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Out to Swim South – in the medals at Eastbourne

Eight Out To Swim South (OTSS) swimmers competed at Eastbourne in their annual Masters event, and came away with 12 medals in their first team event together.

Out To Swim

EVEN though some of the swimmers were competing for the first time, they achieved some great results.

The total medal haul was 5 golds, 3 silver and 4 bronze, an excellent start to the season. More events are planned later in the year.

A masters swim meet is open to swimmers over 25 years old. Swimmers compete against others in their own age group (25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-45, etc).

OTSS is a group of gay and gay friendly swimmers of all ages and they always welcome new members.

Sessions are held 3 times a week and cater for those who are starting out and gaining confidence with coaching available to improve their technique to those who enjoy competition, including triathletes.

If you fancy dipping your toes in the water, check out the timetable and click here: 

The first session is free and they don’t just swim. Social events are also held giving everyone a great chance to socialise.

REVIEW: Pink Fringe: Wolf Meat

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REVIEW: Wolf Meat

Pink Fringe at Marlborough Theatre

From the same group – Wildheart & Lyric  that brought us ‘told by an idiot’ last year this new outing Wolf Meat has  a plot very loosely based on the tale of Red Riding Hood but based in a geriatric drug factory in a Croydon Council estate. This glamourized the world of drugs, porn and violence to the extreme, adding in incest, child slavery, torture, stupidity and evil manipulation all wrapped up in a hair net, nice woolly cardigan and smelling faintly or perm lotion.

Using physical comedy, audience interaction and live music, Wolf Meat subverts well-known characters & turns morals on their heads in this sexy, raucous, urban thriller. Directed by the internationally acclaimed Mick Barnfather.

View the trailer here:

Some of the improvisation was just daft but endearingly so and the audience fully trusting the performers were up for anything, re-running scenes three times to get them right, characters complaining about the wrong ending, and lots of exploding of cinematic and televisual pretentions this was a meta media piss up and a down in the hood deconstruction.

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So cool it was uncool and not scared of letting the laughs dictate the pace of action this troupe of talented folk seemed to be having as much fun as the audience and it was difficult to tell what was designed in as fun and what happened by chance and was quickly woven in, although I suspect the tough as old police boots MI5 dyke being hit in the face by a suddenly exposed and bouncing cock was not entirely scripted, very funny none the less. With some tongue in cheek cinematic references from Saw and True Romance and a nice Tarentino ending of meta deconstructive fourth wall breaching orgiastic fun this was as seriously funny and wonderful funny tightly written and brilliantly acted hour of Fringe perfection.

There were a lot of sight gags and some stuff I missed I felt like I’d like to watch the show again to catch all the bits I missed, the music was top form too with funny jingles and songs threaded throughout the performance.

If you can get a ticket, get one, if not shag the bar/door/cast/cleaner to get standing room at the back.

For more info or to book tickets, click here: 

You can also buy last minute tickets on the door (if you are very, very lucky or fit) from the Cardboard Box Office at the Marlborough Theatre.

Kemptown MP promoted in reshuffle

Simon Kirby, the MP for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven, has been promoted in the recent reshuffle, becoming a Government whip.

SImon Kirby: MP for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven
SImon Kirby: MP for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven

THE announcement was made last night as Prime Minister, David Cameron finalised the line up of his ministerial team after last Thursday’s (May 7) general election.

Mr Kirby will become assistant Government whip with responsibility for helping ensure that Government policies pass into law.

Mr Kirby said, “The job will involve significant responsibility for getting Government business through the House of Commons as we seek to implement the Conservative manifesto in full.

“Winning a majority at the general election was a significant achievement. But it is a narrow majority and the new Conservative government is committed to working hard to make the changes we need to keep our economy growing, create more jobs, improve our schools, protect our NHS and upgrade our transport network.

“I will always remain a strong voice for our area and I’m excited to be tasked with playing a key part in delivering these initiatives on behalf of the people of Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven who will always come first.”

Mr Kirby, was previously Parliamentary Private Secretary for the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt. He retained his seat at the recent general election with a majority of 690.  This increased his vote share by 2.7% on the 201o general election.

OPERA REVIEW: The Pirates of Penzance: ENO

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REVIEW: The Pirates of Penzance

Gilbert & Sullivan at ENO

Mike Leigh’s swashbuckling new production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance at the English National Opera is stuffed full with sentimental pirates, blundering policeman, absurd adventures and improbable paradoxes, The Pirates of Penzance is Gilbert and Sullivan’s most popular comic opera.

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This highly anticipated swashbuckling farce with its new staging is directed by Mike (I’ll never direct an opera) Leigh, who made his operatic debut this evening. I liked his version, all geometric sets and ultra-simplistic colours from Alison Chitty, they worked well, softly gliding and sliding into and out of view giving a feeling of constant change while actually being severely minimalistic. The costumes were in period and silly enough to bring smiles while maintaining the sense of propriety and dignity that is the fulcrum for a good Victorian joke.

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Claudia Boyle as Mabel was superb, utterly effortless with her high notes and her voice as light and airy as her attitude, simply delightful! Joshua Bloom’s Pirates king was fun and enthusiastic and his thick sonorous voice wrapped itself around the slippery libretto with gusto, Andrew Shore’s Major General was oddly lacking in the great pretentious majesty that the role needs and was not utterly convincing with his patter song. Jonathan Lemalu’s Sergeant of Police  was wonderful, all timid bombast and his voice a pleasure as it rolled around the cavernous auditorium and Rebecca de Pont Davies’s daft Cornish Ruth was simple perfection with a hearty dose of cougar .

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The chorus were, as usual, simply great and seemed to be having a great amount of fun with the silly, simple but effective choreography which brought attention to the geometrical and intricacies of the musical composition in a way I’ve not noticed before.  It was visually very interesting to see the singer and the music given such a literal choreography and once I realised what was going on was fascinated. Choreographer Francesca Jaynes deserves a pat on the back for this apparently simple but actually incredibly detailed dancing and movements. Lovely to watch.

View the trailer here:

It’s slightly sad that more than a hundred years on the jokes at the expense of the slavish response to entitlement and royalty sill get big knowing laughs from the British folk in the audience, one suspects this is Leigh rolling back the camp enough so we can see Gilberts original target.  However, this was a fun and witty evening, done with care and consideration but still allowing the sophisticated absurdity and mocking anti jingoistic heart of this operetta.

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Conductor David Parry gave a real sheen to the music but it seemed to lack an essential oomph or energy and perhaps this is because I’ve only ever seen Pirates done heavy on the camp, seriously overdone on the pomp and this carefully restored version may well have lost the accretions of expectation and Monty Pythonesque performance that have gathered onto it over the years, allowing the clever melody and sophisticated parodies to shine through in a much warmer and softer way.  Pirate’s music at its best is the equal of the great operas that are being lampooned here and Parry’s careful conducting gives us plenty of emotional space to appreciate the music without being overcome by the bombastic clichés.

Warm enough to please the fans clean enough to please the critics and fresh enough to draw in a new curious crowd. Leigh gave this the feel of an old musty hideously painted chest inherited from a maiden aunt; then when stripped of twelve layers of paint and varnish shows a simple wonderful piece of authentic parlour furniture underneath, rich with polished grain, unsuspected detail and serious craftsmanship.

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This is the first time I’ve every truly enjoyed a Gilbert and Sullivan Operetta, but like the rest of the enthusiastic audience I left the ENO humming it into the night.

Live at the London Coliseum until July 4, 2015 and at your local cinema on Tuesday May 19.

For more info or to book tickets, click here:

The Pirates of Penzance is sung and surtitle in English | Running time: 2hrs 20mins

Signed performance Friday, June 5.

London Coliseum

St Martins Lane

London

 

 

 

 

REVIEW: Fringe: Stalin’s Daughter at the Rialto

Stalin's DaughterIn Stalin’s Daughter, David Lane’s powerful and disturbing monologue presents us with a haunting psychological examination of the later life of Joseph Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva.

Uprooted and transient after her defection to the United States three decades earlier, the story opens with Svetlana arriving by taxi in Clifton, a quaint neighbourhood of Bristol. As the taxi pulls away, Svetlana’s wide, slightly teary eyes convey an unsettling mixture of hope and anxiety as she looks to establish another new life in yet another new country.

Now in her 60’s, Svetlana rents a dingy flat and re-invents herself as Miss Phyllis Richards.  Longing to be integrated into her new community, we see her tentatively flirting with the local greengrocer, on whom she has a crush, and dancing at the Women’s Institute.

But hiding her true identity means that Svetlana is always ‘observing not participating’.

Her recollections are at times bitter-sweet and convey a nostalgic yearning for the mother country she has chosen to turn her back on. But more harrowingly, her attempts to move on as Phyllis and other subsequent identities are constantly thwarted by the terrifying childhood memories which pervade her everyday life.  These ‘poison memories’ are personified by the disturbingly ever-present Leika, an imaginary playmate once invented by Svetlana’s tyrannical father to keep his daughter in her place.

At the centre of all this, Kirsty Cox is powerful, convincing and moving as Svetlana, finely portraying the inner turmoil of the daughter desperately wanting to live an ordinary, unfettered life in the present but forever shackled by the ghosts of an extraordinary past.

Much praise also goes to David Lane’s relentlessly rhythmic, wonderfully poetic text, which Cox delivers uninterrupted for a full seventy minutes – a remarkable achievement in itself.

Rialto, Dyke Road until May 17.

The Sheila McWattie Women’s Performance Stage – call for performers at Brighton Pride

Singer songwriter Nicky Mitchell, performance poet, stand up and MC Annabel Pribelszki and the Charity Cabaret team will be hosting the Sheila McWattie Women’s Performance Stage at this year’s Brighton Pride Festival in Preston Park.

Sheila McWattie
Sheila McWattie

THE Sheila McWattie Women’s Performance Stage will showcase the brightest and best women performers from both Brighton and further afield; with a day of spoken word, stand up comedy, cabaret and a wide variety of musical entertainment.

A platform for (self identified) women performers, within a safe and supportive performance environment, the Sheila McWattie Women’s Performance Stage, will be located just north of the community area, is an oasis amongst the trees, away from the thumping bass lines of the dance tents.

Everyone is welcome; it’s not a women only space. The acts will be (self identified) women, but not necessarily LGBT+ making the Sheila McWattie Women’s Performance Stage a welcoming and creative space to chill, relax, meet friends and be entertained.

The Women’s Performance stage this year has been named after Sheila McWattie, a journalist and proud supporter of the Brighton Women‘s Centre who helped organise the Women’s Performance Tent at Brighton Pride before her death earlier this year. Naming the tent after her acknowledges the fight she had over the years, along with other women activists, to ensure that women performers had a space to showcase their talents at Preston Park each year during Brighton Pride.

Nicky Mitchell
Nicky Mitchell

Nicky Mitchell, who worked on many Pride events with Sheila, said: “Sheila was a fearless, community champion and believed that women deserved a space to perform at pride.

“She then set about making sure they got it and brought high standards to the event. These high standards, which she relentlessly administered year on year, ever improving, benefitted and blessed so many women performers, volunteers and members of the community.

“It’s fantastic that Pride are bringing back the women’s area and it’s a lovely and fitting tribute that the space will be named in her honour. Sheila McWattie. Thank you.” 

In order to ensure that Pride are able to represent as many of the diverse (self identified) women performers this year, Brighton Pride invite you to apply to perform on the Sheila McWattie Women’s Performance Stage at Brighton Pride 2015.

Applications are welcome from any performance genre, the more creative the better!

Spoken word, comedy, cabaret, and musicians, whatever your performance skill, Nicky Mitchell, Annabel Pribelszki and the Charity Cabaret team would love to hear from you.

If you are interested in performing on the Sheila McWattie Women’s Performance Stage, click here:

Deadline for applications is Sunday, May 24 2015.

Charity Cabaret, through their promotion of acts, provide a platform for women performers and have run successful fundraisers for Brighton Women’s Centre, RISE and Brighton and Hove LGBT Switchboard.


Event: Pride Brighton & Hove 2015

Where: Pride Festival Preston Park. Preston Road, Brighton

When: Saturday, August 1

Time: 12noon – 10pm

Tickets: Early Birds and £16.00 first release Sold Out. £18.50 Second release now available.
Then £21.00/ £25 on the day.

To purchase tickets online, click here:

London Taxi gears up to celebrate diversity

A black cab has become the latest London icon to be decorated in rainbow livery to mark International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT), on Sunday, May 17.

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THE cab, which is London’s first rainbow taxi in service, has been wrapped as part of the 11th anniversary of IDAHOBIT, a day that aims to raise awareness of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) rights worldwide.

The wrap is part of a partnership between Transport for London (TfL), Ubiquitous, the company responsible for advertising on taxis and cab driver, Ian Beetlestone. The rainbow taxi will be in service from Thursday 14 May.

The taxi will join TfL’s rainbow bus, which operates on Route 8, as another symbol of London being one of the most diverse cities in the world. They will both take part in this year’s Pride in London parade on 27 June as part of TfL’s entry.

The rainbow taxi and bus also mark the 10th anniversary of TfL’s LGBT staff network group, OUTbound. Over the last decade, the group has made a significant contribution to championing LGBT policies, for both staff and customers.

Martyn Loukes, Chair of TfL’s LGBT staff network group OUTbound, said: “We are incredibly proud to have helped bring London’s first rainbow taxi in service to the Capital’s roads, joining our fabulous rainbow Routemaster which has proved a huge hit with our customers. Having a traditional black cab, which is famous all over the world, wrapped in a rainbow flag shows what a truly diverse city we are.”

The idea for London’s first rainbow taxi came from Ian Beetlestone, a 36 year old gay London cabbie who lives in Islington and is originally from Holmfirth, West Yorkshire.

Ian approached TfL to join the Pride in London Parade this year and OUTbound were able to make his vision of a rainbow cab a reality with the help of Ubiquitous.

Ian Beetlestone said: “Gay cabbies are like gay footballers – you know statistically there must be some but you rarely hear about them. I wanted to stand up and be counted. I’ve dreamed about driving a rainbow cab and am thrilled to have made this dream a reality with the help of TfL and Ubiquitous.

“As we mark International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia this Sunday, I want everyone to know they are welcome to hail a ride in our iconic, beautiful vehicle.”

Steve McNamara, LTDA General Secretary, said: “This project further strengthens the bond between London’s LGBT community and the taxi trade. It is wonderful that an iconic taxi is being specially wrapped to celebrate IDAHOT.”

Ubiquitous has sponsored the entire wrap for the taxi which also includes information for passengers about how they can report homophobic and transphobic crime on the taxi’s tip seats.

Passengers can report the crimes at www.report-it.org.uk or by tapping their smart phone against the NFC stickers in the cab.

Brighton & Hove ‘Food and Drink Festival’ – Sussex and the World Weekend

Brighton’s Food Festival Team have 12 days of events at the end of May.

Brighton and Hove Food and Drink Festival

Centre piece will be the huge seafront Sussex & The World Weekend on Saturday 30 and Sunday, May 31 which this year includes the Live Food Show, Brighton Beer & Cider Festival, Rockinghorse Children’s Food Festival, Brighton Wine Festival, a host of English Wine Week activities and masterclasses, and a craft furniture installation created by Yelo Architects and FareShare Brighton & Hove using food packaging waste.

Festival Director Nick Mosley, said: “Our city’s and county’s growing reputation as one of the UK’s leading food and drink destinations and producers has made the festival team radically revisit our programme of events”,

“This year – with the generous support of our sponsors and supporters – we’re spreading the festival over four main periods to create a platform to showcase the brilliant food, drink and hospitality offering, whilst nurturing the many small and independent restaurants, bars, retailers and producers we enjoy in Brighton and Sussex. We’re also running events later in the year – including a further Sussex & The World Weekend over the August Bank Holiday and a new Big Sussex Christmas Market on December 5-6.”

Surrounding the free-to-enter weekend events, there is an extensive programme of tours, trails, tastings and themed dinners.

Brighton and Hove Food and Drink Festival

Highlights include: The Set Pop Up at the Sea Life Brighton aquarium, A Taste of Guernsey supper club with Cantina, Food Lab featuring seven chefs and producers at 64 Degrees, The Three Chefs go to the Movies at Curry Leaf Café, food trails of The Laines and Kemp Town, a beer & cheese matching dinner with Harveys brewery and La Cave à Fromage at Jeremy’s Restaurant, and two International Chef Exchange dinners at Terre à Terre and Drakes with guests chefs from Vancouver and Saint Lucia respectively.

Nick continued: “Whilst the local food economy is always close to our hearts, our international partnerships are becoming an increasingly strong strand of the festival’s offering. Through our International Chef Exchange initiative, we’ve grown strong reciprocal arrangements with hospitality and tourism businesses across the globe with our Spring Harvest alone seeing friends from Vancouver in western Canada, Saint Lucia in the Caribbean, Läckö Kinnekulle in Sweden, and the beautiful Channel Island of Guernsey participate in our events whilst we participate in theirs, promoting the gastronomic offering of our region. It’s exciting for the festival team and our colleagues in the food and drink industry that some of these partnerships are now leading on to joint European Union projects.”

The festival organisation also hosts a year-round programme Sussex Wine and Gourmet Bus Tours, taking consumers behind-the-scenes at vineyards, breweries, cider makers, cheese producers, rare breed farmers, deer parks, chocolatiers and many other quality artisan producers in the county.

For further details of all free entry and ticketed events, click here:

Brighton & Hove Food & Drink Festival

 

Health promotion policies failing within the workplace

New report identifies levels of activity rarely achieved in busy workplace environment.

ESCEVEN a busy job may not provide enough exercise to meet current activity recommendations for the prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD), according to a study reported today at the EuroPRevent congress in Lisbon.

Dr Eleanor McIntyre from the Galway University Hospital in Ireland said: “the workplace – where most adults spend around 60% of their waking hours represents a significant domain where short bouts of physical activity can be accrued and counted towards the recommended guidelines CVD prevention”.

However, results from this small study, which assessed the activity levels of all employees in an inevitably busy hospital, suggest that sedentary behaviour is still prevalent, with levels of physical activity insufficient to reduce CVD risk.

The study examined the activity patterns of 83 employees working in six occupational groups at the Galway University Hospital during a typical working week. Everyone wore a pedometer to record each step taken and energy expenditure was assessed according to the International Physical Activity Questionnaire.

Analysis of these IPAQ-SF data classified participants into three standard activity intensity levels: low, moderate and high.

• High levels, defined as the threshold for achieving maximal health gains, were achieved by 53% of participants during their working day.

• Moderate levels, the minimum level required for health gains, were achieved by 29% of participants.

• Low levels were observed by 18% of participants. Pharmacists (75%) and nurses (67%) were in the highest activity category.

However, when data from pedometers was compared with these IPAQ results, it was found that only 6% of the study subjects reached the recommended levels of 10,000 steps per day during working hours, while 30% were described with concern as “sedentary” (achieving less than 5000 steps per day).

Overall, employees took a medium number of 6205 steps per day, which varied considerably between occupation groups, with interns and nurses classified as the most active groups in terms of steps per day.

As a group, secretaries walked the fewest steps per day (4103) and sat for most minutes a week (1800).

Dr McIntyre added that further analysis of IPAQ and pedometer data revealed that only half the employees reached levels of activity consistent with national guidelines, which, as set out by Ireland’s Campaign for Fighting Heart Disease & Stroke and in line with most other countries, aim for a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic activity per week.

Although national physical activity guidelines were met by 47% of the secretaries, as a group they walked the least number of steps per day and sat for most minutes per week.

Dr McIntyre, said: “This is an important and often overlooked ambiguity between sedentary behaviour and physical activity.”

Even though around two-thirds of the employees were aware of the national prevention guidelines for physical activity, the investigators concluded that health promotion policies were not sufficiently applied within the workplace.

Dr McIntyre, continued: “Promoting the concept that short bouts of physical activity can be accrued during working hours rather than considered solely a leisure time activity seems a realistic approach to reducing CVD risk.”

She explained that 6000-7000 steps per day appears to constitute a healthy adult’s normal day, excluding planned exercise. However, even those participants who did walk around 6000 steps per day (45% of the total) would not achieve the recommended daily step target of 10,000, despite the addition of 30 minutes moderate activity after work.

Dr McIntyre concluded saying: “Increasing demands on personal time can limit the amount of physical activity achieved outside of working hours, and the workplace remains an environment in which short bouts of exercise can result in modest health gains at the population level.”

“Promoting regular breaks from sedentary behaviour and sitting times also seems a realistic approach to reducing CVD risk in those employed in sedentary jobs.” 

Guidelines – including those in Ireland – recommend a 30 minute brisk walk five days per week, tips for greater activity at work include using the stairs instead of the elevator, getting off the bus one or two stops earlier, parking the car at the far end of the car park – and that any activity which leaves you warm and slightly out of breath is good.

 

 

Research reveals many admit to being drunk or high at work

WEB.600.5A survey carried out for a national health and safety law consultancy claims that significant numbers of workers are under the influence of drugs and alcohol while at work.

NEARLY a third of workers questioned admitted using drugs at work, while 85% said they’d been drunk when on duty.

Protecting.co.uk surveyed over 2,600 workers in office, factory, retail and the public sector, and found:

•       28% admitted using drugs at work, including so-called ‘legal highs’, cannabis and other illegal narcotics.

•       5% of factory workers said they had used machinery after using drugs.

•       85% admitted to being drunk at work in the last year.

•       31% admitted to being drunk at work, or having their capacity to work significantly diminished through alcohol at least once per week.

•       14% of factory workers said they would drink alcohol at lunchtime and then operate machinery in the afternoon.

The survey found that office workers were more likely to be drunk at work, while those working in retail or public-facing jobs were more likely to be sober.

Of 40 people who listed their jobs as driver, none said they drank or took drugs at work

According to the survey’s commissioners, the lunchtime drinking session has never gone away, costing British companies millions of pounds per year in lost productivity, with workers often defying company rules as well as health and safety regulations.

The research also shows that the majority of those who admitted taking drugs at work thought the practice was “harmless” and no different from smoking a cigarette. Some said they took drugs to relieve the tension of working all day, while others blamed boredom, saying it helped the day to go faster.

Protecting.co.uk says that drug-taking at work is a growing factor in workplace accidents, contributing to injuries, compensation claims and loss of production.  Age also appears to be a factor, with 90% of those who admitted to using drugs being under 30 years old.

But the survey shows that it’s still the lunch-time pint-or-three that remains one of the biggest causes of UK workplace accidents, with regular drinkers thinking they can handle their liquid lunch while in reality their speed and quality of work deteriorates after they’ve had a drink. In worse case scenarios, accidents caused by alcohol can be cited as factors in numerous cases of injury or even death.

Protecting.co.uk spokesperson Mark Hall, says: “bosses need to be clear with their employees that drug use and drunkenness are unacceptable at work, and need to be seen to be enforcing their policies.

“This doesn’t mean a stream of sackings (though) that’s one of the options on the table.

“Business owners should also be able to offer assistance to problem drinkers and drug users – perfectly good workers should be helped back to an even keel.”

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