Hove in View

[steepholm]

When 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 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!

Comments

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Lovely! I lived in Brighton for nearly 20 years.

Hove was once described to me as 'the Empire strikes back' due to its then-population of geriatric relics from the Raj.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I had an uncle and aunt in Hove, back in the '70s, and that was very much the way of it then, I think. And yeah, I'm a Brighton fan!

[sovay]

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.

That is an impressive combination of unfortunate.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I always thought the promise of embarrassed mortification in the oft-seen "Curl Up and Dye" was pretty bad, but I think "Burger Off" beats it!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Curl and Dye is... striking! The hair trade has always been a particularly rich source of such names, for some reason.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Curl Up, even.

[owlfish]

So much so that there's an entire series of hair salon murder mysteries with punny titles. (Haven't read any of them.)

[dru-marland.livejournal.com]

I am glad to report that Piston Broke is still going strong, though it has moved from its earlier location opposite Hub Motorcycles on Stapleton Road, and is now on an Easton industrial estate. Hub, sadly, gave up the ghost. I bought my Jawa combination there long ago, and had to assure them that I'd ridden one before, or they'd never have let me ride it away. It was an interesting voyage to Portsmouth...

Burger Off is just so wrong. Maybe it sounds like the right thing to people staggering through the town around midnight...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That's very good news about Piston Broke. I used to see it from the bus, when I was travelling into the city centre from Mangotsfield, back in the early '90s.

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