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Rough Music 15 - July 2007

What's In This Issue:
Unsettling News - Brighton housing crisis.
Curfew It's A Scorcher - Brighton's first gated community.
Fly Boys - Shoreham Airport Expansion.
Gordon Bin It - Gordon Brown at Brighton Festival.
Not On The Level - Council crack down at The Level.
Titnore Needs You - Camp Titnore near Worthing appeal for help.
Friends In High Places - Two Smash EDO protesters acquitted.
Rough Movie Review - 'Taking Liberties' film and its Brighton link.
Trunk Call-Out - Elm Wardens - minding Elms in Sussex.
Wanker's Corner - French station FIP radio killjoy Iain Smith.
Wi-Fi-Fo-Fum - Council plans for microwave-emitting city-wide wireless internet.
Power To The Steeple - Illegal eviction of Richmond Parade squatted church.
Cops Stop Whining - Police suspend use of high-pitched-noise 'chavbuster'.
What'll Katie Do Next? - Yuppy columnist slags 'champagne socialists' in Cowley Club.
Time Of The Month? - Sussex polices' full-moon crime revelation.
Dog-Gone Cops - Youth wins payout after police dog attack.
Rough Music Gig List - Forthcoming events around Brighton.
What Is Rough Music

UNSETTLING NEWS

COUNCIL DOUBLE-DEALINGS OVER HOUSING THE HOMELESS

In the world’s fourth richest country there shouldn’t be a problem getting people somewhere decent to live. But in fact, if you’re vulnerably-housed and get evicted, UK Plc prefers to put the boot in when you’re down. Too skint to pay the rent ‘cos you’re busy keeping the credit card company at bay? Then you could be intentionally homeless – i.e. you chose to be without a roof over your head. And once you’ve got this on yer file then your problems really start.

In one case (on its way to the High Court), Brighton was so desperate to discharge its duty to one local family that, after finding out they had left their most recent home through no fault of their own, officials decided to go further back in their accommodation history. Hey presto! The family had left a settled accommodation of their own volition. The fact that local property baron, Nicholas Van Hoogstraten, had sent his heavies round to ‘encourage’ the move seemed of no importance to local bureaucrats looking for the most cost effective solution.

If you get turned out of house and home and seek help, the first thing that B&H Plc will do is find ways to deny they have any responsibility to help you out. Subject to immigration status? – Naff off then. From out of town, or haven’t had a tenancy agreement here for 6 out of the last 12 months? - You’ve no local connection here and can slink back to that bedsit in Hastings. If all that fails then there’s always deciding you’re not in ‘priority need.’ Whilst RM readers may be forgiven for thinking that being homeless makes you ‘in priority need’ – think again. If you’re between 17 and 75 and not on your death bed, then tough. Sort yourself out - it’s the entrepreneurial society, innit?

Of course, you’ve actually got to be homeless before you can apply for help. Seems fairly straightforward if you find yourself kipping under the pier. Not so for one local resident who found that when his mobile home had been nicked, the Council decided that because the property wasn’t technically recognised as being a home, he hadn’t actually been made homeless!

INTENTIONALLY HEARTLESS

Whilst this homeless legislation affects the whole country, B&H Council’s failure to tackle the housing crisis in the city shows just how much the politicians here are in the pockets of the landed few. Most new rented accommodation in the city is on a ‘Buy to Let’ basis - Landlords buy a property and get the tenants to pay the mortgage plus a little extra for that twice yearly hop to the villa in Tuscany. The ‘margins’ are very tight ‘cos its only around 10% cheaper to have a mortgage than rent, so owners are reluctant to let the property to anyone without the right credit rating, references in triplicate and a £250 ‘administration charge’ to bung the letting agency scumbags for printing up a few forms. Plus the rent’s gotta be high to pay the mortgage at a time when interest rates are rising. It’s landlords who are making the housing situation worse and yet they’re the only group of ‘stakeholders’ who Brighton & Hove Council want to engage in ‘dialogue’ Is it really time for yet another ‘strategy meeting’ about tackling the city’s homeless problem without actually inviting anyone who’s been homeless in on the discussion?

Of course one way of solving the housing crisis would be building ‘affordable’ homes. But just what is affordable these days? Fancy one of those new Housing Association places near the station? Only got a mere ten grand deposit? Well it’s full time work for you and your partner and stuff the kids, ‘cos its 800 nicker a month for a two bed place. If you just can’t quite make it on the property ladder grab some of the few places with affordable rents left around – Brighton & Hove Plc is trying to flog all its housing stock off to the increasingly corporate minded Housing Associations. Here rents are always higher, sometimes twice as much as a council flat and you don’t get a ‘secure tenancy’ either – so it’s much easier to boot you out. Over the past few years Housing Associations have been busy recruiting from the banking sector as they adopt a tougher line against people who have been struggling to pay their rent.

And if you do struggle to pay the rent, be careful you don’t also get deemed to be intentionally homeless. If you answer ‘yes’ to that credit card company chasing you for the third time today just as you’re getting the food on the table, then it could be your fault you were evicted if you paid them instead of your rent. If the council thinks you could have afforded to pay the rent, but ‘chose’ to spend your cash on other stuff then they could owe you no duty to rehouse you.

Unless you’ve got kids that is. And this is where the system gets even crazier. If the council boots a family out of house and home it owes a ‘duty of care’ to the children and so social services have to step in, usually paying the rent deposit to house the family in the private rented sector. So take a family in a council house at £60 per week and stick them in the private sector and twice the price. Plus two grand for deposit and rent in advance. Not exactly best use of council cash....but a nice little earner for the B&Bs.

It’s a system that’s out of order and needs to be sorted out right now. Whilst roof top allotments and eco-bedsits might seem attractive, at £250,000 a pop they’re certainly no solution to the fact that in one of the richest places in Britain, people have nowhere to live.

* Stop Press: The House of Lords has decided that anyone who has support needs should automatically be given a Local Connection and thus access to homeless services in town. Brighton & Hove Council are currently taking the decision to their solicitors to see how they can get out of it.

CURFEW IT’S A SCORCHER!

Street gates to stop ‘yuppies’ shocker

Brunswick Row could soon be the first gated community in the City-by-the-Sea. In a long overdue move, ne’er-well-to-do residents are volunteering to lock themselves indoors of a night to prevent a ‘tide of gentrification’ spilling out onto determinedly downmarket London Rd. Spokesman for the London Road Streetdrinkers Association, Peter O’Pissed, told RM that the gates were ‘a victory for common sense’ claiming ‘these people have no place in our city - we’re simply fed up with them using London Rd as short cut to the estate agents! We’ve just got a new Costa Coffee - where will it all end?’

Well using a bit of NIMBY-logic, you can see that by ignoring the root causes of social alienation, educational breakdown, blah de blah, and merely shunting any problems from one street to another, the only solution for those residents is to demand gates and fences of their own, starting an up-in-arms race which will end with everyone living in cages. Mind you at least you won’t be within spitting distance of Tabitha and Josh, out looking for a table-for-two at the steel and glass palaces of Jubilee Street.

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FLY BOYS

SHOREHAM AIRPORT EXPANSION

RM can reveal that Erinaceous, dodgy owners of Shoreham Airport, are in talks not to sell-off Shoreham Airport as reported in the Argus, but to lease it out. This is having only bought the bugger off Brighton and Worthing councils last year at a knock-down £9m – don’t tell the council anyone, but it was actually worth £21m!

Erinaceous shares have been taking a major tumble since they’ve been investigated over an alleged £10m fraud involving overvaluing properties. This on top of major debts announced earlier this year.

In a bid to claw back funds, they are now in lease-out talks with asset-strippers, or should that be private equity firms, 3i and Bridgepoint. If either of this lot get involved then the pressure for a new runway and yet more flights will rise quicker than yer average Harrier jump jet.

All this comes at a time when Erinaceous have put in plans to Adur Council for new hangars, terminal building expansion, business units and wait for it…eight new apartments to be built yards from the runway.

Madness? Apparently not, aviation enthusiasts are well keen and will have state-of-the-art sound-proofing to protect them from the rough music of 75,000 flights a year – presumably a concrete bunker and a pair of titanium headphones.

If it gets the go-ahead, these will be the first and no doubt last new homes at to be built at a British airport. Communities Against Runway Expansion (CARE) member Jean Kitchener told RM: “There is quite a high risk of flooding on the site, which the Environment Agency points out. Basically they shouldn’t be built there. We’ve only just had flights to Paris added twice a day.”

The plans, which form part of Adur’s core strategy document, have already been challenged by a government inspector “concerned about the soundness” of the strategy. No kidding, building homes on a flood plain, yards from a runway!

CARE say they will continue monitoring pollution not just around the airport itself but also in communities and schools under or near any new flight path.

The next Adur core strategy meeting on Sept 18 has been cancelled but CARE plan to raise awkward questions once again at the next. Time for a crash landing! See www.adurcare.wanadoo.co.uk

GORDON BIN IT

It was a very English occasion. A small crowd gathered politely outside the Brighton Dome with placards and umbrellas as inside Gordon Brown spoke to a crowd of nice-but-dim Brighton Festival-goers who queued chinlessly in the drizzle after shelling out a tenner for a dose of turbo-capitalist wisdom from the ominously-tousled Caledonian oligarch. But it seems he took the back door in. RM imagines the exchange in the ministerial limo: “Sir, the people are outside. Will you see them?” And (in a cultured BBC-Scots accent), “No, they’re so tiresome. Drive on.” The issues on the street were the fate of Brighton resident Omar Deghayes, imprisoned without charge in Guantanamo Bay torture camp for the past four years, and... house prices.

Libyan-born Omar fled to the UK after his father was assassinated by Colonel Gaddafi’s regime there. Visiting Afghanistan when the US invaded, he fled to Pakistan and was kidnapped by bounty hunters. In Guantanamo he has been blinded in one eye by pepper spray. The British government are using his refugee status to deny responsibility. Will cuddly new PM Brown intervene with a polite request to the US’s near-fascist regime to save Omar and other inmates from flagrantly illegal human rights abuses? Unlikely.

Inside, Brighton’s last socialist Labour councillor, Francis Tonks, managed to catch president-elect Gordon with an awkward question about Omar, drawing the biggest applause of the day. Demonstrators and punters were also entertained by the last surviving believer in free-market economics informing us loudly that if property laws were liberalised, the good old invisible fist of the market would sort everything out, while a desperate Trotskyite fanatic celebrated Blair’s departure as if it was a victory for the radical left rather than a planned retirement into the warmth of mass-media sycophancy after a successful career of war, sneering and authoritarian legislation.

Meanwhile, round the back of the Dome among the parke SUVs and Mercs, the violent minority were spoiling it for everyone else. Around ten slightly more up-for-it activists hammered on the stage door, making enough of a racket for GB to interrupt his speech with an off-the-cuff dismissive quip when reminded of Omar’s plight. The protesters also caught Gordon on the way out and treated him to a well-deserved if brief harangue. No doubt an early coke ‘n’ champagne dinner soon helped him forget the slight interruption to his gravy-train timetable.

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NOT ON THE LEVEL

...From our correspondent Twos Up Dave

Different council - same shit. In yet another fit of aesthetic cleansing, Brighton’s politicians have used the loophole of the parking regulations to launch an attack on van-dwellers. The Level’s status as a common (i.e free for use by all as they see fit) has no doubt been like a painful stone in the jackboot to our overlords – hanging around on the Level juggling and playing with yer fire-poi just isn’t very cutting edge or profitable is it?

After years of the Level being a free parkup, meeting place and garden for anyone in Brighton’s traveller community, the council have pulled a sneaky master stroke, changing the layout of the parking (from parallel to nose-to-bumper) making it harder for big vehicles to park. Added to the introduction of paid parking, the height restriction put on Preston Park and the ‘residents only’ scheme on Queen’s Park, pretty much all of the communal, free park ups for traveller vans have been removed from Brighton. With parking fines now rivalling luxury flat-building as the City-by-the-Sea’s number one money-spinner, it’s not even as if pushing our dreadlocked comrades to the city-limits is going to free up any space for anyone else either.

Now that the heady days of Neo Labour inclusion are over, bigoted Tories are back on the warpath and have travellers firmly in their sights. Brian Oxley and his merry band of Same Direction Conservatives are promising to ensure that any traveller encampment on council land will not be tolerated and promised to turn Horsdean site into a ‘transit site’, rather than a semi-permanent base for families. Park up times are gonna be reduced from 180 days to a measly 28. The new administration has dusted off Section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (remember that chestnut?!), reminding council workers that they can use the police to boot people off land really easily if they want to.

There’s more cleansing on the way as the new administration pledges that the total number of travellers in Brighton should reflect the ratio of Travellers to the UK settled population nationally – that is to say not more than 50 travellers in Brighton & Hove plc. at any one time, thank you very much! These are Tories with an eco-friendly logo though, so we have been told that the operation will be done within the human rights act and other equalities legislation. Yeah, right. Arm yourself with the info needed to resist the clear out - see www.gypsy-traveller.org

TITNORE NEEDS YOU!

Following a late-June work-day at Camp Titnore when 20 barrow-loads of slimy tat were unceremoniously dumped on Tescos, a call is going out for new campers to join the freshly spruced-up site over the summer.

The camp is now aiming for some kind of self-sufficiency with its veggie patch and polytunnel – so if you have any permaculture know-how you’ll be especially welcomed.

Also anyone with tarps or even old sails knocking about would get an extra dollop of veg curry as a new covered, raised communal area goes up to counter the wet conditions and winter to come.

Camp Titnore has been fighting for over a year to save ancient woodland north of Worthing, threatened by a £3bn housing development and another dose of Tesco.

The West Durrington Consortium of developers - Persimmon homes, Heron group and Bryant homes (part of Taylor Woodrow) - are set to put in amended planning applications shortly which will mean that likely evictions won’t be far off.

The plans will take into account that Titnore Lane no longer needs to be straightened (100 trees saved thanks to campaigners) and that a T-junction will now replace a planned roundabout.

Funds on the camp, which took a hit when some thieving scumbags walked off site with £300, have been recouped thanks to a £1,000 donation promised by Lush, plus cash from a Hastings benefit gig and support from Rob Newman – giving proceeds of his ‘From Caliban to the Taliban’ DVD which are at a special price of £5 including p&p, if you say it’s for Titnore, via www.robnewman.com

If you can get down there and even lend a hand for an afternoon, get directions at www.protectourwoodland.co.uk

* Future events include the Worthing Anarchists Summer Gathering, which will take place at the camp on Saturday August 11 between 11am-5pm, followed by socialising – which may or may not take the form of tree bark tea workshop for the neo-primitives and a Durruti textual analysis washed down with elderflower wine for the anarcho-syndicalists.

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FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

Two anti-war activists who scaled the well-trodden roof of Brighton arms dealers EDO MBM for an occupation were acquitted on a charge of Aggravated Trespass on Thursday 28th June at Brighton magistrates. Last August during the Israel/Lebanon conflict they hung a banner from EDO’s roof reading, ‘16 Children Killed In Qana, Lebanon. EDO Profits From Murder’.

Unsurprisingly the beak refused to consider arguments showing links between the company and war crimes but found that the two intrepid edificeers could not have heard police warnings to come down from the roof, and also did not believe they’d intended to disrupt the operation of the factory. She said that the occupation was clearly a publicity stunt designed to attract media attention and had been very successful in doing so, having gained coverage in the UK, France, Germany, the USA and throughout the entire axis of evil.

The rooftop raid at EDO was the third since 2004 and, again, protesters have been acquitted - now making nearly thirty failed prosecutions of campaigners protesting against EDO MBM in Brighton. One of the protesters told RM, ‘the court’s decision today proves that peaceful protest is not a crime. Sussex Police’s attempts to stifle protest have failed yet again.’

This dismal rate of success hasn’t put Brighton Plod off though - it’s crackdown time again outside Brighton’s favourite weapons factory. Having failed in the courts to secure an injunction shutting down protests outside EDO (see RM#3), the cops are now trying their luck with good ol’ fashioned Public Order law.

Following the departure of much-loved community copper Sean McDonald (see Wanker’s corner RM#8) from the scene, police have started handing out warnings under the Public Order Act against anyone shouting slogans at the factory. Factory manager Paul Hills has taken to looming outside the gates during protests, no doubt hoping to draw activists flak and manufacture excuses for arrests. Officers recently forced a 13-year-old into a van to ‘discuss his welfare’ after he asked them what they would feel, “if it was their family who was under bombardment...”

Still smarting from a series of defeats in court (RM#1, 2, 3, 5-14) cops want to make sure no inconvenient evidence of what actually happens up at the factory falls into the wrong hands. In an effort to prevent protestors from documenting events police have taken to forcibly seizing film from activists’ cameras. One well-known local protestor at a recent action had his arms bent behind his back by one copper as another seized his camera. Neither his film or camera have been returned.

To fight back against the arms trade and police repression campaigners are organising an action camp 27th -30th August 07875 708873 for more details or check out www.smashedo.org.uk

ROUGH MOVIE REVIEW

WIth its opening marked by the appearance of a terrorist-suspect style hood on the Hove Peace Statue, the long awaited Taking Liberties has hit the silver screen. In it, director Chris Atkins examines the erosion of civil liberties in Blair’s Britain and concludes that the picture is er, not a rosy one...

This timely filmic intervention features two Brighton-based campaigns, SMASH EDO and SAVE OMAR. Allowing for the film’s liberal tone (it’s pitched pretty squarely at Middle England and goes a little too far down the road of presenting protestors as ultimately harmless loonies), it is a good show case for the two very deserving campaigns. Although its week long stint at the Duke of York’s (where it played to packed houses) is over, the film has generated a lot of mainstream press interest and might even make it to the Odeon... 3 gold RM statuettes! For details see www.noliberties.com

Also worth checking out: veteran reporter John Pilger’s ‘War on Democracy’ 13th-19th July at the Duke of York’s. (...and the Simpsons movie obviously...)

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TRUNK CALL-OUT

Here at RM we’re a bit ambivalent about traffic wardens: on the one hand they give all you car drivers the arse-ache - which can’t be bad, and on the other they’re tools of an evermore authoritarian state. Now mention Elm Wardens and that’s a different matter – in fact we get quite excitable. If you didn’t know it already, and why would yer - Sussex has more elms than anywhere else in the country – 60,000. To keep it that way South Downs Joint Committee is after some voluntary wardens. Basically they’ll train you up to spot elm beetles and early signs of disease – the problem has got worse recently thanks to the spate of hot dry summers. The main methods of stopping the disease is felling or the preferable, cutting away of affected branches. Call 698256 to sign up. Or Text BEARD to 0799 etc

Iain Smith - A man who needs a question mark over his face

In a first for RM, this month we’re giving the crown to...er, we’re not sure who really. Basically this month’s wanker is whichever killjoy is responsible for shutting down Brighton’s only decent radio station. No, we don’t mean Radio 4a (never a byword for quality, just check out that Rough Music show at 1pm on the 2nd Sunday of the month and you’ll appreciate what we mean), although they’ve had transmitters busted / nicked lately too - but those Gallic tune-sters at FIP. Since one enthusiast community hero from Hanover began relaying the signal of the French-based station around town, Brightonians have enjoyed a decade of eclectic vibes, without the crass ads and inane egos of UK presenters.

Now those halcyon days are over- the station busted and the transmitter seized...But who is to blame? Jobsworths at Ofcom? They say acted on a complaint – but who from? Jealous Brighton stations like Southern, Juice or the newly-licensed Radio Reverb have been suggested by some conspiracy theorists (others are already blaming the lizards) or was it just one mean-spirited local who just couldn’t bear the thought of those poor commercial stations and their advertisers losing a few choice-starved listeners to an improperly regulated bunch of Frogs?

Sadly it might be the latter - step forward Hove resident Iain Smith, who announced on one pirate-radio internet forum (to an audience of tens, no doubt) that he did in fact grass the station up to Ofcom, “just make sure it wasn’t unfairly competing with properly licensed stations”. It sparked a torrent of abuse from other users, including one who asked, “do you spend all day taking pictures of people dropping litter? calling the benefit fraud hotline when you see a single mum having a bloke stay a few nights; ringing in to shop the neighbours during a hose pipe ban?” Mr Smith established his brain-dead credentials by coolly replying, “You think its OK for people to defraud the welfare system and deprive people genuinely in need of money?...and do you really want to see your streets covered with litter?” He also claimed to have “personal reasons” for disliking the French, although this wasn’t the only reason for his civic-minded action.

Whilst some on the forum have doubted his complain-to-fame as genuine, and merely the desperate move of an attention-seeker, we at RM have seen enough (his latest posts have been singing the praises of dead-at-last bloated bigoted comedy dinosaur Bernard Manning) – either way, Iain, you’re definitely...a WANKER!

P.S. you can still get F.I.P at www.radiofrance.fr/chaines/fip/endirect

PPS. does anyone out there know Iain, or more specifically if he filed his tax return accurately and on time this year?

WI-FI-FO-FUM

Brighton residents alarmed about the sea of microwave radiation we constantly buzz around in will be terrified at the thought of the council’s plans to pay telecoms giant BT for city-wide wireless internet access. Let’s face it, it’s not exactly difficult to get online for free as it is, and it’s hardly a life or death necessity either – certainly not enough to justify the enormous uncontrolled experiment of saturating thousands of people with high-energy microwaves from transmitters attached to – yes - lamp posts, believe it or not.

The jury may be out on the long-term health effects of microwave exposure, depending on who you believe, but we know for sure that they cause physiological changes. Autopsies on mobile phone users who’ve died from other causes have found their brains ‘cooked like a piece of meat’ - while mobile companies tried to persuade us a few years back that the heating effect of microwaves was beneficial because of the increased level of brain activity it produced!

As an added bonus, according to the Argus, “surveillance camera coverage would be extended” so microwave-addled cops can keep an eye on brain-heated residents’ manic antics. Citywide wi-fi supporter and corporate media luvvie Dan Evans also tells us that it will “encourage people from London to move to Brighton and set up business.” Great! A load of yuppies sipping bananamoccafrappachinos yapping on their blueteeth and flooding the place with their filthy money is just what we need! Thanks again to B&H Council, Plc.

At least with citywide wi-fi you’ll be able to log on to www.mastsanity.org and get the latest info about the effects of microwave radiation on your health.

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POWER TO THE STEEPLE

Incredibly, Sussex Police’s morals reached a new low this month in yet another sorry episode of their despicable policy of harassing homeless people – especially people who give themselves a hand-up by putting a roof over their own heads.

The old Baptist Church in Richmond Parade had been occupied for a couple of weeks by a group of squatters who had permission from the vicar to stay there for at least six months. When one of them foolishly left the door open, semi-literate bigot cop Laurence Cartwright’s illegal eviction goons charged in, threatening to arrest everyone for stealing electricity (the usual pretext), unless they left the building immediately – in spite of the electricity having been physically cut off before the squatters arrived!

Sounds just like the usual illegal police squat bust so far. But the filth were so keen to justify their anti-squatter policy that they decided to fabricate not only a bullshit criminal offence, but also a juicy story for our rival publication the Evening Anus, telling them “they found 18 homeless people living in the chapel, sleeping in the baptism pit and drinking Sherry and Special Brew.” (what’s wrong with that? RM thought that B&H Plc were right behind the 24-hr drinking economy.) Lying cops told the local rag that they had arrested a squatter for drug dealing – not true. They also fabricated a shock photo for the paper by smashing up one unfortunate resident’s bedroom and then taking pictures of the resulting foetid squalor. Unfortunately the vicar in question was on holiday in France and so never got to speak to the police or the journos at all.

Suspiciously, the only person in the squat who had been causing any trouble there was left alone despite gobbing off at the police. The cops know they’re on shaky legal ground with their anti-squatter policy and are desperately trying to get public opinion on their side with their nasty lies.

The chapel is owned by the Grace Baptist Church who (surprise,surprise) have recently applied for permission to knock it down and replace it with 49 flats, a new church and community hall. See www.theargus.co.uk/mostpopular.var.1429201.mostviewed.church_decimated_by_squatters.php

COPS STOP WHINING

As the media has been busy whipping up a pseudo storm over the current prole penchant for T-shirts with big ASBO slogans, Sussex plod have had to ditch one piece of their technological total repression kit. Yes OK, CCTV with microphones, facial and numberplate recognition abilities, blah and the like are still with us but they have at least been forced to withdraw the ‘chavbuster’ mosquito device which emits piercing excruciating high pitched noises which only younger people with their immature ears can hear. With a brief burst of sanity, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) have refused to give the headache-inducing gadget its official approval and reluctant Sussex cops have had to suspend its use. Maybe they’ll now have to follow the Co-op’s example and be forced to play classical music to keep the younger generation at bay.

WHAT’ll KATIE DO NEXT?

Check out Katie “Brighton’s most controversial columnist” in June’s issue of Latest Homes and her devastatingly witty piece entitled “I didn’t get where I am today…” The doyenne of Brighton wannabes highlights the differences between a big noise like herself, and abject failures merely toiling in citizen journalism like us. Well-researched Katie, fingers on the sub-cultural pulse, notes that “champagne socialists, who spend their days navel gazing in the The Cowley Club, have as much chance of gaining recognition as Bros has of making a comeback...” Forgive us please! We must be more deferential to anyone who has shown their ability to be a souless performing seal for anyone in a suit dangling some cash and the oxygen of media exposure... It’s all very sobering, and we need to kick back in the Cowley with another bottle of Dom Perignon and have a serious think about where we’re going in life...

TIME OF THE MONTH?

So how have the trusty ol’ Bill been filling their time lately - in between monitoring all the cctv, squat-and-demo-busting, truncheon polishing and looking for bank robbers? Well, top Sussex plod boffins have been busy in their secret underground lair deep beneath Hanover and done some arresting number crunching. This led to startling revelations this month as it was revealed that violent crime goes up at the time of the full moon. Less remarkable was the discovery that the aggro also picks up around pay day, or full moron, as we call it here at RM.

It all goes to show that having a pocketful of cash, or being around an inert planetary satellite exerting slightly more gravitational pull than usual, fuels the flames of hate. These shocking findings suggest that if we nuke the moon and stop paying anybody any money, society will be overcome with peaceful cooperation – but the tides will be even more screwed up than by climate change...Or, alternatively, we can all just get behind Sussex police’s cunning ploy to get extra overtime once a month...

DOG-GONE COPS

BRUCE THE ALMIGHTY

Sussex cops have had to pay out a whopping £42,500 to a teenager bitten by a police dog five years ago. The unnamed 19 year old was attacked by the dog in 2002 as he attempted to flee police. The state-sponsored slavering attack dog – Bruce – leapt into action and savaged him - as he had been trained to do by friendly police dog-handlers, and the teen ended up with part of one ear severed. The pay-out was the largest coughed up by any force in the UK for a dog bite this year, so tail wagging all round for being top of one league table at least.

Instead of rethinking the practice of using and mistreating poor animals to do their dirty work, top cop Nigel Yeo had no problem swiftly ordering ruff justice for Bruce who was destroyed shortly afterwards for over-exuberantly following orders (a policy that definitely should be brought in for any officers who can actually speak or understand language beyond ‘heel’ and ‘sit’ ). With no sense of irony, Nigel left the force last year – to take up a top job in the RSPCA...

Rough Music Gig List

• CRANKS – the D.I.Y bike repair workshop opens on Saturday 7 July. 22/22a Chapel St (just off Edward St) Don’t waste yer hard-earned on ‘mechanics’ – have a go yourself! (then take it to a bike shop). Donations of past-it boneshakers to be recycled are welcomed. Regular opening times Friday and Saturday 11-6.
• Summer Family Funday Sun 8 July noon till 3pm @ Bridge Community Centre, Lucraft Road, Moulsecoomb. Donations for live music, car boot sale, football tournament, bouncy castle, holistic therapies.
• Greenspeak - July 10 - Flying Sauces & Plane Pickle. The economic argument against aviation expansion and the chilling reality of salad. 7.15-9pm, downstairs at Terraces Bar & Grill, Marine Parade - donation.
• Earth First Summer Gathering. July 18-22. Five days of low-impact eco-living. Playing, planning and plotting to avert the destruction of our planet. East Anglia. Price: £15 per adult. Info: www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk
  Brighton No Borders meeting July 19. Working in support of migrants and against racism. 6pm in the back building at Cowley Club. www.noborder.org
• Peace Picnic – 22 July, midday, venue tbc. Apparently to celebrate our city’s non existent International Peace Messenger status. There’ll probably be a peace cake or something and maybe even some Buddhists.
• Transition Design: Towards a Low-Energy Future. Public Meeting 25 July Brighthelm centre, 7pm – petrified by peak oil? Come and find out how to get over it.
• Brighton Pride - Sat 4th Aug. Details at www.brightonpride.org