The talented architect and illustrator Alej Ez is staging an exhibition of his work at the New Steine Hotel in New Steine Gardens, till February 4, 2018.
Alej Ez was born in Granada, Spain in 1973 and trained as an architect at the Universidad de Seville in 1998.
Alej, who currently works as an architect for Archangels Architects in Kemptown says:“Illustration is my second love, though I own a lot of what I know as traditional arts such as watercolour.
“The world is far too complex. By drawing it, I find sense in it.”
Event: Alej Ez Exhibition
Where: New Steine Hotel, 10-11 New Steine, Brighton BN2 1PB
Prostate Cancer UK teams up with Opening Doors London (ODL) to trial a new online discussion group for gay, bisexual men and men who have sex with men (MSM), who have been affected by prostate cancer.
The online discussion group which goes live at 7pm this evening (October 18), will provide men with the opportunity to discuss any subject or concerns about prostate cancer and offer support.
The first session this evening will be facilitated by ODL, the largest charity for older people in the LGBT communities in the UK.
Sessions will take place for an hour on the third Thursday of every month for the trial period (6 months) and will be accessible from a computer, tablet or phone.
Participants can choose to dial in by video or by audio only, if they prefer not to be seen on-screen. Additionally, men can join anonymously should they so wish.
Currently, 1 man dies every 45 minutes from prostate cancer – that’s more than 11,000 men in the UK each year.
This makes tackling prostate cancer through research, campaigning and providing support crucially important. Tailoring information and services to different areas of the community also plays a key role in tackling this disease.
Martin Wells
Martin Wells, 63 from Burnley, a gay man diagnosed with localised prostate cancer in 2007, said:“Going through prostate cancer and the side effects of treatment really affected me psychologically. I desperately needed emotional support to help me get through this difficult time and there weren’t any services near me that focused on psychosexual health. The fact there is not tailored support for men like me in every area of the country, encouraged me to set up my own support groups. Talking to other men who could speak to me on my terms felt incredible. That’s why Prostate Cancer UK’s new online discussion group is a great opportunity for gay, bisexual men and MSM to come together and discuss any topics on prostate cancer without judgement, wherever they live. I would encourage anyone who has any concerns or needs support to join up and share how they feel.”
Ann Innes, Support Group Development Manager at Prostate Cancer UK, explains:“We know that people find a great deal of help and support in dealing with prostate cancer from being able to talk to others about shared experiences and problems. Although there are many prostate cancer support groups around the UK, we know that some gay and bisexual men may not feel comfortable about discussing some of their concerns or asking certain types of questions in these groups. So we wanted to offer an alternative for people who would like to speak to others with similar experiences but who for whatever reason could not or do not want to utilise a face to face group. We hope to see this unique support group develop in to a key trusted resource for these men going forward.”
Professor Jeffery Weeks, Chair of ODL trustees, said:“Opening Doors London is delighted to be working in partnership with Prostate Cancer UK in the development of an important new service. This online support group for gay men living with prostate cancer will provide new opportunities to challenge taboos and anxieties and to develop mutual support, confidence and knowledge.”
To register and join the online discussion group, click here:
Brighton & Hove City Council is one of the most active in the country for tackling flytipping.
In figures collected by the Press Association, Brighton & Hove issued 276 fines to flytippers in the 12 months to May 2017, the fifth highest in the country. The council’s updated figures show that 618 fines have been issued to date compared with 196 last financial year.
Improving the environment is a priority for the city council and officers have been highlighting the environmental impact of all kinds of discarded waste, from dog poo to litter.
Enforcement has also been stepped up. Since March 2016 more than 5,000 fixed penalty notices were issued. Of these 594 were for flytipping, including 346 where businesses were using council owned bins to illegally dispose of waste. Fines for flytipping are set at £300.
Cllr Gill Mitchell
Cllr Gill Mitchell, chair of the city’s environment committee, said:
“Residents are fed up with people simply dumping things on the street, around existing bins or on our open spaces, creating eyesores and leaving it up to the council to clear up and taxpayers to pay for it.
“On average we get about 160 flytips reported to us each month, not including those identified and cleared by our streets teams. The message is that those responsible will be fined and in extreme cases prosecuted.”
Staff from the council’s Cityclean have highlighted the issue by putting ‘environmental crime’ tape round flytips. This is part of their Crime not to Care campaign which has also involved community engagement and the installation of CCTV at known flytip ‘hotspots.’
Due to the increased awareness there has been a big jump in reported flytips from 466 in the first quarter of the year to 776 from April to June.
Top five councils issuing fines for flytipping:
Westminster 747
Haringey 288
Redbridge 284
Waltham Forest 281
Brighton & Hove City Council 276
What it costs the council:
Based on average weights, the waste disposal costs for large bulky items (not including staffing, vehicle costs or overheads), is:
On average a cage vehicle carrying approximately 750kg will tip four times per day averaging three tonnes per day of fly-tipping. That’s more than 1,000 tonnes per year for one cage van at a cost of £120,000 for waste disposal alone.
Ben Bradshaw, the Labour MP for Exeter, backs Exeter Pride in its bid to host UK Pride 2018.
Exeter Pride 2017
Exeter Pride committee, the group which organises the annual celebration of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT+) communities in the county of Devon, is one of six Pride organisations bidding to stage UK Pride 2018.
UK Pride is the national equivalent of EuroPride and WorldPride and is licensed by the UK Pride Organisers Network (UKPON).
All organisers of Pride events in the UK are entitled to be members of UKPON, and each Pride organisation will have one vote at the annual Conference which takes place in Blackpool from October 20-22, 2017.
Ben Bradshaw MP
Mr Bradshaw, said:“I would like to add my full and wholehearted support to the bid by Exeter Pride to host next year’s UK Pride event.
“Exeter Pride will be celebrating its 10th anniversary next year and it has grown enormously over that time and is now one of, if not the biggest, annual public events in Exeter.
“It would send out a very positive message for UK Pride to take place in one of our smaller provincial cities that LGBTQIA+ people live everywhere.
“It would also mean a great deal to me, having been Britain’s first MP elected as an openly gay man, having fought successfully against a bitterly homophobic campaign in Exeter in 1997.”
Andy Train
Co-Chair of UKPON, Andy Train, who is also Vice-Chair of Pride in Hull, said:“At Pride in Hull we were delighted to have the honour of hosting the first UK Pride earlier this year, and it’s a tribute to the impact it had on our Pride to see six Prides bidding for next year’s event. The Pride movement is growing across the UK and we had more than 20 brand new Prides this year.
“UK Pride helps to create a focal point for one Pride each year, to help increase visibility and awareness.
“UK Pride status is a unique opportunity and uplift for any Pride. I wish all six Prides all the very best of luck, and I can’t wait to see their bids.”
Adam Rank
Adam Rank, Chair of Exeter Pride, added:“Exeter Pride hopes that winning UK Pride will help us to increase LGBT+ visibility not just on one day but all year.
“Next year, 2018, is our 10th anniversary year and the perfect time to consider how far we have come both as a movement and a city.
“We work closely with cultural partners and local businesses, and hope that becoming UK Pride will help us not only to celebrate diversity but also to honour the city that we are so proud of!”
The Ninth Exeter Pride held on May 13 included a colourful rainbow flag march featuring thousands of people, community groups, statutory organisations, trade unions, LGBT+ groups and individuals. Joss Stone headlined the main stage and speeches were given by Lord Mayor of Exeter, Cllr. Cynthia Thompson and the local MP for Exeter, Ben Bradshaw MP.
Alan Quick
Alan Quick, trustee of Exeter Pride, said:“Exciting plans are being made for the 10th anniversary Exeter Pride on Saturday, May 12, 2018, further details of which are to be announced in the near future.
“Exeter Pride is now firmly an annual community event in the city’s calendar. It has built on the hard work of so many volunteers who helped organise the event in previous year’s, and is still run by volunteers which helps it retain its grass-roots community event feel.
“Every year Exeter Pride supports not only the city but the wider rural population.
“It is really successful at encouraging greater diversity and inclusion and a future aim is to give greater visibility to the region’s LGBT+ communities.
“Exeter Pride is now welcoming approaches from those who would like to get involved as volunteers, have a stall, audition to perform or be a partner or sponsor.
Groups or organisations wanting to take part in the march should email: chair@exeterpride.co.uk.
At the UKPON conference in Blackpool, each Pride will have just 15 minutes to present their bid, and all are being invited to publish their bids online so that people can view them in advance.
The winning Pride will be announced on Sunday, October 22, and will be live streamed on Facebook.
Caroline, the co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, has been the MP for Brighton Pavilion since the 2010 general election when she became the Green Party’s first MP. She was re-elected in the 2015 and 2017 general elections with increased majorities.
Caroline is known as a campaigner and writer on green economics, localisation, alternatives to globalisation, trade justice, and animal welfare.
She has worked with non-governmental organisations and think-tanks, including the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Oxfam. She remains a strong advocate for LGBT+ rights.
The Village MCC Brighton and Hove is a church created by LGBT+ christians, their families, friends, and allies, a Metropolitan Community Church called to support the LGBT+ communities in whatever ways it can offering a safe space where anyone can feel at home, fully affirmed in their sexuality and gender identity.
Church members are active in the larger community, offering emergency aid and support to the homeless and vulnerably housed.
Their minister, Rev. Michael Hydes, offers spiritual direction and pastoral care. You are welcome to join then for worship every Sunday evening.
Event: Caroline Lucas MP: Guest speaker at The Village MCC
Where: Somerset Day Centre, 62 St James’s Street, Brighton
Sam Holcroft’s marvellous comedy looks at a family get-together as it gradually disintegrates. Over the course of a Christmas lunch revelations are revealed, old resentments are reignited and no one is left unscathed by the events – events for which they all share some of the blame. The play has been compared to Ayckbourn, and while it concentrates on the middle-class family in crisis it has a novel twist uniquely its own. Each character is given his or her own rule – projected above the stage – which they then have to follow. It might be as simple as having to sit down to tell a lie, or as baroque as having to keep on dancing like a winding-down automaton until you get a laugh.
Edith (Jane Booker) is the matriarch presiding over the festive celebrations with a military precision. She is variously helped and hindered by her two lawyer sons Adam (Ed Hughes) and Matthew (Jolyon Coy), Adam’s wife Nicole (Laura Rogers) and Matthew’s showbiz girlfriend Carrie (Carlyss Peer). The first act lays the groundwork for the second’s explosive confrontations, ending with the appearance of Edith’s husband Francis (Paul Shelley) who, to the surprise of everyone but Edith, is in a wheelchair and suffering from the effects of a stroke. Given this is the kind of family where the mother will try and deny the medically undeniable, it’s not surprising that there are plenty more secrets to be prised, cajoled and taunted out of the rest of the cast.
The performances are uniformly excellent and the evening is certainly a great example of ensemble playing. Booker excels as the domineering yet vulnerable mother. As her world comes crashing down about her she seems to believe that she can make everything right simply through her force of will. Hughes has real charisma as the blokeish man who has a penchant for breaking into accents and impersonations, whilst Coy is entirely sympathetic as a man trying to do the right thing but somehow just making things worse. Rogers and Peer are great as polar opposites, the former as serious and dignified as the latter frivolous and, occasionally, slightly idiotic.
Although one of the points of the play is that we all have self-imposed rules, I’m not sure if the rules displayed by the characters are supposed to be due to their own internal psychology or simply there because of the whims of the playwright. Though I’m not sure it entirely matters as this is a very funny and supremely entertaining evening.
Continues at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, until Saturday 21.
Home Office figures released today reveal a 29% increase in hate crime reports in England and Wales.
Hate crime conviction rates for the South East are amongst the highest in country making those responsible for hate crime in Kent, Surrey and Sussex much more likely to be convicted for their crimes than in other parts of the country.
New figures show Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) South East, which handles these types of prosecutions in the three counties, has the second highest conviction rate out of 13 CPS Areas in the country.
The figures in the CPS hate crime annual report, published today show that, across the South East, defendants were convicted in 676 out of a total of 767 hate crime cases between April 2016 and March 2017 – an 88.1% conviction rate.
The area had the country’s highest conviction rate for homophobic and transphobic crime at 90.2% and was second in the county for convictions for racial and religious hate crime, with a total of 553 out of 624 cases.
Defendants responsible for hate crimes motivated ‘wholly or partly’ by hostility based on perceived religion, race, sexual orientation or disability can also be given stiffer sentences by the court. These “uplifted” sentences can range from extended prison terms to longer community punishments, depending on the crime.
In the South East in 2016-17, just over 60% of sentences were increased in this way, compared to the national average of 52.2%.
Jaswant Narwal
Jaswant Narwal from the CPS said:“It is really encouraging to see such a high conviction rate for hate crimes, especially as they are such an appalling type of crime, singling people out for being different, either on the basis of their race, religion, sexual orientation or disability. Tackling hate crime is one of the top priorities for the CPS in Kent, Surrey and Sussex and these figures show how our staff are doing everything they can to ensure perpetrators are brought to justice.
“I hope these figures give confidence to anyone who is the victim of a hate crime to come forward and report it, knowing that those responsible are likely to be convicted and punished appropriately.”
The conviction rate was lower for disability hate crime, with convictions in just over three-quarters of cases – 31 out of a total of 41 cases in the three counties.
Jaswant added:“We are concerned about the low-level of reporting of disability hate crime in the South East. I find it hard to believe that we only had 41 cases across our whole area in a year. We will be working closely with local community groups and the police over the next year to try to increase levels of reporting.
“Where anyone is experiencing disability hate crime, they should feel able to come forward and report it, knowing they will be supported through the criminal justice process.”
An online support guide specifically for disabled victims and witnesses of crime is available on the CPS website. It was produced with support from organisations that work with disabled people and explains the types of support available and how people can access it. It aims to remove some of the barriers disabled people can face as victims and witnesses.
For information about all forms of hate crime, click here:
CPS South East also works with local community groups. Their Local Scrutiny Involvement Panel is made up of community representatives and members of criminal justice agencies, who work together to improve the prosecution process and the service offered.
They are currently looking for members of the public to join the panel, particularly those with a background in representing people affected by issues related to hate crime – disability, racial, religious, homophobic, transphobic and biphobic.
Kuwait-born, London-based Haddad has been named the 2017 winner of the Polari First Book Prize for his novel Guapa (Europa Editions UK).
He received the prestigious award at a ceremony held in London’s Southbank Centre as part of the London Literature Festival.
Now in its seventh year, the Prize is awarded annually to a writer whose first book explores the LGBT experience, whether in poetry, prose, fiction or non-fiction.
Paul Burston
Chair of judges Paul Burston, said:“Guapa offers an intimate, complex portrait of gay life in the Arab world, a subject rarely explored in fiction. It’s poetic, politically daring, beautifully written and marks the arrival of an exciting new voice.”
Haddad’s debut emerged victorious from a strong shortlist which included Expecting by Chitra Ramaswamy (Saraband), We Go Around In The Night And Are Consumed By Fireby Jules Grant (Myriad), Straight Jacket by Matthew Todd (Bantam), The Vegetarian Tigers of Paradise by Crystal Jeans (Honno) and Jerusalem Ablaze by Orlando Ortega-Medina (Cloud Lodge).
Saleem Haddad was born in Kuwait City to a Lebanese-Palestinian father and an Iraqi-German mother, and was educated in Jordan, Canada and the United Kingdom. He has worked as an aid worker in Yemen, Syria, Libya, Lebanon and Iraq. His writing has appeared in Slate, the Los Angeles Review of Books and The Daily Beast, among other publications. He currently lives in London.
Judges for the 2017 prize included author, journalist and host of Polari Literary Salon, chair Paul Burston; Rachel Holmes, author and former Head of Literature and Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre; literary critic, Suzi Feay; author and comedian, VG Lee; and playwright, actor and producer, Alexis Gregory.
Polari First Book Prize partners with WH Smiths Travel, with shortlisted books displayed in Travel outlets nationwide. The Prize is sponsored by FMcM Associates, an award winning arts communications company.
The winner announcement coincides with a bumper series of events as the Polari Salon celebrates 10 years of championing LGBT voices, with the largest ever LBGT literary tour undertaken in the UK. Running July to December, the tour will showcase over 80 writers, including Val McDermid, Matthew Todd, Emma Flint, Neil Bartlett and Paul Flynn.
Remaining dates on the tour include:
October 20 – Marlborough Theatre, Brighton
October 22 – Bloomsbury Festival
November 24– 10th Birthday Party at Being a Man Festival, Southbank Centre
The Brighton & Hove Solidarity Vigil, will be held on Saturday October 14, 2017 near the Old Steine Fountain starting at 7pm sharp.
Organised by the volunteers of the Brighton & Hove Community Safety Forum (LGBT CSF), the Brighton vigil marks International Day of Hope and Remembrance and is the curtain raiser to National Hate Crime Awareness Week, 2017 which will take place from October 14 to 21, 2017 – #NHCAW
The purpose of the Hate Crime Awareness Week is to tackle Hate Crime issues by raising awareness of what Hate Crime is and how to respond to it, encourage reporting, and promote local support services and resources.
Billie Lewis
Billie Lewis, Chair of the LGBT CSF, said: “Bring along a torch, candle, drum or a whistle & SHARE SOME LOVE & LIGHT during our 2 minutes of noise to remember those affected by Hate Crime.
The first International Day of Hope and Remembrance was launched at the London Vigil against Hate Crime which took place in Trafalgar Square on October 30, 2009 after the death of Ian Baynham who died after being homophobically abused and beaten outside South Africa House in London.
Over the past seven years the third Saturday of October has been established as the day when people around the globe organise solidarity vigils and events to show support to those who have been affected by Hate Crime.
Your magazine is dropped off at The Bristol Bar as part of your distribution but I’m afraid we no longer want to receive it.
I am sure there is a healthy market for Gscene but, it is so full of drag queens and implausibly buff half-naked chaps that it does not represent the gay life I am living nor the more integrated view I take of modern Brighton.
I’m afraid my customers just don’t take the magazine as it has nothing for them.
I don’t want to waste your money by putting the magazines straight into recycling so I hope you will take us off your route and divert them to a more appreciative audience.
Best regards, Alan Towler
The Bristol Bar, Kemptown
Ann Innes, Support Group Development Manager at Prostate Cancer UK, explains: “We know that people find a great deal of help and support in dealing with prostate cancer from being able to talk to others about shared experiences and problems. Although there are many prostate cancer support groups around the UK, we know that some gay and bisexual men may not feel comfortable about discussing some of their concerns or asking certain types of questions in these groups. So we wanted to offer an alternative for people who would like to speak to others with similar experiences but who for whatever reason could not or do not want to utilise a face to face group. We hope to see this unique support group develop in to a key trusted resource for these men going forward.”
In figures collected by the Press Association, Brighton & Hove issued 276 fines to flytippers in the 12 months to May 2017, the fifth highest in the country. The council’s updated figures show that 618 fines have been issued to date compared with 196 last financial year.
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