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Smug London snob slags off Brighton Pier for its lack of vibrancy

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Douchebag of the day, hands down.

I PERSONALLY hate the Palace Pier in its current form. It is a blot on the seafront that perpetuates a culture that brings Brighton down and entrenches its reputation as a cheap, out-of-date seaside destination.

Today there are very much two Brightons: the inland one of vibrant creative industries, modern restaurants and a dynamic population – and the seafront of tacky sideshows, fish and chips, rock and assorted paraphernalia.

Unfortunately for Brighton, a large proportion of outsiders see it primarily as a destination for the latter rather than the former.

I have been working in Brighton now for five years, while still living in London, and I can say that this is pretty much universally the impression that Londoners have of the city. This is a massive public relations problem.

Luckily though, it is still a big draw, otherwise commercially it would fail (as many other British seaside resorts have).

Indeed, whenever Brighton Fringe happens, people ask me how we compete withBrighton Festival – I reply that Brighton Festival is quite irrelevant really as the biggest competitor to Brighton Fringe is actually the seafront.

However, this is a ticking time bomb and, in good time, I believe that the Brighton seafront will go the same way as other faded Victorian seaside resorts before it and become an embarrassment.

There have been some attempts to turn the arches by the Pier into an artists’ hub but it hardly makes a dent in what is currently on offer, which is more akin to West Street than anything else.

The current Brighton Pier is a beautiful photo opportunity on the outside and a disappointingly poor amusement arcade on the inside, surviving as a result of the endless day trippers coming from all over the country, and indeed the world, to try it out just once before going away for ever.
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Palace Pier debate: It’s a ticking time bomb, a massive PR problem
 
I was about to attempt a bit of devils advocate....Until this:

The i360, controversial as it may be in certain quarters, is the start of something that can change the perception of that part of the city’s seafront.

There are no words. What a twat.:facepalm:
 
Someone should string this story to the tabloids, they will crucify him, he said some sensible things in the last part of his piece, but otherwise, just wow.
 
his suggestion for improving the pier is a Michelin starred restaurant (whats wrong with fish & chips and whelks and candyfloss??) and a conference venue and some wank about somewhere for artists to start out :facepalm:
 
Brightonian David Bennun, sums it up quite nicely;

Speaking as somebody who does not happen to live in London, "still" or indeed ever, but has been a Brightonian for most of his adult life, and has never seen the slightest contradiction in the co-existence of the "inland [Brighton] of vibrant creative industries, modern restaurants and a dynamic population" and the "seafront of tacky sideshows, fish and chips, rock and assorted paraphernalia", I would like to say to Julian Caddy - director of the Brighton Fringe, and tagged here, because I want him to see this - fuck off, keep fucking off, and when you get there, fuck off some more.

Fuck off with your vapid snobbery, your call for social cleansing, your vision of the desirability of a town fit only for you and your self-regarding ilk to live in and visit - a town that would be so smug, tedious and securely lodged up its own arse that even I, a longtime creative professional and thus presumably the kind of "vibrant" and "dynamic" person you think Brighton should attract (not that any sane observer would describe me as either), would want to take a fucking flamethrower to it. Fuck off with what all your fellow Londoners think, too; who the fuck appointed them the arbiters of the matter, or do you think they're simply born to it?

I don't want to choose, but if I had to, I'd take "the endless day trippers coming from all over the country" to visit the Palace Pier over the stuck-up Fauxhemian fuckwits lured to the kind of "artists' hub" you applaud. I have no problem with artists' hubs, and I am happy to indulge in Fauxhemian fuckwittery myself all day long, but God help Brighton when everyone in it is like me - or worse yet, like you, which appears to be what you have in mind. What a dreary fucking prospect that would be. I *want* the seafront to remain "more akin to West Street". I want Brighton to be full of the kind of life you get from daytripping families, from happy, pissed-up people existing hedonistically in the moment and having a lark, even from roving, roaring gangs of hens and stags, rather than soi-disant superior cultural control freaks seeking to arrange every last thing in accord with their own predictable tastes. To me, it's not either/or - I love both the Palace Pier and the prospect of the i360 - but apparently it is to you.

Fuck you. Seriously, fuck you. This column of yours is one of the most repugnant, snotty and unself-aware things I've seen in fucking years; I hoped at first it might be intended parodically, but I can't see how, so I'll assume you mean it. The only reason I'm not saying worse is I see we have in common a mutual friend for whom I have some regard. Fuck you and fuck your programme for my town. Fuck you and your "proper restaurants, bars, shops, galleries, a decent performance venue," which will doubtless look and feel the same as every other gentrified, sterilised cockhole in the country. Fuck you and your condescending willingness to magnanimously allow that "some of the same sideshows" may persist. Oh, thanks so fucking much, your grace.

Brighton has been a fantastic town for as long as I have lived here, but it has lost much of its grubby charm over the years, and everything joyous being leeched away from it has been stolen by leeches like you. The Brighton Fringe is a splendid thing in itself, but that apparently is not enough for you; you want the whole place remade in your own image. The fucking arrogance and presumption of it. Fuck. Off. And you can fucking quote me on any and all of this. I am probably one of the world's least aggressive men, but in case you think I'm being a keyboard warrior here, I will happily pop down to your Old Steine office any time and repeat every single word of this to your fatuous face.
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As an ex-Brightonian the thing that destroyed for me was Londoners coming down and going 'oooh this is a bit like Islington on sea', or not being able to hack London generally, and moving to Brighton, and commuting to London in the late 90s. Before that it was a seaside town with a dark, but enjoyably seedy underbelly, where you could get a decent one bed flat for 90 quid a week, pay 13 quid on the eighth for african bush weed, and walk to raves on the beach.

I'm a bit surprised that they don't have a Brightonian running the fringe festival, though.
 
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