Hove in View
Dec. 28th, 2009 09:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
steepholmWhen I first moved to Bristol, I was cheered by the regular sight of a motorcycle repair shop called Piston Broke. Piston Broke has long since gone bust [ETA: not so, it seems! See comment by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dru_marland], alas, but regular readers of this LJ will know that my love of quibbles lives on. So it pains me to see things go as badly wrong as in this example, from my brother's street in Hove:
Is a pun that simultaneously boasts of serving rotten meat and tells potential customers to go screw themselves really part of an effective marketing strategy? I have my doubts.
This particular street is very close to the border with Brighton, into which Hove merges without fuss a few hundred yards to the east, and something of Brighton's raffishness has evidently seeped across the border. The two places are essentially very different, of course. Hove is Jekyll to Brighton's Hyde, the Martha to its Mary, the Colonel Brandon to its Willoughby. If England were upended and given a good shake, a friend of my brother suggested, all the bits that came loose would end up in Brighton, covered with a patina of belly fluff, dog hair and spent gum. Normally in our walks along the front we are drawn by its shabby allure, but this time we set off westward, and were rewarded with a rather lovely sunset...
... a honey-lit boat...
... and some cheerful beach huts, stranded a considerable distance from the sea.
Now, however, we are back on Steepholm Island, presently moored at the heart of Bristol's floating harbour, a Laputa-style construction hovering somewhere over the M32. God bless all who sail in her!
dru_marland], alas, but regular readers of this LJ will know that my love of quibbles lives on. So it pains me to see things go as badly wrong as in this example, from my brother's street in Hove:Is a pun that simultaneously boasts of serving rotten meat and tells potential customers to go screw themselves really part of an effective marketing strategy? I have my doubts.
This particular street is very close to the border with Brighton, into which Hove merges without fuss a few hundred yards to the east, and something of Brighton's raffishness has evidently seeped across the border. The two places are essentially very different, of course. Hove is Jekyll to Brighton's Hyde, the Martha to its Mary, the Colonel Brandon to its Willoughby. If England were upended and given a good shake, a friend of my brother suggested, all the bits that came loose would end up in Brighton, covered with a patina of belly fluff, dog hair and spent gum. Normally in our walks along the front we are drawn by its shabby allure, but this time we set off westward, and were rewarded with a rather lovely sunset...
... a honey-lit boat...
... and some cheerful beach huts, stranded a considerable distance from the sea.
Now, however, we are back on Steepholm Island, presently moored at the heart of Bristol's floating harbour, a Laputa-style construction hovering somewhere over the M32. God bless all who sail in her!