A Day Out in Brighton

Yesterday, 1st September, I took the train to Brighton with the aim of attending the meeting in the evening of the Brighton and Hove Humanist Society. The speaker was Denis Cobell, a former President of the NSS, on "Why I am Not a Christian", though in fact it was mostly about his upbringing, in the Brighton area, within an Evangelical family.

Since the talk only began at 8 pm I spent most of the three hours preceding in the Odeon cinema, watching a very noisy film, "Inception" starring Leonardo DiCaprio which was about people who could set up realistic dream worlds, and dreams within dreams. Coming out at the end I wondered if I was back in the real world or not, especially as the way out of the cinema was something of a maze.

Another reason for going to Brighton was to visit the Apple store with a view to perhaps changing my computer for an iMac or MacBook. However the only address I had was Churchill Square which proved to be a large shopping mall, and despite walking round most of it, never found the Apple store, or any map of the place! I did get some fish and chips at the BHS restaurant, and a couple of cotton Oxford shirts at the M&S store opposite (since they don't seem to be available in Hastings).

I also found time to sun myself on the beach for a while, though Brighton Beach was indeed very crowded, as it is traditionally supposed to be.

Angels and Demons

Yesterday evening I went out to the Odeon Cinema in Hastings to see "Angels and Demons". I enjoy this sort of hokum; the mystery and conspiracy side of it that is, not all the blood and mayhem. The last time I went to the cinema was to see "The Da Vinci Code" about three years ago when I was in Lincoln for the Circular Chess. Contrary to reviews I've read I think Tom Hanks is just right for the role of the symbologist, Robert Langdon. He's not an athletic hero type like Indiana Jones or Jack Sparrow, nor an all-knowing master brain like Sherlock Holmes or Poirot, but just a modestly human academic carried along by crazy events.

This morning when I put on my kettle for a cup of coffee the electricity cut out. It wasn't a power cut, but my neighbour kindly pointed out that there is a device by the door that trips when there is an electrical fault, and just needs to be switched on again. I ended up buying a new kettle. It seems it is cheaper to buy a new one than to get the old one repaired.