The Brighton Weekender started for me at 0001 hrs on my birthday Friday. As has been tradition for the last 6 years, I start my birthday with a triple Rum and Coke on ice… no change this time round. That rum went down well…. All four triples in fact went down well… I played a bit of PlayStation 2 and Fifa06. Went to bed about 2am…
The first daylight hours of the weekender, I awake at about 9am, did the usual Sh, Sh, Sh and headed for the 1028 train towards London. I was meeting some old work mates for lunch at Fishery Public House in Hemel Hempstead. Was meeting Dr Dre, Mrs GL, Euge and Mr Hawks…. I got to Hemel and had a coffee in the station coffee shop with my ole china Kath, for old time’s sake. I used to have a coffee there most mornings en-route to work in Hemel. Twas good see her. I got to pub early so sat in the non smoking area (as Mrs GL was expecting and I’m considerate like that) looking out onto the car park… as I did this I spotted to old work colleagues (note the difference Colleagues not Work Mates) Duffy and Mrs H…. they saw me, I waved, they ignored me… and they did see me…
Doc turned up first with a newbie and they came over to say hi and claim their seats before ordering lunch, I had already ordered mine. Hawks and GL turned up few minutes after. We had really good lunch and it was good to catch up, esp with Doc informing me of his departure from Hewitt Associates. Of course he will be still in the circle of friends so you’ll still get to hear from and about him. Mrs GL was looking rosie, must be that pregnant thing, where they look ever so radiant. Mr Hawks was looking smooth which was good considering his just moved home and recently had the second child come into the world.
After luncheon, it was a train to Watford to catch the train direct to Brighton, on that train I hooked up with my homeboy B’ who had been meeting one of his old workmates for luncheon in Milton Keynes. We had a good journey down discussing stuff from Comics to Why you shouldn’t try and dodge your train fare (bit too late for the youth B had seen being carried off a train by his arms and legs), along with “The joys of not working in London anymore”….. We got to Brighton at about 1610hrs and from there we walked the street and eventually found B’s hotel, Premier Inn opposite TK Maxx in town centre.

  

              Mr G and Del look out to Sea         Grubbs Burgers the place to eat

I headed down Ship Street to find my hotel and en-route I got a message from my brother Del informing me he was in the hotel and the proprietor had left my key with him (as in Del) because he had to pop out. We were staying in the Court Craven Hotel on Atlingworth Street (review to come) along with Mr G.
Sh. Sh and Sh later Del and I headed off to walk the Prom Prom Prom and hook up with B. We met him on the sea front and went to get a bite to eat and have a beer at a place called Varsity (review to come) which was pretty empty but you could tell was a popular venue. After eating and couple of beers we decided to head to a place suggested by a work colleague of Ju’s. The place was called Sumo, which was on Middle Street. Sumo was closed when we got there at about 8.30pm so we went to Walkabout on West Street (review to come). In Walkabout whilst B and Del were busy contacting their partners via txt, I got hit on by a lass called Apple (name changed for sake of the website). As Mr W would say in, she was “Tidy, very tidy”. Aps and I got talking and we got on quite well. We just talked and she gave me her number to call her if I wanted to hook up over the weekend as she liked me…. Yeah right …. Just after 9pm we headed back over to Sumo which was open… (full review below) and it had an instant, good feel factor about the place. It reminded me of Acres on Acres Lane, Brixton but a more rustic kinda lick. Acres is quite slick, but that’s for another time. We took our places on a Sofa and talked and had a few drinks, whilst on the Sofa Ju and Mr G arrived. We had a full house in terms of people who said they were coming out to play on the Friday. All in all we had a wicked night at Sumo and if I ever go to Brighton again, which I will, Sumo will be top of the list in terms of places to go on a Friday night. We all headed back to our hotels.
Saturday, myself, Del and Mr G, went down to breakfast together, it was a little cramped in the dining room, but Brekkie was quite good and filling except the sausage was a little dry and over cooked. After breakfast we headed up the road to an Internet Café as myself and Mr G had a few sites to check out. We use some of the same sites but never get the chance to surf together so we thought we’d take the chance. We also sorted Del out an email address as his never really had a personal email address, he is now on Yahoo.
At about 1230 we headed back to the hotel to get credit cards and so forth as we were heading to Momma Sherri for lunch. This place had been made famous for the wrong reasons, it was on Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares…. He had gone there and obviously changed things for the better, as this is the place to eat in Brighton (besides Grubbs Burgers) with an 8 week waiting list for Friday and Saturday night bookings. Lunch was excellent (review to follow), cheap and filling. Lunch attendees were Del, Mr G, Pat Sharp, Betty Boo, Ju, B and I, unfortunately Lord Soth and Marion couldn’t make it. We had met in Varsity where Ju and B who were watching the Man Utd game.

DJ TC outside Mamma Sherries            Aps of Brighton

With lunch done it was time to see the sites of Brighton, though Pat Sharp had to take Betty to the station as she was heading off on a Hen Do, up in the Big Smoke that is London. The rest of us walked the Prom Prom Prom and found a sea front bar, and got waitress service. We had a couple of beers. Whilst we were doing this Monts turned up, with his hand in a bandage. Somehow he had managed to get his thumb caught in a manual blender… Ouch!!
After a while we decided to head to the amusement arcade, as you can’t go to a seaside town and not hit the arcades, though with the world of Game Consoles, I personally think arcades are a dying breed, mainly because the games are just so boring. In the average arcade you have Fruit Machines, then a couple of driving Games, a couple of Light Gun games, cuddly toy pick up games and drop the coin and push games… that’s it, boring, gone are the days of a arcade have a varied selection of games like Kung Fu Champ, Star Wars Trilogy, Out Run, Defender, Galaga, Rolling Thunder, Elevator, Space Invaders, Type R, Asteroids, Battle Stations, Spy Hunter, Pole Position, Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Space Hunter, Power Drift and many other different games I could mention… though it sounds I know like I had a miss-spent child hood. Hey back in the day 10p had me and three other mates playing Rolling Thunder for about 2 hours…. A cheap night out… but for another time.
Saturday late afternoon we went for a walk around the Lanes to find a comic shop Monts wanted to check out, but alas when we got there it was closed. We then headed back to our hotels to get ready for the evenings proceedings.
Monts had to head home so the night involved B, Ju, Del, Pat Sharp, Mr G and I, we met in the great venue that is Varsity and we had a fair few drinks. Now B had got talking to the DJ at the Sumo Lounge, he had informed us that he would be playing at the Buddha Lounge on Saturday night, so we had pencilled in there as we knew the music would be top drawer, but alas those dreams were shattered. The six of us, I guess an error on our part turned up very early on the door of the Buddha and the two doormen asked if we had any ID… now it was my 38th birthday…and they were seriously asking me for ID, Del is my older brother, with B the same school year as me and Mr G was the youngest of the group at 26…. but they were being deadly serious on the no ID no entry…. so that put a damper on the weekend’s main night, and it got worse, every venue we went to had the same policy… no ID no entry…. why do they do that, well talking to a few DJ contacts I have, the reason why they do it, is to keep the clubs from getting packed out with out of towners, cos the average 20 something isn’t gonna think to bring there passport, or driving licence out with them so therefore they end up getting pushed towards the few clubs that don’t ask for ID, which as we found out ends up being full of the under age locals who can’t pass an ID check…. Which to be honest can create a hot potato…. So here’s a tip for nothing, if you are going to Brighton and intend on clubbing, then I’d advise you to get some photographic form of ID… or you’ll be doing a lot of walking… we ended up at some dive which as I said earlier was full of youngster and lots of none Brighton folk… suffice to say apart from the company I was with the night was a bit of a downer, by the end of the night is was just Mr G and I as we headed to some club suggested by the doorman of a club near our hotel called Volks (review above in Venue Review…. this place was shockingly bad… with people walking around in the undies….sorry I mean blokes were walking around in their undies… it was backs against the wall time… to clientele were poor, the music was poor and drinks prices were rich…
Sunday left me and Mr G to chill for a while. I was staying till the Monday as I was hooking up for dinner at Momma Sherries with a few Brighton contacts. Mr G and I went to the premier eating place in Brighton, a must visit place if you ever go to Brighton, there are two of these, but the best one is in Kemp Town and the place is called Grubbs Burgers…. A must visit place, trust me on this one. After eating there Mr G and I went to a really nice looking place which gave a great view along the Brighton coastline called The Terraces’ I think, it’s just by the Sealife Centre, it was circular with lots of glass, it oozes Chic-ness… but alas looks can be deceiving… (review above in Venue Review link) Mr G headed off around 5ish which left me to see the sight. Do you remember Aps from Friday night, well I had called her on the Saturday and a couple of times during the day, when she found out I was staying till Sunday night, we had planned to hook up on the Sunday night as she fancies doing some Karaoke, so after my second visit to Momma Sherries I headed off to the main pier and Horatio's… nice traditional pub and has a huge Karaoke following, it is a great pub and Aps it seems has a heavenly voice, she sang a couple of songs and we had a few drinks. She was feeling quite peckish so we headed to one of the 24 hours eating places and had a bit of a Full English and sat chatting for a few hours. Sunday night was pretty chilled and I def recommend Horatio’s as a good starting point on any visit to Brighton… though Sumo wins hands down as the place to go in Brighton. Monday I caught the 9.55 train home via Watford.
For a weekend away out of 10 I give Brighton 8, it loses points due to the ID fiasco and the dodgy fashion, but for a place with vibe and diversity, Brighton is a must visit weekend place.
Highlights for me were Grubbs Burgers (even having been there about 15 times still a highlight whenever I go), Momma Sherries and Sumo.
Lo-lights, ID needed regardless of age, breakfast at my hotel and having to come home.