What a cute notion to fly a kite next to the crashing surf.
\nBut these were not ordinary kites. The kites themselves were
\nlittle parachutes, and their masters were decked out in extreme
\nkite wear. The huge contraptions seemed to take great joy in
\nlaunching their captors high into the air and then dragging them
\nacross the beach. As I recall, sandpaper is made from sand.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, Brighton does not have sand.<\/p>\n
Brighton has pebbles.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Imagine sandpaper made out of pebbles. Imagine this very
\nquickly passing over your face. Hence, the extreme wear.<\/p>\n
Apparently, I was witnessing para-boarding, or sailing, or
\nsome such thing. Put yourself on a surfboard (tricky), fly an
\novergrown kite (trickier), and let it pull you across huge waves
\nwithout falling off (trickiest). Here we have a sport that
\ncombines the best traits of frustration and humiliation with
\nrandom Pavlovian reinforcement of pain. I was surprised I wasn’t
\ninstantly hooked.<\/p>\n
This is a buddy sport. You steady your kite. Your buddy jumps
\non you. You bound down the beach out of control with your buddy
\naffixed to your ankle. He’s not just holding you down but trying
\nto affix a surfboard to your flying feet. Just when you think you
\nhave it, a huge wave crashes over you, buddy and surfboard. Do
\nnot let go. Repeat, do not let go of the kite, despite pebbles
\ncramming deeper into your nasal cavity.<\/p>\n
Eventually, our hero did get into the water. He sailed at the
\nspeed of sound, hit a sea turd, and did a salty face plant.
\nInstantly he was yanked full out the water to do the face plant
\nagain.<\/p>\n
Yank!
\n
\nSplash!
\n
\nOof!
\n
\nYank!
\n
\nPLOOSH!
\n
\nUgh!
\n
\nYank!
\n\n<\/p>\n
Do not let go. Remember the mantra.<\/p>\n
When he was far, far out, I begin to wonder about the kite
\ndunking itself. Maybe a 1\/2 mile swim through raging surf
\nattached to leaden kite is good exercise.<\/p>\n
Our intrepid surfer would have a much easier time if it were
\nnot for wild Brighton sea turds. Apparently the pipe from my
\nlittle commode (and every one else’s) leads directly to the sea.
\nYes, folks, raw sewage, toilet paper and all, from a major
\npopulation center dumped directly into the sea. But it’s ok, the
\npipe goes out beyond the swimming area so your chance of coming
\nface to face with this morning’s deposit are slim. Thanks to the
\ntourism board, they process it in the summer into a more
\nconsistent paste to reduce chunkiness. Did I mention the
\npopularity of curry?<\/p>\n
“And now the Barbados Tourism Authority weather: London –
\nRain. South East – Windy and rain. Forecast – Dull, wet and
\nwindy.”<\/p>\n
It seems English weather is sponsored by Barbados Tourism.
\nIt’s sort of the opposite of trying to sell fridges to the
\nInuit.<\/p>\n
I wonder if they take plastic? I’d like to order some wicked
\nsunshine for Brighton.<\/p>\n
This morning greeted us with an exceptionally windy seaside
\nday. My morning tour to the sea was interrupted as I watched a
\nfamiliar face chase his hat down the block. I flapped my arms
\nlightly against the gale in sympathy. He retrieved his hat, waved
\nhis hands in the air, let out a whooping yell, and marched up to
\nplant himself but inches from my face. I could see quite clearly
\nhis two front teeth were mostly gold, which worked nicely with
\nwhole rasta-man gig he had going.<\/p>\n
My small demonstration of solidarity was all he needed. He
\nclapped his large black hand on my back and grinned even wider.
\nWe were brothers against the storm.<\/p>\n
“Oh what a crazy world it is, mon, ” he exclaimed loudly into
\nmy face. It was genuine Jamaican-rasta with a British accent.
\n“Why can’t we all a just be happy, my friend? Why just a last
\nnight night I was a singing and a laughing and a yelling MERRY
\nCHRISTMAS! And you know what?”<\/p>\n
I stared into his face. I didn’t know what.<\/p>\n
“Well, I tell you what,” he continued with another thunderous
\npat on my back. “They came and tried to take me away. Oh, yes,
\nthey did. They wanted to puts a me in an institution just for
\nbeing happy now. An institution!” Except he said
\nINSTA-TOOOoo-SHUN<\/i>
\n.<\/p>\n
I patted him on the backm and he was satisfied that I
\nunderstood. I’m now an unofficial rasta-storm-brother. I get my
\nsecret handshake next week.<\/p>\n
I was greeted by an unusual sight when I finally continued
\ndown to the ocean. A large section of the beach was sectioned off
\nwith high fences and patrolled by plainclothed guards in bright
\nyellow pants. (On the beach plain clothes include bright yellow
\npants.) Far beyond the fences on the beach were more men from the
\nyellow pants unit scurrying around several large, carefully
\ntarped objects. I had obviously stumbled across the covert yellow
\nalien space craft retrieval unit.<\/p>\n
I approached the guard. I knew it! He was a dead ringer for
\nMulder. Now where was that sexy Sculley?<\/p>\n
He ran an unconvincing story about fireworks tonight.
\nCelebrate the shortest day of the year he said. (He really did
\nlook like Mulder.) Even the English aren’t silly enough to
\ncelebrate the lack of sun, are they?<\/p>\n
That night we dashed out of the house into gale force winds in
\nresponse to several terrific bangs. The crowds were gathered
\nthick and sure enough… there were no fireworks. Instead, one of
\nthe large towers, now untarped, was on fire.<\/p>\n
Instead of launching fireworks into the sky, it simply fell
\nover slowly and burst into multicolored flames. <Fzzzz>
\n<Crackle> <Crackle><\/p>\n
The yellow pants unit scurried like…well, not like
\nants…like British. They casually walked around the burning
\ncarcass, as if nothing was wrong, and lit up the ground displays.
\nThese were supposed to spin and sparkle like Chinese wheels. They
\nflapped madly in the gale, letting off streams of glowing
\nfireflies.<\/p>\n
The second tower did a bit better. Instead of falling over and
\ncatching fire it stood firm and caught fire. <fzzz>
\n<Crackle> <Crackle><\/p>\n
The yellow unit let the crowds watch the burning towers a
\nwhile longer, thanked everyone, thanked the corporate sponsors,
\nand bid us goodnight. As we walked home, I secretly admired the
\ncunning of the yellow unit as the alien crafts burned in full
\npublic view.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Extreme sports, weather, and conspiracies. The Brits are out to get Stephen or so he says!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[166,177],"tags":[191,193,195,215],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-br1ght0n","category-sm-adventur3s","tag-beach","tag-brighton","tag-burning-clock","tag-england"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}