BOURNEMOUTH - LAND OF THE OLD PEOPLE, THE RICH AND THE POOR, BUT ITS NOT SO BAD

BOURNEMOUTH

Fade up: Darkness lit by glaring sodium lights. A bleak industrial estate, cracked tarmac and neglected warehouses, the stricken skeletal arms of electricity pylons reaching up miserably into the hopeless night sky

So far, so Premier Inn.

What, as my daughter would say when confronted with my cooking, is good about this?

Quite a lot, really.

Morning brings the usual chaos of breakfast, with hotel staff springy with amphetamine alertness and usual clientelle; people who drive ten miles an hour under the speed limit in the fast lane. But despite this, and despite my cauterised nostrils, I am cheered by the smell of salty briny sea air on a fresh clean breeze. There is a lovely long beach, and views and views.

When I was last filming here I was jeered by fishing-rod-weilding youths stripped to the waist, the acned Sparta of Britain's recent impoverishment. Like everywhere in Britain, Bournemouth is the two nations, the rich and the poor.

And old people. Maybe that's why they call it the Jurassic Coast. Lots of old people. Old people holding up queues with their flailing dodderiness, their inept cheerfulness, their bumping into each other and failing to operate coffee machines, child locks, the contents of their purses, their facial expressions. Bournemouth is not a place to rush about.

Despite being old, these old people all wear hiking gear or that dreadful sportswear you all like. Life is ghastly and cruel - why do you want to extend it?

Note to self, screaming this at people is not a good look.

Being an old people myself, despite being in a crumpled black suit, I of course otherwise fitted right in.

You can't drive to Old Harry Rocks, you have to WALK A MILE on a coastal path. I want to be grumpy about this, but of course it is gorgeous; sea and fields and cows and all that. I pass a dog walker with a cheery "Morning". Mmm, she replies unenthusiastically - a fat boa constrictor of turd hangs from her dogs behind. What is it with humans whereby they yearn for a child or a pet and then moan constantly about them?

Despite the Queen's death, people were not lying around in darkened rooms crying, but jauntily buzzing about clogging the roads, particularly the M3 at Southampton, whence understandably EVERYONE is trying to escape.

Anyway, the cliffs are white, the sand is golden, the sea is blue, the air is clean, Dorset is just beginning, and it is lovely. Given the state of the nation, 9 out of 10.

adam rowleyJanuary 26, 2023Comment

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The short answer is of course some people can do both. The challenge is finding someone who is genuinely good at both, which is not as easy as it sounds. There are plenty of great photographers out there who can’t really shoot video. There are some good videographers out there, though they are no nearly so easy to find, and some of them are competent photographers too.

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WHY EITHER EVERYONE OR NO ONE NEEDS TO WORRY ABOUT AI

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This is where I’d like to reassure you that climate change ravaging the planet and making the lives of those few who survive the catastrophic flooding, wild fires and raging hurricanes that are predicted absolute hell.

BOURNEMOUTH - LAND OF THE OLD PEOPLE, THE RICH AND THE POOR, BUT ITS NOT SO BAD

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