BRIGHTON PIZZA GIRL.

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Great Sunset over the Dials

When naughty Nina left a message on my iPhone to join her for a night painting Little London red, I knew some crazy mad lunacy was heading my way. When Nina says “wear black” it always means some serious action.
We had been at Blenio’s Bistro with Biggins and gorgeous George Wimpey the night before. Since Nina’s lottery win we go there quite often, we have both fallen for the delightful charms of their French waitress. It seems the whole of West Hill is eulogising her talents..
Biggins, bless him, flushed with his recent jungle success splashed out and bought presents for all. George got an £890 cow hide trunk bought from Idlewild. (Biggins had always had an eye for a bargain.) Nina got a Butter Wizard bought from Tinkers. Simply plugging it in means butter will always be at a spreadable temperature. Nina was left speechless. I have to admit to being a little envious, that is until I saw my package. Wow! It had fourteen flimsy flashing bows. Wow! It was the only one in this country. Wow! Biggins had brought it for me from Australia. Wow Wow Wow and Wow! It was a motorised inflatable pool lounger with cup holders. The enclosed leaflet, translated from the Australian, listed a top speed of 3mph. The effortless, super-glide joystick control means “You never have to be out of the sun again”. Quite brilliant. Those Aussies, what are they like? A present like that really makes digging the patio up a serious option. Nina and I didn’t have any gifts to give, we never do. We both believe giving is the real pleasure and didn’t want to take anything away from Biggins as he had gone to such efforts.
Conversation was naturally a champagne-fuelled scintillating effervescent torrent. Gorgeous George had us in stitches with a comedy sketch about a property developer who actually changed her controversial design plans to a scheme that was sympathetic to local opinion. Biggins bellowed and belched at such an unlikely story. Nina announced that plans were afoot to build a new development opposite Treasure and Trash just along from the Bath Street pub, The Fat Strumpet. The development was to be “trendy duplexes with grass roofs and some offices”. We groaned in harmony. Offices instead of shops! How boring. Biggins bellowed and belched at such a silly idea.
“I ask you, what use is an office now everybody works at home?” someone said. Nina casually reported that the café JJ was for sale. Again.
“The Dials just doesn’t have bacon kind of people any more,” she sermonised. “Far better it should become a Tanning and Lifestyle shop or something, especially now that Dial-a-Tan has also closed.”
“I love lifestyle shops.” Biggy bellowed and belched once more.
“Far better it should become a Thai restaurant,” chimed in the French waitress, “then we will have four, and they could rename the Dials the Thai Quarter.” Not a bad joke for a French speaker, I laughed until I was nauseous, just to make her feel appreciated. Actually I had used the same joke at a dinner party three years ago but didn’t want to hurt her feelings by stealing her thunder. George thought it was hilarious, the dipstick.
We again talked about the world and everyone in it. That Leonard Cohen was reforming. That my neighbour the socialist, who owns the Outer Hebrides and writes children’s fiction, has, like “Teflon” Tony Blair, joined the board of a bank as an advisor for a paltry £250k a year. We speculated about property, salivated about cooking and fantasised about new year’s resolutions. Nina hoped to go into property development, for, as she put it, “her grandchildren’s sakes.” Nina hasn’t any kids yet, so this was forward thinking indeed. Respect. I declared an ambition to go into the American prime loan mortgage business, and Biggy was going to get a serious hobby to relax from his life. He was thinking he might collect the Build Your Own Railway magazine he kept seeing advertised on new year’s TV. The first edition is free and comes with part two. Week by week it apparently grows into a valuable plastic replica of the Brighton Belle. George remarked that it would take two years and cost about £526 to collect the whole series and that he would be better off spending the money on champagne for the rest of the night. Nina and I totally completely agreed and George’s trunk was filled with ice cubes and bottles of the fizzing elixir.
As if on cue, Steve Coogan’s Israeli-made lotus-schmotus screeched to a halt outside the new lighting store. Tin Drum eyes diverted agog. Steve and ‘friend-in-tow’ bee-lined our space. Coogan strode purposefully, kissed my lip ring and blubbered his thanks. Thanks? Thanks for not informing the Gutter Press about his beating at the hands of Melvyn Bragg at the infamous ‘Saveloy Party’. What does he take me for, a fantasist gossip? I felt bruised, lewd, abused. I daggered him with assassin eyes. He got the message, went the colour of a bus and blow-torched my iced gaze by introducing us to his ‘date’. A darling waif starlet called Winehouse. Biggins, of course, knew her from panto or somewhere; he nearly knows everyone in the country.
At that moment, Blenio’s open sign was reversed and our French charmster hurriedly escorted us down the mysterious staircase - at last its secret depths were to be exposed. Joy of joys. We were consumed by a seething maelstrom of pink-tied estate agents throwing shapes wildly on a packed dance floor. DJ Uncle Norman cooked his cauldron of beats for the wild crowd. This was the best kept secret in the whole world, the guests a Who’s Who of Dials shopkeepers. Florists, hairdressers, newsagents and post office clerks flirted dervishly with Polish parking wardens, bathroom salesmen and dentists. How we danced, how we laughed, and how we ended up sleeping in the derelict children’s hospital I’ll never know. Except. of course, that George, who owns the place, had a set of keys.
That was yesterday’s night of West Hill winter madness. Tonight I was all heeled up and reloaded for action. Adorned in a little black number, ready to paint the town red just as naughty Nina had asked. Then my iPhone beeped for incoming. It was Neen. Her text said, “PG can’t make it, gone to LA with S.C. Have left balaclava and spray paint cans for you by recycling. Have fun and don’t get caught.” What a silly Billy I was. How I laughed. Talk about getting the wrong end of the stick.


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Gossip and Grumbles with Pizza Girl



Gloria sat me between the hirsute cultural egg head Melvin Bragg and BBC South Today’s anchor woman Sally Taylor at a recent West Hill dinner party. Joy of joys how we laughed as we dined and gorged on tepid Sing Li Saveloys. (It was a Monday and all the Dials Chefs were in London recording their celebrity TV cooking programmes). Melvin, who to my amazement had never heard of, let alone eaten, a boiled Saveloy lustily eyed the vivid red sensation laid before him but refused to eat it until he had Googled its antecedents on his pocket Blackberry computer. Only then and then only did he greedily tuck into its succulent boiled flesh. This he did not only with relish but also with mustard. Within two huge bites he was belching gratification and informing everyone (by now he had the floor) that Wikipedia had revealed that Saveloys were made of pig brains, his all time favourite food. It was then that Sally TV Taylor chimed in using the cod mockney accent she usually reserves for her celebrated links, “The nitrate content of Saveloys usually provides for reasonably long life when refrigerated. Three weeks would be a safe maximum keeping time”, the announcer announced.
Wow! Talk about cutting the atmosphere with a knife. It was so soppy, but silly sassy Sally hadn’t realised that the Brighton party guests only ate organic food with its shelf life rating of minus zero.
Bless! She went the colour of her half eaten Saveloy, and was looking ready to beat a retreat back to trendy Reading. That was until the Cavalry arrived in the form of Argus columnist Sir Adam Trimmingham who broke both the ice and a news embargo that Brighton Council were to finally ban, along with plastic bags, estate agent boards!!!! The dinner party chatter went absolutely ballistic, especially given that several local celebrity estate agents and a friend of the editor of Latest Homes Magazine were in attendance. Adam had hit a raw nerve in the festering open wound of property price chatter.
This is a topic I feel very strongly about, not least because we live in a conversation area. I was chomping to add my three penneth but Simon my Tuc Tuc driver was voraciously defending the Council. (He always does this but only because he used to date a cleaner/scrubber at the town hall.) Penny from the Polish supermarket said the signs looked unsightly and totally spoiled the way history looked, except the pink ones which she quite liked. Sally Taylor proclaimed she would never have been able to purchase her Off Plan, Buy To Let, Duplex, at the old children’s hospital if she hadn’t seen a for sale board. Eventually Melvyn, the voice of intellectual reason, turned to me and asked me to pronounce on the topic. The guests fell silent except David Van Day who was way out of his depth and still harping on about Saveloys and a burger van he once had.
“I see it this way”, I said, “If all the estate agent boards were removed what would there be to read?” As if as one the room nodded with informed recognition. “It’s just another example of the Nanny state”, I continued. “My neighbour’s daughter Rufus learnt to read by looking at the signs on her way to nursery, her very first words were Austin and Grey. Banning signs could be educationally counter productive and could put seven people out of work.” Melvyn said he hadn’t thought about it like that. To be honest I don’t think any one had.
Lets face it, it’s not often that one has a truly original thought. I felt quite proud, and only wished Hermione the intellectual of our Tin Drum Latte Club could have heard me. Still I expect tongues will wag and it will reach her sooner rather than later.
Steve Coogan’s Masserfarrati screeched to a halt outside, all eyes diverted to the opening door excepting for mine; I was watching incredulously as cheeky Melvyn Bragg deftly scooped Sally’s unfinished Saveloy off her plate into his guilty mouth.
Coogan made his usual beeline in my direction promptly sitting between Melvin and me. Sometimes he can be quite ‘obvious’, but he is a darling and he does sponsor the Seven Dials traders’ pantomime. This year they are doing Macbeth the Panto at the West Hill Hall.
Steve and I had a lot of catching up to do. I told him I had just sacked my new PR agent. In eight weeks she had got me offers of just two jobs. The first to be the face fronting Ashtons Chemist’s new ad campaign. I was flattered but declined. Nine years in Drama School with three bronze medals just to grin and hold up a box of Durex? No way. The second role was to appear in a new celebrity reality TV show for Channel 3 plus 4. This was a Ricochet creation to rival Brucey’s Saturday night ballroom show to be called Strictly Kosher. Basically I had to spend 12 weeks on Montpelier Crescent living in a mock up of a Tel Aviv bedsit surviving on just a diet of gefilte fish and matzos balls. I have never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life. Six weeks would have been OK, but 12?? They got Jade Goodey instead. Bless. She needs the work.
The glugging, gassing, & gossip went on until the early hours of Thursday morning. We talked about the world and everyone in it. We talked about the expectation for the annual local traders’ sponsored Dials Christmas lighting display winter wonderland of lights festivities. The glut of local off licenses. (There are now only nine). We salivated over house prices and school catchment areas, the value of the pound against the dollar and whether you could or couldn’t buy organic Saveloys in Waitrose. It was a long, long, long, long, long, long session and when Melvin Braggs’s son Billy finally turned up and explained Melvin and Steve Cougan had been hospitalised after an almighty punch up, we knew a good West Hill Dials time had been had by all and it was the best moment to call it a day.
Merry Xmas to all our readers.
Coming soon the Pizza Girl awards.
Vote at www.brightonpizzagirl.blogspot.com.

Labels: Billy Melvyn bragg seven dials, brighton, Dials. Pizza Girl. Brightonpizzagirl

October 2007

Cheeky hubby Adrian may call me a geeky, multi tasking, texting, techno chick, but an old fashioned chin wagg over the garden fence is much more my style. Adrian also says I have nearly as many piercings as WiFi devices. That’s totally ridiculous as I clearly have loads more piercings. What does he know?

OK admittedly I do send and receive the odd text on my i-phone, but never more than thirty or forty in a day. Even then that's really only people wanting to know where I am or telling me where they are. So really that hardly counts. That's just friendship. Texting is about relationship building. Geraldine says it makes some people feel important and needed. I disagree, it just creates a sense of self worth knowing people care enough to text and tell you where they are and what shop they’re in. If we can’t feel good about ourselves what's the point of having your nails done? What's the point of shopping at all? I rest my case.
Believe me, my 24/6 lifestyle (At the moment I have to work on Thursdays) is busy enough for a whole family of five but I would never ever neglect my relationships for technology. My ipod, iphone and LapTop (OS X) are just tools to facilitate communication showing others how much I care.

True modern technology makes demands, especially since the smoking ban has ‘come in’. It’s virtually impossible for me to walk past any of the Dials hostelries without stopping and gassing with the gaggles of gaspers gathered outside for a smoke. I do find that if you allow an extra half an hour or so for shopping trips to buy milk and stuff it doesn't interfere too much. Especially now that virtually every local cafe bar and tanning shop offer free WiFi internet access. Surely the Dials is this city’s Wi Fi wired hotspot ? The Dials air waves must be busier than NASA’s. None of my neighbours bother with buying broadband accounts. Laptops, Blackberries and Skype phones all work brilliantly whilst on the hoof to the Polish food Schoppe or to the Post Office so you never really have to ever be out of touch from anyone anywhere ever again.

Did you know you are more likely to die from an accident caused by texting whilst walking than from passive smoking? Geraldine says that it is an amazing indictment of contemporary western lifestyles. I disagree. If you’re not looking whilst crossing the Dials it’s absolutely distinctly clearly apparent you’re going to get mullered.

Nowadays I get most of my stuff from Sixty Seven at the old Brydens Hardware store. Sixty Seven is definitely my new favourite shop. I could never find anything useful at Bryden’s. Whoever invented the life style shop should be medalised.
I sit at Sixty Seven most afternoons writing up my blog, enjoying coffee and delicious home-made strudel with lashings of aerosolised fresh cream. Sixty Seven are so lucky to have that sunny patio at the front. Talk about gold mine, they must be worth an absolute mint! I think they are the first place in town to have the new Archos 605 Wi Fi 30gb portable video players at all the tables. The 4”x3” touch screens are an amazing 800x400 pixels. Wow. Geraldine and I watched the first two hour episodes of The Prisoner DVD box set we bought in New York. If you think about it, it makes the £3.65 for the lattes we had quite reasonable.

A big welcome for Blenio’s and Zuma to our manor and a farewell to BAG, Dali’s, and Idlewilds, plus a big adieu to the Couch Bar but also congratulations to the Fat Crumpet its successor. (Interesting name, are they after the Pink Pound or some niche market me wonders?). The Crumpet’s designer has made it look exactly like the old Compton Arms right down to the flock wall paper. Best of all, the old Compton lags have found their way back. What characters?

The opening night party was a pure Brighton glitteratti event, heaving with contemporary cognoscenti and celebrity estate agents. I like my shakers and movers to have powerful black cars, beards and personalised number plates, don’t you? If only Capron, Van-Day and Fanshawe could have made it.

The San Francisco cast of Stomp performing the cabaret were sensational. How they do that dustbin thing I’ll never know? I think Robbie the Hove Station car wash billionaire sponsored it. I wouldn’t want my car cleaned by anyone else. Would you? The whole launch event was filmed by six video camera phone operators, edited and put on youTube within five minutes. Loads of people have texted me to say that they have seen me all over Flickr. Again!

Wow what Wi Fi fun we had. That night this girl was texted, blogged, digitised, Flickr-ed, Myspaced and Couchsurfed. Brilliant? You bet! but when it comes down to it, at the end of the day a chin wag over the garden fence is still much more my style.

See you at the Dials Winter Wonderland of Christmas lights festivities....I’m switching them on, are you?

Labels: "seven Dials" brighton Techno "Pizza Girl" "West Hill"

Labels: "seven Dials" Brighton "Pizza Girl" "New york" shopping"

New York Shopping Blog

Two Dollars and three cents to the pound means only one thing, a shopping trip with the girls in New York. Originally, just two of us were going, but Veronica’s a modern Ms and so ‘green’ she couldn’t justify the air miles for just two travellers, so all eight girls from our West Hill Women’s Latte Society went to validate the plane’s petrol consumption. I totally understood Ronnie’s point.
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New Nork, New York. Manhattan. The Big Apple. This girl’s kind of town. Remember the Beastie Boys anthem “No Sleep ‘till Brooklyn?” If only! We didn’t sleep for five whole days. West Hill Girls on tour or what? Fuelled by a diet of espresso and margaritas (note to myself “don’t give blood for six months”) we shopped 24 / 7 and more. All dressed in pink and black, we were like hens on heat, unashamed Mall Rats, the raucous toast of Tinsel Town. By the admiring looks we got, the New Yorkers were obviously very impressed by our Saturday night Brighton style. We even had a photo taken for the Village Voice street fashion feature which will please my agent. NY’s like Brighton, everybody, simply everybody, has their own PR agent. Mine is in the North Laines conversation area. She handles a few semi celebrity tailors, a trendy green grocer called Bert, and a Graffiti sprayer named HSBC. I’m told she says I’m her most important client. I’ve only been with her a week so I don’t know if she’s any good, but after we visited her Manhattan office which turned out to be a post box in a Vietnamese grocery store in Greenwich Village, I can’t see it lasting.
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We stayed in SoHo, opposite the MoMA, close to Tribeca, near Gramercy Park (just a little like Dyke Road Park but totally very very different.) I usually stay at The Harlem Flop House on West 123rd St (think Abbey Hotel in Norfolk Terrace.) but this time we splashed out on the uber trendy boutique hotel, 60 Thompson. It’s a very happening and now kind of place. We even bumped into Clint Eastwood, Michael Barrymore and Yoko Ono in the cocktail lounge. Yoko and I had only recently been at a TV show together during the Brighton Festival so it was fun to see her again so soon. 60 Thompson suits fine and has the advantage of a choice of 20 different brands of bottled water in the mini bar. My favourite was called Ice Cap. They ship it in from Greenland. You can’t get greener than that!
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Shopping in the El Grande Apple is an intoxicating dream, a consumer heaven, a yellow cab of adventure. If you thought the shopping at the Dials was good, well take it from us, New York is even better. We bought everything, went everywhere, met everyone and still wanted more. Plastic surgery? More like credit card melt-down. I've still got the scars from molten plastic. Lovely. It's just suffering for fashion that’s all... Personally, I absolutely completely never follow trends so when I saw some amazing funky-fun rubber shoes I had to have them. The shop girl (really an actress) said they each have distinctive carbon footprints, so not only am I expressing my individuality, I’m doing something positive for the planet, which is nice. The other girls all bought pairs too. The pink colour matched our outfits perfectly. Ronnie wanted Gumbies what ever they are, but we settled for Pizza at Lombardis, which is kind of like a Dials Pizza but more American. Pizza the size of a car wheel. We had two each. Sixteen Pizzas and as many Cokes for just $80. It makes you sick. Gloria bought the whole The Prisoner series on a re-mastered, hi fi, wifi, super HD, special edition, platinum DVD box set. You know - the series “Who is 67? You are number 60.” “I am not a number. I am a free man.” “Who is 67?” “We want information and we want it now.” “What is 67?” Classic 60s TV. Ripinda bought a book called Why Do People Hate America? by Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies-Patel, which she read on the subway train down to Coney Island Brighton Beach. She got lots of looks from fellow travellers. We felt proud to have such an intelligent friend with us.
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Brighton Beach was just like home but with more Russians. We gorged on Nathan’s hot dogs and were lucky enough to watch the world championship Donut Eating competition. It was won by a Syrian woman who ate 37 donuts in eight minutes. It's not as unhealthy as you probably think, because they don't put sugar on them. We spotted her later at the Astro Land Amusement Park. Troyella joked we were lucky she wasn't sitting behind us on the roller coaster. Troyella is a clown.
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We had so many bags between us - Macy's, Bloomingdales, Saks, Alldays - we had to get a yellow cab. Each. What a laugh. We travelled in convoy from Columbus Circle (like the Dials roundabout, but not really because there is only one roundabout in America, and that's in Utah.) We got the usual admiring looks as we shouted to each other from the open windows of our cabs. I honestly think people must have thought we were the Spice Girls. Pink cowboy hats and dark sunglasses do create that feeling of being special.
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The West Hill Women’s Latte Society flew with Fuji Air from Gatwick. The trip was sponsored by System Electronics. Outfits were by Poundland. Photos of the trip might be at brightonpizzagirl.blogspot.com

Labels: brighton, New York, seven dials. Pizza girl. west hill