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Enforcement officers join campaign to prevent dogs dying in hot cars

Just a few minutes in a hot car can be fatal for dogs, so Brighton & Hove Council’s enforcement officers will join Dogs Trust to help prevent dogs dying in hot cars this summer.

DOGS Trust, the UK’s largest dog welfare charity, will be working with officers on patrol in the city to keep any eye out for dogs left in vehicles on streets and in car parks.

Every year animal welfare charities and the police receive thousands of reports of animals being left alone in cars on warm days.

Brighton & Hove has been identified as a ‘hot spot’ when it comes to calls received by the RSPCA concerning dogs being left alone in cars over the summer months.

That’s why this year, together with Dogs Trust, the council’s civil enforcement officers will be taking action if they spot a dog in distress in a hot car.

If an officer spots a dog in distress they will call 999 so the dog can be removed from the car quickly and safely.

Cllr Anne Pissaridou
Cllr Anne Pissaridou

Councillor Anne Pissaridou, chair of the environment, transport and sustainability committee at Brighton & Hove City Council, said: “We want people to enjoy the summer months in Brighton & Hove with their dogs, but to keep them safe. Nobody ever thinks it’s going to happen to them or their much loved family pet yet every year many people still gamble with their dog’s life by leaving them alone in a car on a warm day.

“Working with Dogs Trust we hope to make people aware of the dangers, so that dogs and owners visiting the city return home safely.”

Civil enforcement officers will report any incidents while carrying out their standard enforcement patrols. This ensures citywide coverage, including council car parks.

Lee Paris, Senior Campaigns Officer at Dogs Trust, says: “Many people still believe that it’s okay to leave a dog in a car on a warm day if the windows are left open or they’re parked in the shade, but the truth is, it’s not.

“A car can become as hot as an oven very quickly, even when it doesn’t feel that warm and a dog can die in a hot car in twenty minutes. When it’s 22 degrees outside, in a car it can reach an unbearable 47 degrees within the hour.

“We are delighted to be working with Brighton & Hove City Council to raise awareness of the dangers and to try and prevent the heartbreak and distress caused when a much loved family pet suffers, or dies, because they have been left in a car on a summer’s day.”

Dogs Trust and the council advise anyone who sees a dog in distress in a hot car to call 999 immediately. Signs of heat stroke in dogs include heavy panting, excessive drooling, vomiting, being drowsy, unco-ordinated and collapsing.

To help a dog in this condition, place them in the shade, pour small amounts of tepid, not cold, water onto their body, help them to drink small amounts of tepid water and once their breathing has settled, call the nearest vet.

Dogs Trust is the UK’s largest dog welfare charity and cares for 15,000 dogs across its network of 20 rehoming centres in the UK and one in Dublin. Dogs Trust has a non-destruction policy, and will never put a healthy dog to sleep and work towards the day when all dogs can enjoy a happy life, free from the threat of unnecessary destruction.

For more information about Dogs Trust, click here:

Fringe REVIEW: Epicene @The Brunswick

I had to look up the definition of epicene. It means ‘having the characteristics of either sex’. This is important for the story which singer/songwriter Paul Diello tells us with his wonderful acoustic band and backing singers.

 

HE tells his packed audience that he felt as a child he wasn’t in the right body. His identification is with the female singers whom he clearly worships. The stage is festooned with tee shirts showing images of Madonna, Bjorn, Joni Mitchell and many more.

And his show pays tribute through a wide range of cover versions – everything from It’s in his kiss to I feel the earth move under my feet.

Put up a parking lot is one of my favourites in this show which has a kind of Boy George feel to it, but the highly talented band which includes saxophone, violin and guitars amongst its line up takes it all to another level. The sound and the harmonies are electric and powerful.

Paul, complete with glittery butterfly embossed jacket and large red hat is much larger than life, and clearly at ease with both his identity as his tremendous voice carries us through this highly enjoyable repertoire.

In between the songs, we get very funny stories about his childhood and adolescence in Worthing – including the time when he had “fun” with a schoolboy friend and somehow their adventurous encounter ended up on his father’s telephone answering machine. This is rendered even funnier because his father was in the audience and hadn’t worked out what the boys were up to.

I had to leave at the end of the first half as my alarm was going off at home, but Paul is well worth a visit. If you miss him at the Brunswick pub in Hove during the Fringe, (until Sunday, May 26), you can catch him with his backing singers the Harlequeens, at Ye Old Black Horse, Rottingdean on July 5.

Review by Brian Butler

To book tickets online for performance on Sunday, May 26, click here: 

Lifeguards take up their posts for Summer

Teams of lifeguards take up posts on Brighton & Hove’s beaches this weekend kicking off the summer season.

TWENTY three new recruits will be joining Brighton & Hove City Council’s seafront team, to help ensure millions of visitors enjoy a safe and happy time on city’s beaches this summer.  Many of the lifeguards will be familiar to regular beach goers as they return to the job they enjoyed last year.

The new lifeguards will be patrolling the city’s beaches from the Marina to Hove Lagoon. During the summer holidays, from July 20, lifeguards will be patrolling the beaches at Saltdean, Rottingdean, Ovingdean and further into Hove.

The team of male and female lifeguards, have all successfully completed a beach lifeguard qualification and induction course acquiring a wide range of skills from assessing sea and weather conditions and dealing with beach hazards, to carrying out first aid and water rescues.

Every summer, Brighton & Hove’s lifeguards deal with hundreds of incidents and save many lives.

During last year’s summer season they:
♦ carried out 86 water rescues – around one every five days
♦ saved 24 lives
♦ administered first aid to around 238 beach goers
♦ helped find 226 missing people
♦ tackled 117 incidents of anti-social behaviour
♦ handled 127 wildlife incidents
♦ dealt with 24 mental health incidents
♦ provided 36,101 preventative actions – one every 11 minutes

Easily to spot in their red and yellow uniforms, the lifeguards will be on duty each day from 10am to 7pm, supporting the council’s year round seafront team.

Cllr Alan Robins
Cllr Alan Robins

Councillor Alan Robins, Chair of the Tourism, Development and Culture Committee, said: “Once again we are delighted to have recruited a dedicated team of lifeguards to patrol our popular beaches.
 
“The new lifeguards are committed to supporting our regular seafront officers in ensuring the millions of visitors from all over the world who flock to our beaches every summer return home safe and happy.”

PREVIEW: Crystalz Tavern @Marlborough Theatre

There’s a Queer Speakeasy Coming to Brighton Fringe…..Shh – Mum’s the word!

HIDDEN away in the very depths of Kemptown, lies a place of freedom, a place of liberation, a place of fabulously sparkling glitter-clad wonder. And for one week only, you can see it for yourself.

A throbbing neon lighthouse guiding you to a space of safety, away from the jagged rocks of late stage capitalism. A speakeasy that heals the wounded and holds the oppressor to account. This is Crystalz Tavern.  Featuring a shifting constellation of the UK’s best live art/cabaret performers and guest DJs, the exclusive club-esque night of queer talent and celebration is transforming the night at Brighton Fringe.

Raining in young designer Jack Poole of Poile Art, the Marlborough is shapeshifting into a cabaret party that stops for nothing. Resist man-made monsters like bro-flakes and binaries, with the help of resident performers: Symoné, Ebony Rose Dark, XANA, Lasana Shabazz, and Astrothot.

It’s not just the artists and format of the show that is unique to the Fringe landscape. Five of the Crystalz Tavern artists are taking part in week long creative residencies, living, developing and then performing on show nights.

This rare opportunity gives queer black and brown artists to live and work amongst peers in a radically supportive environment.

Symoné makes her debut at The Marlborough Theatre this May. The roller-skating, hula-hooping phenomenon cut her teeth as an underground club dancer in high end shows, and combines dance styles such as voguing and dancehall in her feel good circus routines. Symoné will be working on the creation of her new show Cult Mentality whilst in residence at Crystalz Tavern.

Ebony Rose Dark is your all singing/lip syncing all dancing, Story Telling, V.I.P/Visually Impaired cabaret artist. A feisty Birmingham Lass who is  “challenging the seeing eye” through cabaret. Taking to the stage in drag, Ebony Rose Dark’s performances explore disability within the LGBT+ communities.

XANA – a maverick musician, modular synthesist, poet and sound designer who will be working on their upcoming  show Swallowing Your Idols a series of episodes about returning to your childhood and how connecting with your younger self gives you the forgiveness you seek in your adulthood. The show explores accountability of childhood trauma and the coping mechanisms we develop in order to live in rage and love.

Lasana Shabazz is a multidisciplinary performance artist who has performed across the UK and all over the globe. A regular at the ground breaking Cocoa Butter Club, and frequent host of Batty Mama, we warn you now to be prepared for loud, colourful and conversation starting performances that will always leave you wanting more.

Astrothot is an Interdisciplinary Live artist and Producer from Birmingham whose artistic practice spans theatre, performance, dance, installation and AV.  Their work is autobiographical and socially conscious, rooted in their lived experience as working class, neurodivergent working class and queer human. They make work as resistance and for survival.

The show is an Afro-Futuristic speakeasy with a crystalline cavern meets old-world tavern vibe featuring a cornucopia of cabaret, performance art, video installations,  DJs, Drag and of course crystal themed cocktails.

Crystalz Tavern creates space for the multiplicities that inhabit it, a simultaneously chilled and vibrant space that centres the voices of QTIPOC (Queer/Trans/Intersex People of Colour).

Crystalz Tavern is conceived, curated and compeered by co-director of The Marlborough Theatre, Tarik Elmoutawakil, who has been making waves in Brighton Festival 2018 with his afro futuristic, space-church themed performance party Brownton Abbey (touring 2019).


Event: Crystalz Tavern by Brownton Abbey

Where: Marlborough Theatre, Princess Street, Brighton

When: May 25, 26, 30, 31,

Time: 7.30pm-9pm with Crystal Disco lasting until 11pm.

Cost: £5-£10

To book tickets online, click here:

Lord Cashman to launch UK’s first LGBT+ Business and Media Centre

A FOUNDER of the UK’s largest national LGBT+ charity and member of the House of Lords heads to the North East later this month to open a trailblazing media centre.

STONEHILLS, at Shields Road, Pelaw has been given new life to become the Pride Media Centre, the UK’s first LGBT+ business and media hub.

And The Rt Hon. The Lord Michael Cashman CBE, one of the founding members of Stonewall and a patron of both LGBT Labour and London-based HIV charity, The Food Chain, will open the building at the official launch on Friday, May 31.

The LGBT+ activist made history in 1987, taking part in the first gay kiss on mainstream British television in his role as Colin Russell on EastEnders.

He will be joined by representatives from Gateshead Council, which has supported the creation of the complex.

A number of businesses have set up in the centre’s 16 offices, including not-for-profit organisation, Pride Community Network, North East station, Pride Radio 89.2 fm and Pride World Radio, which broadcasts online to around 125 countries.

Lord Cashman
Lord Cashman

Lord Cashman said: “30 years after a small group of us came together to found the Stonewall group to fight for legal equality and social justice for LGBT people I couldn’t be prouder than to be using a pair of scissors, not to cut up hate mail, but to cut the ribbon and open this brilliant, innovative, and welcoming Pride Media Centre.”

The hub will also be the home of newly launched online television station, Out and Proud TV, and it will provide a range of support and opportunities to the LGBT+ communities and their allies, including outreach programmes designed to reach isolated members of LGBT+ communities.

Peter Darrant
Peter Darrant

Peter Darrant, of Pride World Media, a multi-channel LGBT broadcaster which includes Pride Radio and Pride World Radio, said: “We are delighted to welcome Lord Michael Cashman to launch the Pride Media Centre, which is the first of its kind in the UK.

“So much hard work, time and effort has gone into this project and it’s so rewarding to see it all pay off.

“The complex has become a home to a diverse range of businesses and this means it is able to offer a far-reaching set of services and opportunities that will make a real difference for the LGBT+ community and its allies.”

Kim and Captain Cockroach raise funds for LGBT Community Safety Forum

Popular couple raise £650 for Brighton & Hove LGBT Community Safety Forum.

KIM and Graham Hobson, known to many as Captain Cockroach, celebrated their silver wedding anniversary, Graham’s 60th birthday and their company’s 25th birthday at a very special evening at the Queens Hotel on Saturday, May 4.

Entertainment was provided by Kara Van Park and Jason Lee as well as many scene personalities present including Jason Sutton, Davina Sparkle and David Raven who all made contributions to the evenings fun.
Rather than receive gifts, Kim and Graham asked for donations to be made to the Brighton & Hove LGBT Community Safety Forum.
Pictured:  Kim is presented with a certificate of thanks from Safety Forum volunteer, Louise Whittingham for the £650 raised on the night.
Billie Lewis Volunteer Chair of the Brighton and Hove LGBT Community Safety Forum said: “Kim, Graham and their family are genuinely compassionate and supportive of the communities they live in. We are truly grateful for the support they continue to give the Forum.”
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