Brighton and Liverpool

Hey guys,

well, just returned from a whistle stop tour of brighton and liverpool.

Brighton is a largish city on the south coast of England, famous for Brighton rock and the pier, which is a tacky tourist attraction. The pier houses the erroniously named 'Palace of Fun', which could probably be renamed 'Palace of shite'. The city itself was very nice, and it did have a pebble beach, which looked quite bizzare. Had a couple of lovely nights there with friends. Did also have my first curry on English soil, which lived up to its reputation.

Liverpool though was something else. We landed right in the middle of a big free musical festival. We missed the proclaimers by about half an hour, which was a great shame, but we did see Hermans Hermits of all people. Who are they you ask? Well, only the people who wrote 'Theres a kind of hush, all over the world...'. Mum and dad will no doubt remember who they are. It was strange, the average age of people who go to the festivals I do is about 20, the audience here averaged about 50. Many of them wouldn't have been out of place in a mosh pit such was their dancing style.

Of course, we were also in the middle of beatles week, meaning that beatles tribute bands had arrived from all over the world to perform at various landmark venues. On Sunday we went to the cavern, where the beatles first made an impression. there were beatles bands from Spain, Brazil, Japan, Liverpool itself, France, Holland and even a Russian quartet who played beatles songs with 2 accordians and some bongos. and they were all brilliant, except perhaps for the russians.

On at least 3 occasions I found myself in the position of not understanding a single word a local had said to me. I can only assume that they were speaking English, we were in England after all. I think the girl in the 80s bar was simply too drunk to talk properly, but the other locals had no such excuse, so thick and strange are their accents. The 80s bar deserves a mention, being in the position to buy plastic madonna boobies and a tinsel wig listening to 80s music was was like being in a very special place indeed.

A very satisfying weekend. Have a job interview tomorrow, which should bring things back down to earth a touch. hope you are all well.