghurt, beer, toothpaste and even some cosmetics. Dried and rehydrated, it can still be cooked into traditional puddings or soups; eaten raw, it carries the taste of the tide. Foragers warn that it should only be taken from clean waters and not picked from beach wrack,

Traditionally, Irish moss is hand-raked or gathered by hand at low tide from rocky intertidal zones. In some places, small boats were used to drag rakes or nets over the seaweed beds. Harvesting is usually concentrated in late spring and summer when growth is fastest. Collectors often follow local licensing or community rules to avoid damaging the beds. Once gathered, the seaweed is washed in seawater to remove sand and shells, then spread out on beaches or fields to dry in the sun. This drying both preserves the seaweed and enhances the gel strength of carrageenan.

For further information see the Marine Life Information Network, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and Totally Wild UK (our main goal is to excite people with the amazing flavours to be found in the wild).

The Pirates of Brighton Beach

On a bright morning when the sea heaved lazily against the shingle, five pirates - long since stranded on the Sussex coast - emerged from their hideout near the Palace Pier. No longer raiders of the Caribbean, they had been reduced to guardians of Brighton’s beach, their adventures woven into the chatter of gulls and the hum of amusement arcades.

First was Barrel-Bill, a thick-armed brute with a scarred face and a fondness for rum. He never went anywhere without hefting a barrel on his shoulder, claiming it contained both his fortune and his doom. Most suspected it was empty, but none dared ask.

Then came Laughing Redcoat, flamboyant in a tattered scarlet jacket, with a grin as wide as the Channel. He wielded a cutlass with careless joy, and though his jokes were bad, his laugh carried across the pebbles, unnerving fishermen at dawn.

Their captain was Hook-Hand Harrigan, grim-eyed in a sea-blue coat. His iron claw clicked ominously as he muttered plans of reclaiming the sea. Some said his hook had been forged from the ironwork of the ruined West Pier.

Lurking in the shadows was Skeleton Sam, a half-dead wretch who had once been left in chains inside the cliffside caves of Kemptown. He bore the look of a revenant, bones showing through ragged clothes, always watching the tide as if waiting for some ghostly ship to return.

And finally there was Dandy Jack, a sly rogue with rings on his fingers and a sky-blue hat perched rakishly on his brow. He fancied himself a gentleman pirate, though his pistol was always primed. He had a talent for mimicry, and often mocked the mayor and council from atop the railings of Madeira Drive.

Their tale took a turn one evening many years ago when the tide receded very low, revealing the barnacled hulk of a shipwreck just east of the Palace Pier. The townsfolk gathered, whispering of treasure. Barrel-Bill declared the wreck to be theirs, ‘by the rights of piracy and the law of the sea!’ Laughing Redcoat clapped his hands with glee, Hook-Hand Harrigan sharpened his hook against the railings, Skeleton Sam let out a ghastly rattle of breath, and Dandy Jack simply grinned, tipping his hat.

But as they set upon the wreck, Brighton’s beach stirred with more than seaweed. Out from the tide crawled shapes of old sailors, long drowned, their bones glittering with salt. Skeleton Sam greeted them like kin. The others froze.

The undead sailors demanded their ship back. Harrigan stood firm, barrel raised, cutlass drawn, pistol cocked. Yet the ghosts would not fight - they demanded a trade.

So it was agreed: the pirates would guard Brighton’s beach forever, keeping watch over the pier, the pebbles, and the restless Channel, so long as the townsfolk kept their memory alive. And to this day, on windy nights, when the sea roars and the pier lights flicker, you might just glimpse Barrel-Bill’s silhouette or hear Laughing Redcoat’s laugh carried on the air. 

Juvenile herring gull

Found on Brighton Beach: a boldly barred feather from a young herring gull, and, nearby, the bird itself resting among the shingle. Juvenile herring gulls are clad in mottled brown plumage that provides camouflage against pebbles and sand, with dark bills and pale streaked heads. They will not gain the crisp grey-and-white adult plumage until their fourth year, passing through several transitional stages. The feather on the beach is part of this annual cycle, dropped as the bird grows and moults, each stage revealing a closer resemblance to the adults wheeling above the seafront.

Herring gulls (Larus argentatus) are common residents of the Sussex coast but their numbers in natural colonies have declined sharply, leading to a Red List status despite their success in towns and on rooftops. They begin breeding at about four years old, laying two or three eggs in late spring, with both parents sharing incubation and feeding. The chicks fledge after five to six weeks but remain dependent for a while, learning to forage on intertidal invertebrates, fish, carrion and discarded food. A bird that survives its first winters may live for decades, and ringed individuals have been recorded at over 30 years old.

The multitude of gulls seen loafing on Brighton’s pebbles are rarely nesting on the shore itself. Instead, most come from colonies established on rooftops throughout the city. Since the 1970s herring gulls and lesser black-backed gulls have increasingly used chimneys, ledges and flat roofs as substitutes for cliffs, taking advantage of the protection from predators and the ready supply of food in urban areas. Thousands of pairs now breed across Brighton and Hove, while natural cliff colonies remain further along the coast at Newhaven, Seaford Head and Beachy Head. The young birds you see on the beach may have been raised only a few hundred metres inland, above hotels, flats and shops lining the promenade.

The juvenile on the pebbles is one of many dispersing from nests this season, leaving behind patterned feathers as evidence of their growth. Those fragments are reminders that the familiar gulls of Brighton, noisy and opportunistic, carry complex life cycles bound to the changing fortunes of the sea and the town.

For more information see the RSPB and BTO BirdFacts.

KRS‑2519CRGB‑1

Found on the beach: a custom or OEM RGB seven‑segment display module, tailored for a specific device or manufacturer. One side of the object features a digital display with a three-digit readout, the letters ‘L’ and ‘R’ in blue and green respectively, a lightning bolt icon, and a distinctive logo composed of multi-coloured fan-like blades. The reverse side shows a printed circuit board marked ‘KRS‑2519CRGB‑1’ and ‘2520’, alongside gold-plated contacts and through-holes indicative of surface mounting.

The part number, ChatGPT, advises does not appear in public electronics catalogs or databases, suggesting the component was produced either for internal use by a specific brand or as part of a mass-produced but undocumented consumer device. The inclusion of ‘CRGB’ implies RGB lighting capability, meaning the segment display can change colour, possibly to indicate power levels, warnings, or operational states. The number ‘2520’ may refer to a production batch or date code, such as week 20 of the year 2025.

Such displays are commonly used in e‑bikes, electric scooters, children’s ride-on vehicles, smart sports gear, or small remote-controlled electronics. The L/R notation may signify directional indicators, balance sensors, or audio channel outputs. The lightning bolt icon, a near-universal symbol for electricity or charge, hints at a function related to battery monitoring. The visible wear and absence of surrounding components suggest the item was once embedded in a plastic housing, likely waterproof or weather-resistant, before being separated and washed ashore.

Despite the lack of direct identification, other modules with similar codes, such as KRS‑2351AW, are listed on electronics supplier sites as LED or RGB seven‑segment displays, used in meters, control panels, or dashboard-style readouts. 

Sources: Amax Technologies and Bossgoo

Charting the elsewhere

Found on Brighton Beach: It lay on the pebbles as if dropped or blown ashore. The tide did not seem to have expelled it in a tangle of kelp; there was no fraying, no evidence of long immersion. Its weave was tight, its colours - burgundy, ochre, olive - arranged in intricate, purposeful shapes. 

If you examined it closely, you might think of Kashan or Samarkand, the way the patterns interlocked like conversations in a crowded tea house. Yet the dyes were wrong for Persia, the silk too fine for Turkestan. I brought a friend of mine - a textile historian from the university - to examine it. She knelt on the pebbles, and did something unusual: she sniffed it. She said she had caught the faintest trace of myrrh and woodsmoke, and beneath that, the sharper scent of a salt that does not belong to any sea in Europe. She suspected the carpet had crossed more than geography - that it had come from a coast where the tides are measured in centuries.

By the third day, I noticed it was moving very slowly - not dragged or blown - a measured distance westward, towards the West Pier’s blackened skeleton, aligning itself, pattern-wise, with the central ruin. I continued to observe, day by day. No one touched it. No gull tugged at its fringe. Yet, I was sure, the carpet was creeping, pebble by pebble, as if drawn to the pier’s iron bones.

I say no one touched it, but I was not a lone observer, A wizened old soul, clearly more at home on the pebbles than at home, had begun to use the textile as a kind of marker for taking photographs. Several times a day he would approach the textile very gingerly, never stepping on it, but aligning his tripod according to its position - seemingly to photograph across the sea to the horizon. 

One evening, it was dusk, I asked him what he was seeing, what he was photographing. He showed me on the camera’s display: faint, translucent outlines above the waterline, shapes like hulls or wings. The textile, he claimed, was a magic carpet, a base from which the invisible could be photographed - vessels, for example, from elsewhere.

‘What do you mean, ‘elsewhere’, I asked a little too sharply. His only reply was to look westward into the sky, where Venus was shining in brightness.

I returned at dawn the next day, and at dusk, and then again the day after, but the old soul was gone, and the weaving too. I stood for a while each time, scanning the sea and sky. Once, I fancied I saw the faintest glimmers just above the horizon - a shimmer too steady for cloud, too high for a sail - but I’m sure that was my imagination.

Perhaps, I thought, the carpet’s origin lay not in any country but in the seam between countries, woven from places that exist only in the moments they are crossed. Its destination was always the next seam, wherever that might appear. And its purpose on Brighton Beach had simply been to open, for a brief span, a doorway into the atmosphere - one the old man had managed to capture with his camera.

For those few days, Brighton Beach and its piers had been a port again, as in days of old - not for excursion steamers or motor launches, but for travellers charting the elsewhere.

Piper Tri‑Pacer test flight

Found on the beach: Piper Tri‑Pacer. Not the real thing! but a foam glider from a familiar seaside toy set, labelled ‘Jet Fighters’. Though this packaging suggests a focus on military jets, the set often include a mix of fighter planes, vintage propeller aircraft, and general aviation types like the Tri‑Pacer.

Still in a sealed package, I felt this find was an invitation to make and test fly the model. The design is No. 12 in a series of twelve collectible aircraft designs. The Piper Tri‑Pacer itself was a four-seat, high-wing monoplane produced in the United States from 1950 to 1964, known for its tricycle undercarriage and popularity among postwar civilian pilots.

Often manufactured in Asia and sold under various generic brands, the toys are part of a long tradition of inexpensive, throwaway beach items. But their materials - non-biodegradable plastics and foams - have made them a target of environmental concern.

The toy glider, likely made of polystyrene foam with a plastic nose cap, would have been sold for very little from a beachfront kiosk or souvenir shop. These lightweight, slot-together models have been a fixture of seaside holidays since at least the 1970s.

And yet, they are poorly made, too light to cope with even the mildest of sea breezes (despite the evidence of these photographs!), so they duck and dive barely able to stay airborne before crashing into the pebbles. 

Time for one last staged photograph before flying off to a waste bin.

A roker’s tail

Found on the beach: all that’s left of a thornback ray (Raja clavata) - its distinctive tail.

The thornback ray, or ‘roker’ as it is often called in the UK, is a familiar and charismatic resident of British coastal waters, including the shores around Brighton. Its name comes from the distinctive thorn-like spines that stud its back and tail - these are actually modified skin teeth, giving the ray a rough, almost armored appearance. With its broad, diamond-shaped body and short snout, the thornback ray glides over sandy and muddy seabeds, its mottled brown-grey upper surface dappled with yellowish patches and dark spots, blending perfectly with the sea floor.

Unlike most true rays, thornback rays are technically skates, and they lay eggs rather than giving birth to live young. Each spring and summer, females deposit tough, rectangular egg cases - known to beachcombers as ‘mermaid’s purses’ - in sheltered areas on the seabed (see also A catshark that is a dogfish.) Inside each case, a single embryo develops, feeding on a yolk sac for four to five months before hatching as a miniature ray, already equipped with the beginnings of its signature thorns. Juveniles spend their early months in shallow nursery grounds, gradually venturing into deeper waters as they grow. Males reach maturity at around seven years old, females at about nine, and some individuals may live for over two decades.

Thornback rays are opportunistic predators, feeding on a variety of crustaceans and small fish. Juveniles prefer shrimps and small crabs, while adults tackle larger crustaceans and fish, using their powerful jaws to crush shells. The thornback’s rough skin and formidable thorns provide some defense against predators, and these features become more pronounced with age, especially in females, who develop a line of large thorns along their backs.

There is often confusion between skates and rays, but the differences are subtle yet significant. Skates like the thornback lay eggs, while most true rays bear live young. Skates have stockier tails without venomous spines and tend to have more pronounced dorsal fins, whereas rays often have slender, whip-like tails and, in some species, venomous stings. In the UK, the term ‘ray’ is often used for both, adding to the muddle, especially at fishmongers where ‘skate wings’ are a common offering.

Around Brighton, the thornback ray is a familiar catch for anglers and is sometimes landed by commercial fisheries. Conservation groups in Sussex have launched campaigns to monitor ray populations and promote sustainable fishing practices, though the thornback ray is currently listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.

Other rays share these waters, including the undulate ray with its wavy markings, the blonde ray, and the once-abundant but now critically endangered common skate. The fate of these species is intertwined with that of the thornback, as they are often caught together in mixed fisheries. The challenge is compounded by the difficulty in identifying species once they are skinned and sold as generic ‘skate’ wings. See Wikipedia for more on the roker!

A truck in thought

This photo shows a Davis Trackhire truck, equipped with a hydraulic crane, unloading or positioning a large stack of heavy-duty panels - temporary ground protection or trackway, designed to create stable surfaces for vehicles and crowds on uneven or soft ground. In the background, you can see the calm turquoise sea with the silhouettes of the Rampion wind farm turbines on the horizon, under a clear blue sky. What is the truck thinking?

‘How curious it is, to pause amid the salt-kissed air, steel sinews humming with potential, beneath the ever-watchful sun. They call me Davis - a name painted boldly upon my flanks, though what is a name to a mind busy with purpose and observation? Here, perched between shingle and surf, I contemplate more than just my cargo.

I have journeyed on many roads: winding motorways by dawn, city grids pulsing with restless ambition, and now the still calm of the coast. Each mile of my travel has etched stories into my chassis - patience when the world is slow, resilience when the elements test me, satisfaction upon completing my duty.

Today I am burdened, yet unbowed; my payload stacked with the meticulous care of intent and design. My mechanical arm curves with the choreography of industry, a testament to human ingenuity and my own quiet resolve. I find purpose in service, pride in precision. My mission is as clear as the horizon: to deliver, to build, to form the bedrock upon which progress is staged.

Yet I am not without wonder. As I gaze seaward, turbines spin far off, guardians of a future knit with wind and light. I marvel at what I carry, but also at what carries me - the systems and hands, decisions and designs, that coalesce in a moment like this.

I am more than machinery, more than fuel and metal. I am a witness to endeavour, a bearer of burdens, a contemplative spirit at the margin of earth and water. My wheels may rest, but my mind, galvanised by quiet reflection, wanders still.

So let it be written: I am truck, yet thinker; labourer, yet philosopher. On this stony edge, I am at once at home and ever in motion, ever turning ideas as surely as I turn my wheels.’

Lens or no lens

The tortoiseshell glasses lie crooked on Brighton’s pebbles, one lens popped clean out, the other clouded by salt and tiny scratches. A careless loss, perhaps, or a deliberate abandonment. But pick them up, put them on, close one eye, and what do you see?

Close your right eye first, and your left eye is looking through the lens, a single murky pane. Brighton dissolves. The horizon bleeds into sea into sky, a soft bruise of grey and lavender. Pebbles lose their edges, merging into a gentle shingle fog. People drift past like half-remembered stories, voices muffled by distance or time. The gulls are mere pale smudges, their cries dulled to far-off keening. Somewhere, laughter unspools, slow and echoing, as though the beach is remembering a day long gone - a day of dancing on warm stones, of salt-sticky kisses under the boards of the pier. Colours fade into a tender hush. The world is no longer urgent; it sighs, lingers, closes its heavy eyes. Brighton becomes a place not quite here, not quite then - a beach caught halfway between waking and a kind, salt-scented sleep.

Close your left eye, and your right eye is looking through no lens. The beach glares up at you, alive and unashamed. Each pebble is distinct - ochre, slate, coral pink - jostling for its moment in the sun. Gulls wheel overhead, white knives against a cobalt sky, their cries cutting clean through the warm hum of voices. Chips wrapped in paper steam on picnic rugs, vinegar spitting under bright fingers. A child’s shriek rings out, pure and startled, as a wave snaps at his ankles. The pier stretches out brazenly, strutting on iron legs, hung with lights like careless jewellery. Everything is immediate, urgent, shouting to be noticed: the salt on your lips, the warmth seeping into your soles, the wide-open promise of the afternoon. Brighton is a riot of small perfections, each clamouring for your eye - and nothing is softened, nothing spared.

Tomorrow? The history of sunglasses!

Sea spaghetti for tea?

Found on the beach: spaghetti! Himanthalia elongata, more commonly known as thongweed or sea spaghetti, is a remarkable brown seaweed that often surprises beachcombers with its long, noodle-like fronds. This species is native to the rocky shores of the northeast Atlantic, from Scandinavia to Portugal, and is especially common around the coasts of Britain and Ireland. It can also be eaten raw or cooked, and is rich in dietary fibre and essential vitamins.

The life-cycle of Himanthalia elongata is both unique and fascinating. It begins as a tiny, olive-green button attached firmly to a rock. This button, only a few centimetres wide, is the vegetative stage and can persist for two to three years. In autumn or winter, the button produces one or more long, strap-like reproductive fronds, which can grow rapidly and reach up to two meters in length by the following summer. These straps, or receptacles, are where reproduction takes place. When mature, the straps become mottled with brown spots, each marking the opening to a reproductive chamber. Gametes are released from June through winter, and after this single reproductive event, the plant dies - a lifecycle known as semelparity or ‘big bang’ reproduction.

The zygotes of Himanthalia elongata are unusually large and heavy for seaweeds, measuring about 0.2 mm across. This size helps them settle quickly onto the substrate, but it also means they are less likely to disperse far from the parent plant. After fertilisation, there is a delay of several days before the young plant develops anchoring structures, and the presence of adult plants nearby can help protect these vulnerable germlings from harsh environmental conditions. For more on this unique seaweed see Wikipedia or The Marine Life Information Network (which is also the source of the photograph below by Paul Newland).

Himanthalia elongata is not just a curiosity for naturalists - it has a range of uses, both traditional and modern. The fronds are edible and have a mild flavour, making them popular in coastal cuisines. They can be eaten raw in salads, boiled, steamed, or even deep-fried, and are sometimes used as a grain-free alternative to pasta. In addition to their culinary uses, the fronds can be dried and powdered to thicken soups and stews, or marinated for use in various dishes.

Nutritionally, sea spaghetti is rich in dietary fibre, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and bioactive compounds such as phlorotannins and carotenoids. It has been shown to lower sodium content and improve the nutritional profile of meat products, and is being studied for its potential health benefits, including anti-hyperglycaemic and neuroprotective effects. For more information on this see The National Library of Medicine.

There are several unusual aspects to Himanthalia elongata. For one, it invests almost all its biomass in reproduction, with up to 98 percent of its tissue dedicated to the long, strap-like fronds. The species is also the only member of its genus and family, making it a true oddity among seaweeds. Its large, heavy zygotes are adapted to settle quickly, but this limits their ability to colonise new areas, so populations tend to be quite localised. The fronds can grow at rates of up to 16 mm per day in optimal spring conditions, and the plant’s lifecycle is so tightly linked to environmental cues that the timing of reproduction can vary significantly from place to place.

Double six every time

No one had asked for them. They weren’t on any plan, proposal, or procurement list. Yet there they were, two enormous red dice, half-buried in the shingle between the pier and the overflowing litter bin.

Councillor Denise Griggs first spotted them on her brisk morning walk. She frowned, took a photo, and sent it to Highways, assuming they were bollards gone rogue.

By lunchtime, a petition was circulating to keep them.

Locals swore blind they’d been consulted. ‘It was in the newsletter,’ said a man who had never read a newsletter in his life. ‘A playful intervention in public space,’ chirped an art student, taking selfies with them in six different outfits. ‘They soften the hardscape,’ said a yoga instructor who had just learned the word ‘hardscape’.

But others were less charmed. ‘We need benches,’ muttered June Tranter, aged 84, who sat on the dice because it was the only thing lower than her knees but higher than the ground. ‘And I slipped on one last night,’ said a man who had, in fairness, slipped on most things.

By Friday, the dice were on TripAdvisor. ‘WHIMSICAL INSTALLATION! So Brighton! 😍🎲🎲 #DiceLife’

‘Can’t tell if they’re art or bins. Love it.’

‘Would recommend for ten minutes.’

Then came the theories.

One woman claimed they were part of a secret casino testing public tolerance. A boy in Year 5 declared, with perfect sincerity, that if you rolled both sixes, the West Pier would regenerate like Doctor Who. A retired magician offered £500 to anyone who could make one disappear ‘properly’.

Denise Griggs, meanwhile, was deep in council minutes. There was no funding. No invoice. No artist named. A FOI request revealed only a baffling line item: ‘Urban Dice (2) - As per civic gamification strategy. Approved retroactively.’

Retroactively?!

At the next council meeting, the Leader, Julian Parkes, admitted - off the record - that the dice had been ordered by his predecessor during a failed - Playful Urbanism - initiative meant to make Brighton a finalist for the European City of the Unexpected. ‘There was a deckchair maze too, but it blew away,’ he mumbled. ‘And we think the dice were meant to be mobile.’

‘On wheels?’ Denise asked.

‘No. Metaphorically.’

Weeks passed. The dice stayed.

Teenagers lounged. Seagulls perched. A local poet declared the left die ‘a metaphor for uncertainty’ and the right ‘just another lie.’ Someone started leaving single dominoes around them. A TikTok trend briefly flourished: #DiceDance. Then vanished.

And every so often, late at night, under cover of darkness, the dice would jiggle themselves, just for a few seconds, smiling urbanely at each other, before re-settling - double six every time.