22 February 2009
hastings and bexhill: the television man and modernism on sea
Leaving London is like finding an escape-door in a world-shaped dome. It doesn't seem possible, and feels vaguely illicit, as if one were destined to be guiltily assassinated by Pinkie in an arcade...
The pier at Hastings was shut. It is apparently unsafe. I was saddened not to be able to play in its ghost-arcade. This sadness was, however, tempered by the fact that later that evening I elsewhere won a toy on one of those claw-of-desire machine-things. It was Winnie the Pooh dressed as an elephant. It was thus an animal dressed as another animal, an idea which I once childishly believed would make me very rich, except I forgot to do anything about it. If I ran an arcade, I would call it 'The Accursed Share'.
This is for Graham. I imagine he would be quite good at scaffolding, if he weren't busy providing psychoanalysis for traumatised objects, kindly man that he is.
The promenade thoughtfully included an underside for when it rained. Which it didn't, somewhat extraordinarily.
Hastings had an excellent line in individuated and semi-individuated seating...
...and there were public conveniences everywhere. This one was the best, due to the inclusion of large decorative geometry. I had a strange thought at this point, as one of the pictures of this building included a man who had just used the toilet. I imagined he would later be accused of murder and my photo would be used as evidence to demonstrate that he had been nowhere near the scene of the crime at the time.
It was time for anything.
It was most certainly time for 'Marine Court', a gigantic sea-stained modernist ship in the middle of Hastings. In the 1930s it was the tallest residential building in Britain. Iain Sinclair has a flat here, apparently. Are psychogeographers allowed to own two houses? Are psychogeographers allowed to own any property?! I'll put it to the central committee next time we meet.
This beautifully brutal fountain was improved by the presumably unintentional mould that gave it such a delightful tint in the late winter sunlight. The sign says 'DO NOT DRINK', warding off any fearless Alices that might stroll by.
If I could somehow be these chairs, I would.
John Logie Baird invented television in Hastings whilst out walking on the cliffs. There is - of course - a pub in the town named after him. We speculate that when Debord in Comments on the Society of the Spectacle states that 'the society of the spectacle...moves quickly for in 1967 it had barely forty years behind it' he is referring to Baird's first 1927 broadcast. One of the town signs proudly displays the legend 'Birthplace of Television'.
There was a comic truth to the houses on sale in this estate agents.
As there was to this paving-stone.
And I was.
Welcome to the Pig. I should get a bar installed.
I wonder what unfresh lug is like.
Apart from the television man, Hastings also saw these two chaps inducing electricity and poetising revolutions. Dante Gabriel Rossetti was also here, but his sign was too dark to take.
These odd little huts were designed to hang fishing nets indoors. Apparently the smell was off-putting. How very English.
I am inordinately pleased with this photo.
Contemporary masculinity: a cartoon fishmonger and an advert for prostate screening.
A surprisingly passionate sculpture marks the mid-point between Hastings and Bexhill.
I think this sign has about twenty meanings it didn't necessarily want.
Mmmm, deep voids. This one is for Dominic, somehow.
The seaside makes you think of words you don't often use, such as groyne and albatross.
No one tells me where I can and can't photograph! Oh hang on...
If only geopolitics had paid attention to the wise words of Rother City Council.
They should all be like this.
Today's Dog Information: Dogs are aggressive and insane. Please cull them at your earliest convenience.
These are all from the De La Warr Pavilion (1934-5). It is great, obviously.
Other pavilions were less successful.
Something-over anyway.
This was actually a Chinese restaurant. Saturday night they were queuing around the block.
The mighty, mighty chip burger! Fast food is one of the only areas of growth in the current economic down-turn.
Everything must go...
going....
going....
Gone.
