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Living in Brighton, you see the ugly side of the city. You see shower walls covered with black mould, entire houses that stink of mephedrone filled with university dropouts, pushing 30, sweating from their eyes and staring into nothing. Windows are filled with black and white portraits of dead relatives, mangy dogs gnaw chicken bones on the piss-rinsed curbs. But within the chaos, there's a kind of happiness.Perhaps it's the claustrophobia. Central Brighton lies in a valley between two hills, geographically oppressed and protected from the rest of the country at the same time. It makes you feel safe.I do sympathise with the Brighton's critics – and there are lots of them. To an outsider, I guess it looks like a holier-than-thou enclave of runaways from reality, deluded in a faux-trendy utopia with a shitty beach and thieving seagulls. Brighton's not the cultural capital of the country, as some of its more vocal residents would have you believe. It's not some progressive haven where peace and love prevail over the evils of neoliberalism, homophobia and urban decay. Those things still happen here – if perhaps a little less than in other places, thanks to the rampant activism of many residents. Many of those activists might be dreadlocked white guys, but they routinely give parading racists a right fucking kicking, and I'm OK with that.TRENDING ON THUMP: Defending the Indefensible – I Love Crusties, Electronic Music's Most Maligned Subculture
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