Places not to stay in Brighton.

I'll follow up the title with the review I just posted on Trip Advisor when it's actually been posted because I don't want to start a blog about my FREAKIN' AWESOME trip Down South with a massive rant.

On Friday the 15th, Ollie and I filled a suitcase, had an enormous plate of chilli and baked potato and then piled into the car and headed to the Big Smoke and Ollie's brother's flat.

On Saturday morning, we left Dan to have a quite day so that we could go shopping and have a day out in London. After a quick detour through the seedier parts of Soho (not the first time we'd ended up surrounded by sex shops, alarmingly) we managed to get to The Diner in Carnaby St. to meet Mindy and Matt for lunch. They'd just come from a final viewing of their shiny new flat which I am very jealous of. I'm not jealous of how much the real estate must cost though, sometimes living in the Grim North has its upsides!

One delicious burger and an Estrella Damm and we were fortified to do a bit of shopping. I say a "bit" of shopping because we obviously weren't as fortified as we thought. Ollie wasn't really feeling it and I struggled to remember where any of the flipping shops were. I did manage to get a lovely new satchel from Accessorize in the style of Cath Kidston for about £35 less than an actual Cath Kidston bag.
This bag is Cath Kidston and costs £68.

This bag is my bag and it cost £35. I win.

On Sunday we got up early to watch this man:
Do this for 4 hours and 4 minutes. A bloody good time for 26 miles, well done Dan!
We then drove from London to Brighton to start my birthday jolly which I'd been looking forward to for the last few days. It started interestingly thanks to the RAVING ASSHAT that was the owner of the "bijou, boutique hotel" that we stayed in. I'm going to skip over that for now, suffice to say that the woman was a RAVING ASSHAT and that if you go to Brighton and you should run, very fast, in the opposite direction from the Pink Pavilion, even if the opposite direction takes you straight into the sea. You will at least be less dusty.

ANYWAY, the weather was lovely for the whole time we were there. It was in the low twenties both days which made for some very enjoyable beers in the sunshine after breakfast in Cafe Rouge on my birthday. I had French toast which they made with brioche, which meant that it tasted like custard and was the nicest French toast I've had in my puff. OM NOM.

Brighton is full of decent veggie restaurants, and we went to the most entertainingly named, called Wai Kika Moo Kau (say it fast). Halloumi and falafel-ed up, we went for a wander round the Lanes, then onto the Pier for ice cream and a sit in the sunshine.

Brown's were doing a cheap cocktail deal, so we sank a couple of those and went on our merry way for a pizza, bottle of wine and then even more cocktails. I was quite well-lit and really rather happy.

On Tuesday we started the day with a parking ticket, then a trip to Purl Brighton for some yarn-snorgleing and a massive fry-up (for Ollie) and a proper stack of pancakes (for me) at Joe's Cafe. We went into one of the shops we'd passed the day before called Snooper's Paradise. This is like a walk into a completely mad person's attic. From 70's porn, to battered guitars, to slightly felted jumpers, to piles of old-school typewriters and 50's swimwear, they had just about everything a discerning crazy person could ever wish to put in the loft and forget about. Heaven.

We went round the Pavilion too, mostly to escape from the heat (!) and to see what all the fuss was about. Well, the fuss is well justified. It's completely mad, and very like the Palace at Mysore.
Afterwards we went for a sit in the sunshine to listen to a busker giving it laldy on a fiddle. The poor bugger must have been roasting, he really was putting his heart and soul into it.

We had a quick chip dinner because we were going to the Brighton Dome concert hall to see this man be very, very funny for an hour and a half. Well done Ed!

I'd love to put a bit of his routine in this post, but I fear I'd mangle the punchlines. Go look it up on Youtube. Suffice to say we were chuckling and belly-laughing for the entire time. Ollie is still suffering a comedy hangover and is gently giggling to himself now and then.

We went back to the Mash Tun for a drink with the bold Ali who I haven't seen in bloomin' ages because she lives at entirely the wrong end of the country. She's looking dead happy and is another of the folk suffering from real-estate-owning-madness. I'm really chuffed for her.

More fry-ups and pancakes for breakfast, then home. Happy, happy, happy days. I'll put up more photos in a bit, right now I have a sausage sandwich to deal with.