Hello All,

While doing my Youtube searching today I found a great video of Sensei Erik Paulson (www.erikpaulson.com) and Dog Brother Eric Knaus aka Top Dog (www.dogbrothers.com) teaching stick grappling. You can see why I believe that Sensei Erik Paulson is one of the most well rounded Martial Artists around these days and why the Dog Brothers are regarded as some of the best Filipino Martial Artists around.

I was introduced to stick grappling by my Sifu Dave Hatch (www.attributivemartialarts.com) years ago and it is something that I really want to explore. I think that it is very practical and can be used by a wide variety of people including Law Enforcement and Military Personal.

Enjoy

Hello All,

I hope you looked @ yesterdays post… It had Ajarn Chai holding focus mitts for a 6 yr old boy. Well they are back at it again only this time the boy is 7 yrs old now. You can see how much bigger he has gotten and how his skill level has improved. I am still amazed the level he performs @. I have stood in front of Ajarn Chai and it is no easy task.

If this does not make you want to improve your Boxing skills I don’t know what will!!!!

Enjoy

Hello All,

I have watched this video a number of times and everytime I watch it I am amazed by this it. Ajarn Chai and this boy are amazing. Big props to his parents and Instructors for teaching him the fundamentals, discipline and respect to have the talent level that he already shows.

This boy has better form & mechanics @ 6 than Martial Artists that I have met who have trained for 20 years. Enjoy this video clip it is awesome!!!

Hello All,

This is a question that I am asked quite often by my new students and people who have not trained. My interest level in Martial Arts began when I was around 9 years old. My Grandfather was a huge boxing fan, he and my Dad would watch boxing on TV and I would watch it with them as a way to bond with them. My Uncle was learning Tai Chi around this time and when he would visit from Connecticut he would show me some pieces of the Forms that he was working on.

As I grew up in the 1980’s Martial Arts was exploding, fueled Sijo Bruce Lee’s influence. I remember watching the Karate Kid movie and being so excited by it. We watched movies with Martial Arts movie stars like Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal and many others. The Ninja craze was also going on then as well and for my 10th birthday I got a Ninja uniform complete with authentic Ninja Tabi boots.

As I got older my interest in Martial Arts died down some but was always in the background. I had a friend in High School that trained in Tae Kwon Do and that started to refuel my interest. In 1992 I began training Karate through a Community Ed program and my interest started to take off. Though I enjoyed the training the material didn’t seem to  fit what I was looking for. What I was really looking for how to protect myself and more importantly my brother Colin. He was having some issues with a group of kids who were ganging up on kids randomly. Colin always seemed to be on their radar, though in the end thankfully they never did anything to him.

This lead me to look into other Martial Arts styles including Tai Chi, Isshin Ryu, Boxing, and Bruce Lee’s Martial Art Jeet Kune Do. I was having some trouble finding a Martial Arts School that taught one of these styles in Livingston County. By sheer chance in the summer of 1994 I met John Noonan (http://www.independentmartialarts.us) who was studying Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do and Filipino Martial Arts. I trained with John for about 1 year.

In the spring of 1995 John and I went to Sifu Dave Hatch’s (www.attributivemartialarts.com) house for a private lesson. Sifu Dave at that time was an Apprentice under Guro Dan Inosanto (www.inosanto.com). I began training with Sifu Dave in fall of 1995 and he has been my primary Instructor since.

From 1995-2000 I put in approximately 12,000 hours of training in through training with Sifu Dave, teaching Cardio Kickboxing, private and solo training and seminars. During that time my friends would ask why I trained as much as I did. I would respond ” This is what I love to do, I get to meet and train with some of the best Martial Artists in the world!!!”

Like I said in the beginning I wanted to train to learn how to protect myself and my loved ones. Today I feel that I can do that and now I teach others to do the same. During the time I have trained I have learned a lot about myself, I feel that if I had not began training Martial Arts I would not be the person I am today. Martial Arts has helped me improve my self-confidence, self-awareness and helped me relate to people better.

I train now for the love of learning my Instructors are always learning new things and it inspires me to do the same. I have met people from Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, China, Japan, Korea, the Philipines and many other countries. From them I have learned so much about the history and culture of their home land it is amazing. This diversity in training and understanding has gone along way to teach me that we are really all just people and at the core we are all looking for the same things.

One of the other huge benefits in training is my understanding of my body. Martial Arts has taught me much about how and why I move the way that I do. When I am teaching I feel that I am not just teaching them how to protect themselves and their loved ones I am teaching them to understand and accept their bodies better.

Thank you for taking time to read this post, I would love to hear what you have gained from training Martial Arts. If you have not trained then what you would like to gain from training.

Shawn

Eva and THAT famous advert

I own this seemingly unmarketable object – Brighton’s loudest alarm clock – because a magazine advert, not dissimilar to the famous one on the top of this page, caught my eye. I don’t remember it well but it probably had one of those catchy little slogans that adverts have: “Don’t live a little, live an alarm clock”, for example, or “If you like a lot of alarm clock on your biscuit, join our club”

Bear with me; I’m coming to my point – but first I must brief you about two other events yesterday that bring me to write this blog.

Half an hour after rising, I was on Twitter when I noticed a message exhorting people to race to www.millionpoundlist.com. The website was one of those attempts to raise money without doing anything much. Click on the link if you want to know how crass it is. In most cases, you’d have to be as thick as a rhino’s bunions to fall for this sort of thing. Alas, it was persuasively worded and I stumped up a tenner hoping there would be some eventual advantage for the tea shop. In retrospect, there won’t be.

The third event took place at Asda in the Marina, where I got so angry I left my half-filled trolley in the frozen peas aisle and came home empty-handed. Brighton and Hove is full of supermarkets from which I have flounced without any groceries and this time it was because they didn’t have the nut roast I wanted. Or any nut roast, for that matter.

How are these three events linked? Well, they’re all about advertising, or ‘legalised lying’ as HG Wells called it, and how it works.

In the first two, I was duped into parting needlessly with cash by forms of advertising. The third is an example of how I was left disappointed because I didn’t take advantage of the available advertising – in this case, the product search facility on Asda’s website.

Advertising, you see, is everywhere and in some form or another affects you and me hundreds of times a day. This fact, and the fact that the advertising industry here in Brighton alone is worth tens of millions of pounds, tells us one thing: advertising works. For small businesses like Metrodeco, there’s no hiding from that fact. And that is the point of this blog. Sure, if you’re like us, you’ll take advantage of free advertising, or PR, as the PR industry calls it. But you won’t get a steady stream of timely, high profile, on-message coverage unless you pay for it. A local press campaign can increase awareness, establish familiarity and, ultimately, drive up sales.

I’m not going to go further into the boons or the banes (ie. the cost), but what I want to do here is give you the benefit of my limited but valuable (I hope) experience of Brighton and Hove’s advertising industry from the perspective of a small business. That way, if you ever have a heart attack, a brief period of internet stupidity and a bout of intense trolley rage all in one morning and decide that you too need to advertise, it might be a little bit easier for you to navigate that murky world.

So, onto business. Like all good things, good advertising is like tea.

It’s:

Trustworthy

Energetic

Appropriate

Taking each criteria in turn, it has to be trustworthy because, if it’s not, people will find you out and your adverts and everything else you say will become ineffective. Have you seen the recent national newspaper adverts by Halifax building society, in relation to the floods in Cumbria? They claim to have ‘put in place a number of special arrangements to help Halifax customers’ affected. These include three month mortgage payment holidays and emergency overdraft increases. Piffle! These things were available at all reputable banks and building societies before the floods, including Halifax. It looks like spin and makes Halifax look cynical.

People are already suspicious of the whole industry without being lied to and our detailed research on the issue in the Brighton & Hove area shows us why:

Metrodeco Guesstimate Graph 2009

Why energetic? It’s thought we are bombarded with around 3,500 media messages a day from brands attempting to capture our attention and engage us with their products. Even my local bus stop in Kemp Town has now started talking to me with its ‘real time’ display, rather than behaving like a normal inanimate object. Most of this noise is boring. Deeply, mind-numbingly, soul-scarringly, eye-gougingly boring. And utterly pointless too. So by the following day, 99.9% of these messages forgotten. You, too, will be forgotten in the blink of an eye if you don’t attempt to bring something fresh and original to the table. So think about what your advert is saying and whether the consumer will have seen a similar message that day.

Finally, your advertising has to be appropriate in terms of the audience, the likely affect of that advert on that audience and the cost. It’s pointless advertising zimmer frames at the local youth disco, especially if you have to sell your husband or wife to afford the advert.

Below this blog, I have provided a run-down of some of what’s on offer in Brighton and Hove and how much it will cost you. Admittedly, it’s only the print side of things, but I’m sure our friends in TV and radio will let me know if they have interesting to add.

Next week: how to solve the Iranian nuclear crisis.

Ends

CITYWIDE PUBLICATIONS

• BRIGHTON AND HOVE LEADER

Delivered once a week (on Fridays) to homes across Brighton. Importantly, it’s free, which means it has a huge readership (over 95,000 according to its publishers, Newsquest). On the upside, this means all sorts of people will read it, from sports fans to politicians to religious leaders – so you’re likely to reach your target audience and some you didn’t know you wanted to reach. It’s also only available in Brighton and Hove – so if that’s where you customers are, then you’re not wasting any money advertising in places like Lewes, Crawley or Worthing. The downside is that it’s fairly expensive at £7.50 per column centimetre. In English, this means it’s going to cost you in the region of £330 for a quarter page colour advert.

• THE ARGUS

The city’s daily paper and key publication. Same price for adverts as the Leader but slightly fewer people will see your ad – 91,000 read each paper (about three times as many as actually buy it). Thursday is a good bet if you think this is the publication for you as it’s the best-read with jobs guide and motoring pull-out. Again, it’s got mass appeal, but although its core readership is in Brighton and Hove, it is sold across Sussex. If your advert is in the Argus, it’s likely that it will be on the side of a packet of fish and chips within 24 hours, whereas the Leader can hang around homes for a week. However, the Argus is more influential insofar as it is read by far more of the city’s power-brokers and decision-makers than. It might interest you to know that nearly half of the Argus’s readers are over 55. Of those in the core area of Brighton and Hove, 56% regularly enjoy eating out.

• BRIGHTON VISTOR

One of the hardest working ad teams of them all, the Visitor gang are our favourite of all the magazines. They will not only put your ad on the pages of the mag AND the website but will promote you endlessly on Twitter and by word of mouth. At only £275 for a half page ad this publication is definitely recommended. Also, if you’re looking for an ethical ad placement, Brighton Visitor puts massive amounts of time and effort into community events, like the annual Food Festival and does a lot to promote the city in their own time and at no profit to themselves.

• LATEST 7/LATEST HOMES

Available for free at hundreds of Brighton and Hove outlets, this weekly glossy mag is a bit younger and fresher than the Argus stable and at £300 for a half page advert, your money goes a bit further. Of all the zillions of city magazines it has the feeling of being the most established and trusted. It’s the one, for example, that the city council leader writes in and has a talented editor in Bella Todd, formally from Time Out. The Latest sales team claim that more than 100,000 ‘in Sussex, London and the South’ read it, which begs the question: “How many of those live in Brighton?” For my money, it’s not as credible as an independent news and features publication as the Argus because it offers favourable ‘editorial’ with paid adverts, leaving readers wondering just how honest the many supposedly objective reviews inside are. However, one of the best advertising opportunities in the city is the Latest’s ‘Hot List’ listings at £10 per week per entry (minimum of six issues). Very cheap but advertisers tell us it is effective.

• ABSOLUTE BRIGHTON

EXPENSIVE!!! £650 for a half page ad but this is the posh kid in the class. This glossy magazine looks higher quality than Latest, with its spine and professional front page photography – so it’s a surprise that it’s free. It is delivered to a limited area of the city around the Dyke Road area (ie the posh houses). My feeling is that if you’re selling dental cosmetic treatment or Ferraris, this might be your publication. There are some very high profile celebrity interviews, high end interiors features, travel features and reviews. However, the writing is not up to the standard of Latest. 25,000 copies of Absolute Brighton are distributed around Brighton and Hove and the surrounding areas and it claims to have a readership of 65,000 plus.

• YOU GOT PAPPED

Unlike most new kids on the block, you get the feeling Papped is here to stay because it’s a bit different being so photo-based. This monthly publication describes itself as “a photographic review of all that happens in Brighton and Hove”, covering “fantastic events, as and when they happen”. Describes ‘mud wrestlers’ among its key audience, making the point, which I’d agree with, that it has a wide appeal. It’s only £200 for a half page ad but that’s because there are only 10,000 copies of each edition, which are distributed to bars, restaurants, hotels, gyms, other clubs.

• GSCENE

This is a bit of a no-brainer. It’s a gay lifestyle mag so is probably the one for you if your audience is the gay community. Worth noting here that, while you might not have thought your audience was necessariy the gay community, Brighton’s gay population is estimated at 50,000. Furthermore half own their own home and 75 per cent are working – so there’s likely to be a bit of spending power there. Gscene is high quality and very independent, which accounts for the fiercely campaigning style of its reportage and comment. There are 20,000 copies distributed in Brighton and Hove, and 10,000 to London and the south coast from Bournemouth to Eastbourne. The editor claims that approximately a further 15,000 readers nationwide download a copy online each month. A good bet at £275 for a half page ad.

• ONE80NEWS

Lesbian and gay free newspaper, fortnightly, claims to be for an older, more informed read. Print run of 20,000 but is read by 60,000. A half page ad is £460.

• ABC MAGAZINE

Free Brighton-based parenting magazine and directory. Distributed in local libraries, leisure centres, children’s centres, doctor surgeries and the like. There are three issues a year and the print run is 35,000 (estimated readership 105,000) – distributed across the county. In Brighton, it counts among its advertisers organisations like Brighton Baby Expo, Tumble Tots, St. Aubyns School, Susanna Cassam Music Tuition and Rox School of Dance & Drama – all give glowing references. The cost is £460 for a half page ad.

• WHAT’S ON

Free pocket-sized monthly listings guide to Brighton and Hove, launched in 1995, 10,000 copies every month, nearly half distributed to pubs and clubs. In the words of the sales team: “Your advertising has greater potential to be viewed repeatedly in a listings guide more than a magazine as the reader returns to the guide on a regular basis throughout the month to view events.” A half page ad is £275.

• BRIGHTON SOURCE

Principally a monthly listings magazine, but also contains interviews with local ‘characters’. Distributed in pretty much in every pub, bar, café, record shop and cool clothes shop in the Brighton & Hove area. A very good cheap option at £40 a month for a listing.

STUDENT MAGAZINES

• THE BADGER

Weekly student newspaper of the University of Sussex Students’ Union.
It covers news, reviews, comment and listings. Claims to have secured exclusive interviews with Will Smith and Johnny Depp. Written by students so likely to be more trusted than the official university magazine. A half page ad is £380, which is expensive for its measly print run of 3,000.

• THE PULSE

Sussex University’s termly glossy mag politics, culture, feature investigations, arts and lifestyle. Again, expensive at £380 for a half page considering the even smaller run of 2,000. But it’s likely to be kept for a longer period than The Badger.

• THE PEBBLE

With a print run of 7,000, Brighton University’s Students’ Union newspaper would seem to be better value at £375 for a half page ad.

BEST OF THE REST

In the West of the City, HOVE FACTUALLY is delivered monthly to 5,000 homes in central Hove, 2,700 in the Hove Park area and 3,000 in Hangleton. It’s A5 booklet size and an ad is cheap at only £65 for a half page ad.

In the East, the KEMPTOWN RAG is widely read and well-loved with its eccentric columnists. It’s hand-delivered to 7,000 homes in Kemp Town (note correct spelling) and Queen’s Park.

There are many other publications that are very local. Some are good, some less so. They’re distributed to anything from 5o to 5,000 homes and ads are usually around £80 for a half page but can be as cheap as £10.

I list some of them here:

Seven Dials Directory (9,500 homes), Fiveways Directory (3,000), Hangleton Harbinger, Hanover Herald, Hollingdean News, Knoll Scroll, Mosaic, Moulsecoomb Community Forum Newsletter, North Laine Runner, North Portslade community newsletter, Portslade Pages, QPCV News, Roundhill Reporter, South Portslade newsletter, West Hove News.

NOTES:

Rates are for one-off ads – discounts are nearly always available for bulk purchases.

Want to come to an accounts/tax return/bookkeeping study group? Got a pile of receipts and no organised bookkeeping system set up? After Adam Hickie’s talk ‘Bookkeeping for Small Businesses’ at Bscene last Tuesday Kat Neeser of BScene feels inspired to set some time aside, preferably with other people, to get organised, and also do something about the looming TAX RETURN (deadline Jan).

Anyone who would like to get together at Westwerks on Fri 4th or 11th Dec, 11am till 1pm to work on their accounts/bookkeeping/tax returns together should contact Kat on 07958964810 or email katneeser[at]hotmail.com saying which date you prefer.

Adam Hickie’s printed notes will be available.

It’ll be small donation only for teas and wifi.

Ach da ist es ja Lange gesucht und endlich gefunden. Ich sollte meine Bilder besser sortieren und taggen. Ich fand die Idee ziemlich genial. Das ganze befindet sich an der Promenade hier in Brighton und ist direkt neben dem Eingang zu einer Kunstgalerie. Hab leider nie die Gelegenheit gehabt ein Foto ohne Auto davor zu machen.

love hate

Hello All,

Well it’s the Holiday Season and you know what that means… Lots of shopping, going to parties, and the hustle and bustle of the season. I don’t mean to be Scrooge but here are some very important safety tips to keep you safe for the Holiday Season.

• Being on your PHONE IS NOT SAFE!!! It is a huge distraction when you are distracted that is a great time for MR. BAD GUY to ATTACK you.
• REMEMBER where you parked your car and AVOID using your KEY LESS ENTRY to find your car. This is a great way to let Mr. Bad Guy where you are at and how to plan his attack.
• If you are out enjoying some HOLIDAY BEVERAGES keep your INTAKE LOW and remember to keep track of your drink. It is very easy for someone to slip something into your drink. Also drink lots of water and eat consistantly this will help you moderate your alcohol levels.

I hope that these help to keep you and your loved ones safe. We have ongoing Self-Defense classes on going during the holidays!!! Not only will they help you to be safe they can also help you avoid adding any extra holiday goodies to your waistline.

Happy Holidays,

Shawn

Hello All,

In this video clip Sensei Erik Paulson (www.erikpaulson.com) is teaching defending standing guard passes. He shows how to use your feet and hips so not to get your legs controlled, how to use your knees so that the person that is standing can’t punch your head and also he shows how to use an axe kick from your guard!!!

Also don’t miss the last submission combo he does it is pretty cool!!!

Enjoy

In the Lanes, Brighton – taken back in April.

Yo yo yo!

Apart from the weather, I hope everyone has had a lovely day. Striding out along the Brighton seafront, with umbrellas and small children flying past like a scene from Genesis/ a Beyonce video really brought people together, as it always seems to. Many ‘I can’t believe the weather, can you?’ glances were exchanged before I gave it up as a bad job and went home for a cup of tea. Had a butcher’s in HMV before I went, and saw piles and piles of Susan Boyle’s face on her album cover staring out at me. I left soon after.

So yeah our E.P is finally nearly released! On the 1st December to be precise and we’re having a knees up to celebrate. There’s a facebook event created for it which you can view here for more details.

There’s a couple of articles written about us on various websites and blogs. Click on the links below if you fancy a read:

http://www.indiebandsblog.com/european-bands/uk-bands/gaolers-daughter

http://www.rollogrady.com/artist-to-watch-gaolers-daughter/

http://nuravebrainwave.com/?p=4239
Also, you can pre-order our E.P here so you’ll get it as soon as it comes out at Puregroove

There’s a load of gigs lined up over the course of this next month in support of the E.P, so it would be great to see you at a show in the near future-this Friday we’re playing with our good friends Rum Shebeen with plenty of other great bands at the New Cross Inn. Looking forward to that one! Check our myspace for more gigs here…

I can’t believe it’s nearly Christmas, gonna have to dig out my ‘Howard the Halifax Man Sings Classic Christmas Songs’ album. Never fails to get me in the mood. That and Quality street. Might have to just buy that Dylan Christmas album too, still can’t believe he’s made one-Respect.

Until next time…

Gaoler’s x

To be entirely honest, over that last week, nothing really bad happened at all, a few worries and slip-ups, but nothing disastrous. I thought I’d give you a little list of the “problems” we had:

1. One of the leads, Marius who was played by Oli Evans went down with the flu. But everything was okay! Luke Newton who played Enjolras was able to take his part and play Maruis amazingly. But, even though that was sorted we now had no Enjolras, so, Richard the director made a few phone calls and got, on the day before the first show, Joe Mott in to play Enjolras. Joe had played this part three years ago and yet some how, managed to walk on stage without and preparations and sing all the lines correctly and improvise so well that the director did nothing but congratulate him on a wonderful performance night after night. Until Saturday when Oli came back and everyone was able to play their original parts.
2. On the Friday evening performance the lighting boys got a little carried away and went way over the top on the amount of smoke used. This shouldn’t be a problem, as we could still see the actors clearly, the audience weren’t choking to death and all the fire alarms had been turned off in the lower part of the building. However, so much smoke was used, and so many people were going up and down the stairs that the smoke travelled and the warning alarms went off upstairs, luckily this did not disturb the performance, but if the smoke stayed consistent all the alarms would go off. So every single one of the doors and windows were thrown open and out of fright the rest of the show went smokeless.
3. Putting the barricades away. This job was significantly harder than getting them out. The barricades are split into two separate pieces one trucks, and are hidden side by side with their backs to the audience under the balcony. They are swivelled outwards and back into each other to face the audience by Ade, Derrick, Vic and Myself. Now, when we have to swivel them back into their little hole under the balcony the actors, usually, have left a bunch of rifles and mugs on them, which is understandable as its hard enough to look dead while you’re crawling off stage let alone with having to tidy up for yourself too. But, this created a problem, these odd props blocking the middle of the barricades prevented them from sliding under the balcony nicely and made us crewmembers stay on stage for longer than any of us wanted to be without feeling incredibly embarrassed. Derrick was usually the one that got stuck, and so he always fished out the prop as quickly as he could before walking briskly off stage.

What ever happened to carpenters?

7.30am

My alarm goes off. It’s one of those alarms when the longer you ignore it the faster and the louder the beeping gets. Basically, one of those alarms that everyone hates, including me. I pull out the clothing I’m supposed to wear, even though I am a little confused about whether to wear blacks or not, I decide on wearing mainly black but not entirely. This is because the SM told me to wear black clothing (which I expected) but I knew we were building today, so I wasn’t sure, I didn’t want to get the black jeans I was going to have to wear in the week covered in paint.

9.00am

It is raining. Almost freezing cold, and I am stuck outside the main entrance of the Sallis Benny Theatre with the ‘Master Joiner’ and a guy called Martin. They are both telling me about there years in the world of show business, even if it is behind the wings.

Finally, after about 10 minuets, someone from lighting comes to let us in. Telling us in the process that “everyone else is round the back and unloading stuff from the van.” I swiftly walk into the stage area, trying to look like I know what I am doing, and that I am completely confident. This is ruined a few seconds later when I lose my way to a dressing room, and find myself outside, only having to return to the SM to ask for a second set of directions. Turns out HE got stage right and left mixed up.

9.30am

Right in the middle of unloading a nice mixture of wooden planks, flats, music stands, old lighting boxes, old wagon wheels (not the chocolate biscuits ACTUAL wagon wheels) and a few other odd bits and pieces.

I’m being given a little less to carry from the man unloading the truck than any of the other ‘men’ who are to be honest all over 45 except one 31 year old. But still, I’m no weakling! I could have carried about the same as nearly all of the people there. However they were all still very lovely about it “Don’t take more than you can handle my sweetest.”

11.00am

8 flats, all about 12 foot high and 5 foot wide, are now joined together and standing across the back of the stage, to give a backdrop to the set we are about to construct. Only after the SM goes and makes some tea, it’s about time, people have been hollering for it.

1.00pm

Okay, I want to be able to explain how the set looks like, BUT I will not be able to tell it to its true glory (I’m proud of it yes). I will try and get hold of a picture of it!

Well, by 12 we had about half of the entire structure sound, and the separate parts coming off the sides.

Time for lunch, they all head off for a pint, I have a cheap sandwiches in the park/ old stein, unfair? I think so.

5.00pm

The Barricades are done, as is the set, all that is left is sorting the odd bit and bobs out across the stage. I’m given a large bucket, full of a very assorted mixture of rusty screw, and a few other bits. After about an hour I’ve sorted them all into about 20 different piles and I’m free to go home, happy in the knowledge that I’ve done a hard days work.

6.30pm

Sat down, in front of Doctor Who, with a nice plate of beans on toast. The perfect dinner for a long day.

7.30 start again tomorrow. College and then the tech run should be fun

From The Detroit News:

The attorney representing the Brighton businessman accused in an alleged $53 million "Billionaire Boys Club" Ponzi scheme has himself been indicted for a criminal investment fraud scheme.

Gregory Bartko, the Georgia attorney representing John J. Bravata, his wife Shari Bravata, and his son Antonio Bravata on civil fraud charges brought in Detroit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, is named in a six-count federal indictment handed down in North Carolina, according to court papers filed today.

Bartko, 56, along with a California man, are accused of running an interstate scheme to profit from the fraudulent sale of investments starting in 2004. He faces charges that include conspiracy, false statements, obstruction, and mail fraud.

I have been out and about quite a lot (in the UK) over the last 6 or 7 years,  shopping expeditions, pubs, clubs, restaurants, weekends in London, Manchester, days out all over the south and south-east, but few places are as cosmopolitan and tranny friendly as Brighton.

Ok, so it probably has a reputation as the gay capital of England, which must help a lot.  It also has a large student population and a definite reputation for being a young persons town,  almost the total opposite of Eastbourne 20 miles along the south coast which is famous only for its attractions for the elderly.

How things like this evolve I don’t know.  I guess Brighton was one of the more fashionable places to visit in the 19th century with its Royal Pavilion, long promenades and sea air but Eastbourne must have then been similar.  The ‘lanes’ shopping area reminds me of Montmartre and you can imagine it full of artists and actors.  I recall during my university years that it had a naturist beach, brrrr!! .  But while I recall stripping off with my wife in the warmer climes of St Tropez back in the seventies, I’d never have been tempted in Brighton.  Aside from being a stony beach, it’s too damn cold which brings me a little closer to this weekend just gone.

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My friend Penny doesn’t get out as often as she likes.  It seems something of an anomaly to me that she can come out as transgendered at work, even offering to set up a LGBT/ minorities support group etc, yet she doesn’t dress at work and only rarely at home and even less rarely gets out.  But she is a lovely person, who loves her wife and young family and has therefore agreed that tranny excursions will be a rarity that will be planned carefully around the family calendar.

Last time out had been our Brighton trip in June (just to remind my happy reader, that was when we went out with the Portsmouth girls and had a great time with Hen Parties). So I’d tried to get her to come to the last Magic Theatre, which we had both gone to back in March 08.  Sadly, that clashed with a family birthday so we settled on last weekend and spent many a happy email debating the merits of clubland in Brighton or Theatreland in London.   In the end we’d decided to coincide our visit with  a Transisters club night and long time friend Gabby decided to join us and bring her new partner Erin along.

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My drive to Brighton was going to take an hour or so and I’d considered travelling en femme, maybe even returning as Tina Sunday morning allowing me the luxury of some Christmas shopping.  But I’d a golf match Saturday morning and going back home to change was not going to be easy so I decided to go straight there,  planning on arriving around 2:30pm.  I made what I thought was good time and stopped for a bottle of wine on the outskirts of Brighton.  About 3 miles but an hour later I managed to park up in an NCP and check in.  Brighton is definitely not a place designed for cars and in parts it is just gridlock.  And with the wind gusting to 60mph it was definitely not a place for wigs either!

Penny and I had booked in to the Umihotel, a decent sized room overlooking a raging sea.  Plenty of mirrors but lighting was poor ~ they just don’t consider us tgirls!!

Penny had started her transformation, and looked great in new purchases.   I took an age unpacking and it was good to have a natter over (a plastic!) glass of white wine.  Apologies to P, but I then took over the bathroom as we both set about our completing our ‘magic make-overs’.  I always enjoy taking my time and doing the best I can, even if just popping out for the afternoon.  In this case we’d agreed to meet Gabby and Erin in the bar downstairs where we’d decide whether to venture out.

By this time it was raining cats and dogs so with the wind still howling we settled down for a natter.  I’ve known Gabby since about 2003, but Erin had only recently come down from Aberdeen.  She is an effervescent and highly articulate girl impressing us with her total recall on a wide range of subjects.  I played the dumb blonde (which comes easily) and kept stumm most of the time!  Memory, what’s that?  That’s why I have to write everything down, lol.

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We’d booked ‘La Fiorentina’ a few squares away for dinner at 8, so quick change required.  Now it might not mean much to anyone else but my wife had gone through her wardrobe the night before to help me find a suitable top to go with the black skirt I wanted to wear and in the end had pretty well given me free rein.  I’d selected a quite low, black chiffony type top, that was so elasticated I could go without a bra.  Now that is a first!   For the first time, I could pop my size d’s in ‘with confidence’ and go shoulderless which was a lovely feeling.  I had gone knee-length, but Penny looked resplendent in red and dared to show far more leg than I could get away with.

A short taxi ride and we were welcomed into a cosy Italian restaurant which looked rather like a santa’s grotto.  Nevertheless, it was a cosmopolitan menu and I treated myself to lots of garlic, first on my sardines and then on my Dover Sole Meurniere, which I have to say was delicious.

I am sure we must have been there an age, but it just flew by, conversation just flowed and we barely noticed nor were noticed by the other patrons, at least until we got the camera out, lol.  We are always the same I know, we just can’t resist it and we all want photos on our own cameras even though we swop photos afterwards!!

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The rain had pretty well stopped so we headed towards the ‘lanes’, it was going to be mostly downhill, so a time to enjoy, a time to be proud.  We were warmly welcomed into Bar Kobo given a cocktail menu and ten minutes later the prime spot close to the bar.  Bar staff were so friendly taking special care to make sure ‘we ladies’ felt at home, but as I said earlier, in Brighton, who is to care?  We stayed an hour or so and while G & E headed back, Penny and I headed off in search of more frivolities.  At the Fishbowl we did have to talk our way in, the doormen at first thinking we might prefer the (gay) bars on Kempside, the other side of town.  I was surprised at that, I mean we didn’t even know if this bar was gay straight or in between.  But when we got in it was ideal.  Mixed crowd, music, a little dance floor, lively but not too loud.  We chatted away mostly to ourselves but a smile here, a nod there, the odd word with others (+ the obligatory photo offer), you knew you were welcome.

So we hadn’t made it to the clubs, ‘Revenge’ or ‘Legends’, not even the ‘Charles St’ club where ‘Transisters’ was supposed to take place, but we’d had a lovely meal and lively conversation and drinks from around 4pm till around 2pm and I was still standing!!  Penny and I even had a nightcap and more chat when we got back to the room, finally hitting the sack around 4am, for a few hours kip if you could sleep through the noise of the wind.

We’d had great fun trying on wigs and stupidly I slept in my make-up and shorter wig, which is always going to be uncomfortably hot if you wake up, so at 7:30 I tried to slink into the bathroom to clean up.  Still at least we made it down to breakfast and I could have a brisk walk along the prom.  I’d hoped it might be possible to dress again, but that would have meant an entirely different mindset, more time and much less wind.

Still at least we had blue sky for a while, if not for long.  Half way home the skies opened, the rain fell like hailstones and all the cars on the motorway were stopping on the hard shoulder.  All the way home and flooding everywhere, well at least big puddle deep.  Spare a thought for the poor sods in Cumbria that have lost their houses to floods for the 2nd time in about 4 years.

Time for a hug and a cuddle with my wife.  Tell the story in all its ‘gory’ detail (she likes that), a quick look at the photos on the camera (check I’ve not been a naughty girl?  I’m not like that!).  Later a time to reflect on a fun day in Brighton, spent with friends, made to feel really welcome, no problems, no hassle, Brighton a great place to visit.

If you’ve made it this far, you have done well!!

Hugs

TinaCortina xx

Councils and other public bodies have come in for a lot of criticism in recent years for overzealous use of surveillance powers to investigate varying degrees of criminal activity.  In the most extreme cases, powers which were designed for use in tackling terrorism have been used to investigate relatively minor offences.

I have always been very much against such a heavy-handed and intrusive approach and, as a Council, we have always tried to use surveillance and the accessing of communications as a very last resort. We have also tried to be as open and transparent as possible about when we do have to resort to these measures.

Last week at our Cabinet meeting we received our annual report on use of the so-called Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. As far as I’m aware, not many Councils operate with this amount of transparency and I’m pleased to say that the Government Inspectors have stated that we use our powers in a ‘measured and justifiable’ manner.

Clearly, there are circumstances when we would be neglecting our duties not to use some of the powers to investigate criminal activity. Most of the covert surveillance that we do carry out relates to housing benefit fraud, harassment and fly-tipping – offences which I would think most people would consider to be very serious. Indeed, benefit fraud costs Brighton & Hove’s taxpayers somewhere around £1 million a year and I make no apologies for doing everything possible to bring the perpetrators to book.

However, there is a general feeling in the country, which I share, that the surveillance state has gone too far in recent years. The Government’s recently announced Vetting and Barring scheme, which requires millions of parents and volunteers to be ”approved” for working with children by the Government after registering on a state-run database, is a classic example.

This Government seems to think that mammoth national databases and data-sharing will make citizens more secure. I think that more and more people are beginning to realise that this is simply not the case.

I went to Brighton for a day at the seaside on Sunday, damn was the weather rough.  As soon as I turned the corner onto the coast road I was pushed back by the wind and literally felt bruised by the rain.  The sea was crazy rough with the highest waves that I have ever seen in the UK.  In fact higher waves than I saw in California this summer.  Pretty intense.

Here’s a taster, obviously other cooler pictures will feature in an obligatory facebook album that shall appear at a later date.

Stand by for a real blog entry tomorrow.

Here’s a few more shots from the chicachick shoot I did in Brighton. Looks like one or two of them will be in a feature in the local newspaper, The Argus. Result!

I wanted to use the newly restored bandstand on Brighton’s seafront for two reasons; I knew it would be clear of visitors due to the weather; and because it would keep us dry! It’s been restored to its apparent former glory and whoever did it did a great job.
The tiling on the floor converges to a metal plaque at the centre and this was where Katie would stand. Again, Joe held a Speedlite up high to make sure Katie was well lit, then we placed another, snooted, Speedlite on a stand, that would pick out the handbag.
Katie changed in the wind into a white dress, which contrasted well with the broody sky, and off we went.

Katie in the Bandstand

Throughout the shoot I’d use two primes; a lovely Sigma 30mm F1.4 and my trusty Canon 85mm F1.8. But I always carry my mega-wide-angled Sigma 12-24mm aspherical. This thing is almost fisheye at 12mm, but you have to use it carefully, lest you want your subjects to end up with distorted heads.
So I wanted to use my wide angle. I already knew I wanted Katie standing on a wall, so I decided to get down low, below her, and have the bag closest to my lens. Even when I was less than 2ft away from the bag, I could still see the whole of Katie in my field of view. Lovely.
The wind provided the rest. Her hair was nicely blown out of her face, and the bag was waving in the wind. Joe lit her from high, while the other Speedlite added a little fill from camera left.

Blowing in the Wind

Comme toujours, l’actualité musicale est en effervescence et bon nombre d’annonces fleurissent dans tous les sens alors que les sorties pleuvent en cette fin d’année… Qu’est ce qu’il faut savoir, retenir, écouter, attendre patiemment ces jours ci? Réponse ici!

Alors qu’Oceanlook vous en parlait récemment avec une très bonne revue de concert, on a des nouvelles de Massive Attack et de son prochain album. Alors que le groupe éditait il y a peu son EP Splitting the Atom (dont la pochette est au dessus), nous avons enfin quelques précisions sur le prochain album prévu pour le 8 février prochain. Alors que le nom Weather Underground circulait déjà depuis un moment, ce dernier s’appellera finalement Heligoland. La tracklist a elle aussi été communiquée et c’est avec surprise que certains titres présentés récemment en live n’y figurent pas, comme le pourtant énorme Marakesh.

Tracklist : Pray For Rain
Babel
Splitting The Atom
Girl I Love You
Psyche
Flat Of The Blade
Paradise Circus
Rush Minute
Saturday Come Slow
Atlas Air

Quand les fans ont lu la nouvelle, ils ont eu du mal à y croire. Et pourtant, si. L’un des plus grands, si ce n’est LE festival de musique le plus colossal du monde, j’ai nommé Glastonbury, a réussi à convaincre U2 de venir jouer sous la mythique Pyramid Stage pour sa 40ème édition. Le groupe n’avait pas joué dans un festival de ce genre depuis 25 ans et on peut à coup sûr s’assurer qu’ils ne feront pas les choses à moitié. Et quand on connaît le festival, on sait que le reste de la line up risque d’être tout aussi monstrueux!

C’est un petit groupe qui démarre, ils sont français, ils s’appellent Brighton. Ils font de la Noisy Pop, de la Pop shooté aux amphétamines, aux guitares saturés, aux ambiances crades et assez étonnamment aux notes propres. Drôle de mélange allez vous me dire. Oui, sauf que les petits offrent leur premier album gratuitement. Alors on fonce cliquer sur la pochette et on les supporte, non mais !

Xidius

A different view of an oft photographed landmark.

Pentax ME

www.christopherjonesphotography.co.uk

A Different Perspective, Brighton, UK

Brighton, about a month ago

Thanks to all who attended the preview at Made in Clerkenwell tonight, it was a great success! I hope you got to try Sarah’s renowned mulled wine – it was delicious.

If you didn’t make it tonight, then hope to see you over the weekend. Full details here.

Also the Quebec Street, Brighton Open House launches tomorrow night. More details here.