You and your london ways....

I have never relished the Easter holidays as much as the one that just flew past. In the past I have either been at university or working the Uni Easter break to fully appreciate this 4 day weekend. So only now that I am working in the 'real world' I can fully understand this mental weekend where the world (catholic at least) stops and all hell breaks loose.
So over the weekend I went to Brighton to visit a friend with high hopes and expectations-and they werent broken either. Brighton was a really nice break and I immersed myself in the weird and wonderful culture that unfolds itself in the backstreets. I saw band and visitied record stores. I ate in restaurants and drank in weird and fancy bars. I even witnessed my first police patrolled kebab house and taxi queue. What would Orwell say? But one factor overwhelmed me: Brighton (or at least Brighton centre) is full of white people... White middle class liberals, punks, goths, gays, indie-ites, neo-hipplies, chavs, funksters, hoodies.....

Maybe it was just me, and this is probable, that I have become sensitive to white areas. Being part of London makes you feel sensitive to the opposite of what London is: multiculturalism. I told my friend of this whiteness (who was born and grew up in an even whiter neighbouring town) of that is so obvious in Brighton and he admitted something quite shocking-that although Brighton is one of the mose liberal places someone can grow up in the UK (one of the only areas that was in the UK where the green party has jumped ahead of the lib-dems) it is also one of the biggest paradox's of Britain. Ironically one of Brighton's old clubs was called Paradox up until recently. I dont know quite what to make of Brighton anymore but I cant help but feel that it has left me with a funny taste in my mouth-similar to the taste that Cambridge gives (also white middle class...yes less liberal?). Nonetheless I shouldnt moan, it was a lovely place and this is merely my cynical rhetoric going off again....