And the AC said "LET THERE BE LIGHT"

This month, having been dumped and replaced by a younger, Eastern European version, I thought I should make a concerted effort immersing myself in life’s rich tapestry and drinking (and behaving) a bit like like George Best.

First of worthy news events are my recent run-ins with the ubiquitous Dutch canta. This peculiar vehicle is something like a sit-on lawnmower for two wrapped, in a boxey plastic shell. It tends to be driven by the elderly or disabled. I came into contact quite literally with my first canta whilst thrown sideways off a cycle lane by a particularly blind and geriatric canta motorist. Convinced I had been hit by a car, I scraped myself of the pavement in terror of irreparable bike damage only to find that both I and the bike where mostly whole and intact. I stopped to swear furiously in English at the canta driver who actually rather looked quite scared and frail before I started on him. Anyhow, not one week later I enjoyed a city cruise in my friend Oli The Viking’s canta.

We boogied to his customised music mix “big songs for a little car” which includes old classics and brash, gay disco. Oli says other canta drivers love him and his girlfriend driving around, as they are definately neither elderly or disabled, and by association they make the other canta drivers cooler.

So on to a trip to Brighton to see ex-coleague and survivor of shared dot-com times, Karlos the Jackel. A nice surprise was to find friends on the same plane to the UK at Schipol airport. Jesse and Kindra were fully equipped with two video ipods, an audio splitter and a laptop, so whilst Jesse caught up on older Lost episodes on the laptop, Kindra and I shared some of the US episodes of the office. I felt quite excellently positioned in the nerdiest and most fastidiously entertainment focussed row on the mere 45 minute easyjet flight.

On to Brighton which is a peculiarly lively mix of Goa, Clapham and almost Bondi Beach set in a strangely set-like Victorian pastel seafront. Not only did I get to revisit Karlos but our old dot-com receptionist, the bizarrely overqualified (degree in Arabic and a masters in Japanese) Ayesha and her man, IT geek turned professional poker player (how cool and slightly seedy!) Gary. We spent some examining the sum collection of geek keyrings, from the mini wireless detector to the radio active isotope that glows in the dark for 10 years, oh and discussing the best sci-fi shows (Firefly and BSG universally agreed).

When not consuming fine single malt whiskeys on the sofas, we went out to meet friends in town, including the radiant Ocean (hippy parents) and her entirely blind Jack Russel, Hugo who bounds around with few problems in part guided vocally in Finnish and Swedish by Ocean. Brighton seafront is something like Venice beach, with cool bars, skaters, drunken bums, basketball hip hop kids and disco-shorts wearing beach volleyball players. Watching the sun set over the English channel, whilst sipping lager to live jazz (by old men with proper alcoholic red faces) on the beach was quite glorious. Brighton also seems to home the entire population of dogs-on-strings crusties that no-one has seen since 1996. Which is good, as I wondered where they went.