I am embracing the calming, sedentary lapping of the ocean waters and studying my shadow down by the Hove seafront. It is growing longer in the fading of the light. ‘To Zion’ by Lauren Hill is crackling and fizzing on my headphones, and like a wonky Bluetooth digital ariel, I can only make out the tune when I face out to sea and the windfarms.
Hill is lyricising about her first born, her male heir, recounting the tale of how back in the day, a vision of an angel had prophesised unto her a man child would be born. And I wonder about this strange hallucination, and how to some it might represent concrete proof of a higher power, to others a touch of dizzying psychosis. Either way, I muse the message of the song is like Marmite to the masses and classes.
A skinny waif of a young girl is dragging her mum along the pebbled fringes of the shoreline, as the water laps at their feet. The seagulls swoop down for bait worms in the shallows. The low-lying sun streams through a hole in the clouds. Turning off the tunes, I trudge up the pebbled beach slope in search of a pint.
The seaside faring crowds, taking a collective squint in the dying sun, fresh out of Lockdown, gather in numbers on a giant wooden terrace outside the colossal Hove ultra-bar.
The Lockdown shackles are off. A frenzied social pilgrimage underway – to meet, drink and get mashed-up – on the chilly restaurant terraces, in the wind-swept beer gardens, and wide-open parkland spaces. And so, its out into the Great Outdoors, in this new George Orwellian reordering of society, with new rules, new etiquettes and new technology.
Pew pulled up on the ultra-bar terrace, tenner in hand, I am digitally schooled by a young waitress – decked out in an immaculate branded puffer jacket – to order via the App. No loose change or dirty cash here. Just barcodes, mobile phones, and contact-free cards.
No till kerching, just a digital bleep of the card machine.
Nursing my premium headed lager, amongst the smiling unmasked faces, I breath in the newfound freedom. Of pedestrian crowds ordering beers and bites at inflated Viral prices under the watchful eyes of the Covid security and omnipresent CCTV.
Swigging back my premium pint I wonder how collectively we have missed the simple pleasures of a pint, piece of peace, and pedestrian sport of people grazing.
I check out the joggers – running in solo, tandem or trios – decked out in lycra for days, working off the Lockdown bellies, springy buttocks, and wobbly bits. I entertain myself with a designer pug retrieving tennis balls and gnashing at a giant Alsatian. And watch the young star-crossed lovers’ breeze down the promenade, as a pissed-up homeless rogue vomits down the side of a pastel-coloured beach hut.
And draining the dregs of premium lager from the plastic pint destined for landfill – making tracks homeward now – it occurs the collective social frenzy of today, is just the tip of the ice cube in the G&T of tomorrow.
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