I drove over to Brighton today to have lunch with Karin and Damien, and Kathy and Graham. Brighton has a reputation of being one of the worst places in Britain to find a parking spot, so I parked near a sports stadium on the north side of the city and took a bus into the centre. I was a little late for lunch because our bus got held up in a traffic jam caused by a couple of hundred cyclists riding naked through the city centre. I’d heard that Brighton was home to some strange people, but this was the first time that I had come across people riding starkers.

Some of them had briefs or bikinis on, but most were completely naked. I didn’t get a good view from my bus (the picture below was taken from a distance through the bus window with my BlackBerry – hence the rather poor technical quality) but Karin who had a closer view told me that some of them didn’t have bodies that ought to be seen in public.


I have no idea why they were riding naked – perhaps it was a charity bike ride or maybe they were just protesting about something. It was a sunny day but not that warm – evidenced by the fact that most of the people on the beach had all their clothes on – so I guess the bike riders would have found it a bit chilly between their legs.


I noticed one couple completely wrapped up in a blanket on the beach. The blanket was moving gently from side to side, but I decided not to go too close to see what they were doing.


We had a relaxing lunch next to the beach near the carousel, and were well looked after by an attractive Polish waitress who reminded me of a girlfriend that I once had in Sopot. (I should have taken a picture of her but then Karin might have reported me).

Whilst relaxing over our drinks after lunch, I noticed quite a lot of the people in the crowd walking past were wearing outfits that have no colour in them – just black, white and grey (for example, see the girls walking past the carousel in the picture below – none of them are wearing anything with any colour). Is that the latest fashion in the UK?


After lunch we met up with one of Kathy’s friends – a fortune teller – on the other side of the pier and I spent a few minutes browsing some of the souvenir shops nearby. I noticed they were selling car stickers that probably would be banned in most Asian countries:


After that we strolled up to the Lanes, which is Brighton’s historic quarter, and found a few more strange people there (strange at least in terms of what they were wearing):



I spotted these four strange looking people at the top of the Lanes:


They were all smiling at me. I wonder who they are.