Thursday, March 25, 2010

St. Leonards' Visit.

Another place we visit at least once a year, ever since being introduced to it by Peter Lavery ten years ago, is St. Leonards-on-Sea and, by foot from there, Hastings itself. In the winter time it is a little bit dreary, but there's still some excellent stuff to see, and to do. The latter of these usually involve fish and chips and red wine, which we always find we need after first installing ourselves in a fifth floor flat and then tramping for miles up and down various slopes. You have to remember we come from flatland Essex, and we live in a bungalow. My calves are still aching.

Here's one of the typically Victorian (Edwardian?) streets:
















The Jain technology died in this park many years ago, but this remnant remains:
















Nobody told Caroline it was a Whomping Willow:
















Hastings Pier, a wonderful place where once you could play silly games, buy sickly sweets, stroll out over the sea or sup wine out at a table in the sunshine. Now being left to fall to ruin while the arseholes in the council instead blow money on a modern art gallery no one will visit. The sea air may clear ones head, but doesn't clear stupidity from the heads of council bureaucrats:
















I nice little pub whose name I can't remember right now. It has everything a pub should have, except cigarette smoke and customers (there's a connection):


9 comments:

Grim's Reality said...

From the Spiral pattern around the fallen Jain Trunk I would hazard a guess that was once a Sweet Chestnut (Castania sativa), and your whomping Willow looks like a Quercus robur or (English oak).

And as for councillors lazy greedy hungry for fame ect. They all suffer from that malaise of belonging to petty political parties... and as long as they make decisions based on party policy, they will never do any fucking good whatsoever.

Our council in Thurrock Essex is split 50/50, and a more useless bunch of fuckwits you have never seen. The only action you ever see, is when they all write on mass to the local paper to defend their failings after council meetings... as for responding to local correspondants perfectly reasonable requests for action or response to perfectly reasonable questions… well just listen to that bell, and watch the tumbleweed blow by.

Whoever said that the desire to be a politician should automatically exclude that person from entering politics was entirely correct.

vaudeviewgalor raandisisraisins said...

ya, oughta try some american pubs. the clientele dont let the gov control any of their fun or alcoholism. just lung health indoors.
empty beer halls? wrong country.

i mean, seriously, you can come over to some crowded bars here in bibleland, you can hug trees in the park, carry guns, smoke at the cigar bar...the folks at Borderlands Books in SF are all over your stuff, gush about you making an appearance one day signing stuff, restocking the depleted Asher supplies, and after, walk to the mission district and piss in the street.

this is your moment to show u.s. how it's done!

Tony B said...

I once asked a woman out in that pub, but then regretted it later! I think I must have had a few by then..it used to be one of the latter ones on regular pub crawls in that neck of the woods.

I was born in St Leonards and still have friends there, but lived most of my life just a bit to the West, in Bexhill.

Neal Asher said...

Graeme, perhaps we should have a political system like jury service. All laws, rules and regulations should be hacked down to the minimum, and if a politico wants to introduce a new one, he must first have a referendum on it, and then its only kept on the books if proven to do what it was supposed to do. Also, every right should be balanced by a responsibility, and you only get to vote if you contribute taxes.
etc etc etc.

Vaude, the government should not have any control over health. You're about to discover the cost of that.

TJ, nice to hear that, perhaps you can remind me of the name of the pub?

Tony B said...

Neal, I've been wracking my brains to remember since you posted this - we are going back a few years - but I think it's the Royal Standard..

vaudeviewgalor raandisisraisins said...

from what i understand the health thing will come into effect only when stem cell, and printable collagen organs take over:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/anthony_atala_growing_organs_engineering_tissue.html

soon.

no cash price tag can out distance the spending spree the u.s. has on military 14k toilet seat lids and mechanical pencils.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

some of this money gets buried out in the desert for a while.

Neal Asher said...

Yup, I just checked -- it is the Royal Standard.

Grim's Reality said...

Agreed in principle. It just seems to me that being a councillor or MP is just another minor cult of celebrity. Big fish in little ponds.

Maybe the answer is to limit the term of office like they do for American Presidents (though wankers will still be elected from time to time).

By limiting them, they don't get that job for life, or without me the world will end feeling and hopefully they will strive to achieve their original mission, and the fuck off back to obscurity with a warm glow and a merit ribbom.

LarryS said...

Oh thats a fine tree she's hugging there!