I have had an unusually sociable week. Normally, I just hunker down in the Hove-l, scuttling out only for essentials. I snarl at anyone who tries to approach me and even avoid the Big Issue seller outside Waitrose. Over the winter I have devolved into something like Gollum, so used to the darkness that I now avoid the light and the kindly society of my peers. But despite this, people still want to see me. I cannot think why but they do. Is it pity?
The first two social encounters were with women much younger, much better-looking and almost certainly much more intelligent than me, but they wanted to go out with me for a drink. And as I am still just about in a position where I can buy my round, I could see no reason to refuse. Romance is definitely not on the cards – I’ve had it with that nonsense – but it does no harm to the ego to be seen in public with such people.
The other people were my friends D— and N—, who invited me round for a roast dinner for no reason that I could think of. D— is, like almost everyone else in Brighton, a music critic, and also given to absolutely shameless puns. You thought my “take a wok on the wild side” last week was bad? His puns leave that one at the starting gate. I won’t inflict any of them on you – you’d throw this magazine to the floor and cancel your subscription. His poor wife, however, has to put up with them on a regular basis, but she seems to be coping.
D— has what younger people might call considerable dad energy. He has a TEAC reel-to-reel which impresses me mightily.
“You might want to know,” he says with a sly smile at one point, “why I have two identical amplifiers on that shelf.” N— rolls her eyes. She not only knows this story; she has lived through it.
“Oh God, yes,” I say, meaning it, and he tells me how he jury-rigged them together to fix a problem with the channels. I high-five him at the end of his tale.
Normally it’s Ben and his wife who invite me round for meals but he has gone off to his flat in Alicante. He bought one there a few years ago with the intention of moving out there (unlike many a British expat, he can actually speak Spanish and loathes Nigel Farage), but Brexit put paid to that so now he’s only allowed to go there for 90 days in a six-month period. His Brighton gaff I have already written about. It’s the tower block with the junkies in the stairwell and the scaffolding and blue netting around it, which cuts off almost all natural light and is driving the residents crazy. (Brighton & Hove Council seems to go the extra mile when it comes to spoiling people’s views, it would seem: D— and N— have a lovely view of the South Downs from their front room, ruined by a huge and ugly hotel and conference centre just where you don’t want it.) As the head of the residents’ association, Ben is trying to stop another Grenfell, but that netting’s going to be staying up there for another couple of years at least. He has written to Angela Rayner in the hope she can tell the council to get a move on and, as I happen to know that either she or someone close to her reads this column, or at least used to, I would like to add my voice to his petition. Come on, Ange, you can do this.
While he has been away, I have been keeping Ben up to speed with recent political developments.
“Thanks for ruining my day,” he says, after I tell him about the latest outrage. The most recent one was Trump thinking it’s illegal to boycott Tesla. This elicits a rant over the phone from Ben which goes on for a full half hour. It covers many bases, as most of Ben’s rants do, at one point wondering how he can meaningfully boycott Tesla cars if he doesn’t have a driving licence. He pauses to make a gross ad hominem attack on me.
“Let’s face it, Nick,” he says, “learning to drive is the only way you’ve succeeded as a grown up.”
“How dare you,” I say. I am about to reply that I am so grown up I don’t even have sugar in my tea or coffee any more, but then I remember I ate a whole bag of Haribo Twin Snakes in a sitting last night, so decide to take this one on the chin. Maybe he has a point.
Ben, too, has invited me to see him, and I must say I am tempted. The weather out there is lovely and flights can be ludicrously cheap, and, flying from Gatwick, convenient. The cuisine in Alicante is excellent and the wine is so cheap it makes me want to cry. He says all I have to do is pack a toothbrush: I can buy any clothes I need out there for practically nothing. But he has worked out that I am not grown-up enough to buy an EasyJet ticket all on my own, and so will take me out there himself the next time he goes. Besides, he is cutting his stay short and will be coming back early.
“I’m sick of the sun, and I’m sick of good manners,” he says. Well, if he’s sick of the sun, Brighton right now is the place to be.
[See also: Inside the media circus]
Content from our partners
This article appears in the 19 Mar 2025 issue of the New Statesman, The Golden Age