HOTDOG - Hastings Old Town Daily Observation Guide

East Sussex County Council have entered into the spirit of the Coastal Currents creative festival by erecting their own sculpture on the Old Town seafront.

The large work entitled ‘Parking Bays Shut’ appeared this week much to the delight of the creatives and art lovers of the Old Town and did what all art should do, prompt heated debate over its merits, perceived beauty and meaning in the chaotic world we find ourselves in during these modern times.

Philanthropist Jaquelle Diamonte-Briars, recently arrived from Bromley, was gushing over the installation. ‘It’s simply marvellous, a real triumph of vision and substance. The colours, the size, the pure ingenuity of the ingenuity whole piece is breath-taking. It puts all the other displays in the area to shame.’

Resident ESCC artists Dave Shovel and Rob Diggit were very proud of their achievement. ‘Well the boss said ‘Go and put those barriers up lads, we are digging up the road’ so we did it and then went to the pub for a few Stellas and shots. The next day our Snapchat was on fire with our work. We can’t wait to be exhibited at the Tate or something’

Patrick Shazelong a pop-up critic from Lambeth was unsure if the work would be appreciated locally. ‘When you place an original but controversial piece like this amongst the proles, they are unlikely to command the intellect to understand it. That’s why I moved here. To educate the local plebeian populous of Hastings who still think art is the picture of a tennis player scratching their bum. Without the London influence this place would be a cultural backwater.’

True local Bob Fisher seemed confused, ‘I thought they were just digging up the pavement. Mind you with some of the stuff that pops up round here called art nothing surprises me anymore. Just look at the scaffolding and plaster thing on the beach!’

With the last glow of the warmth of summer retreating into the distance the reality of residing in the Old Town has come home to roost with a lot of it’s newer residents.

The move to Hastings, suggested by a glossy Sunday supplement in three and a half paragraphs, was supposed to be all marshmallows and fairy dust. Unfortunately the cruel truth has been unveiled and that gloss has been stripped back.

Olivia Mountjoy of Beckenham who arrived in June was shocked at the stark contrast. ‘When I arrived the sun was shining, the seagulls singing their sweet lullaby and it would seem as though the days of pottering around pop up galleries, nik-nak shops and coffee cum bookshops would never end. I moved here for the vibrant culture and the creative vibe that had been laid down by my forebears from Bromley and for a while it was all rosy. Now, however, I realise that all this creativity and off the wall culture is rather noisy and disrupts my quiet lifestyle so I’ve had to get several by laws passed by the council to stop all that nonsense. People should only be allowed to enjoy themselves when I want them to.’ 

Atlas Sammardins was very disappointed with his move from Dulwich. ‘I was promised a land of artistic milk and honey. Instead the Jerwood is no longer the Jerwood, they haven’t built the marina and I can’t buy a fishing hut to renovate into a boutique Air BnB and paint it in eggshell pink. They don’t even collect your Christmas trees. It’s an outrage’

The building of a ferris wheel in Hastings Old Town has go the locals whipped up into a frenzy of excitement.

The wheel, which started to appear on the Stade recently, has been dubbed the ‘Hastings Eye’ and has attracted plenty of local attention.

Irmalda Fonswick, originally from Beckenham, was gushing. ‘It really is a truly amazing feat of engineering and will be such a bonus for the area. When I say the area I mean the enclave of the Old Town. From the highest point I will almost be able to see over the struggling Jerwood or whatever it’s called these days. I’m so glad I moved here. I haven’t been this excited since the new hat shop opened.’

Pearson Dalwhinney, who is looking to relocate to Hastings, agreed with Irmaldas sentiments. ‘This really has swayed my decision. A large glowing wheel on the seafront has made the difference. It’s not as good as the London Eye but then everything is better in the capital. Just a pity I cannot afford to live there anymore. By moving here though I can push the house prices towards London ones so I am contributing in my small way.’

Local Bob Fisher was more retrospective ‘It’s a nice thing to have I suppose. You might even be able to see the Pebsham Tip from the top. Give it a month and it will be packed with man-buns and dungarees. Let’s hope they can all find a place to park!’

Halloween has descended on the Old Town and the population is buzzing with the prospect of a night of trick or treat celebrations

‘I’m so looking forward to my first Halloween here in the Old Town’, said Skye Mendworth recently arrive from Clerkenwell. ‘It’s so exciting. I’ve have pumpkin shaped avocado treats for all of the lucky people who knock on my door. For those who are tricking then I remind them that they are mainstream sheep. That really puts the frighteners up them!’

Another DFL had been preparing for weeks. ‘I’ve made sure all of the treats are sugar free, gluten free, vegan, ethically produced and artisan prepared. I cannot wait to the see the looks of awe on the children’s faces,’ they gushed. 

As to costumes the Rackenham-Bailey family had gone all out for the event. Briony, aged five, had gone against the traditional outfits and had decided to dress as the Cthulu god Kaajh’Kaalbh. ‘He is an Outer God of Azeroth and represents the chaos with no true form. Little brother Milo is going to be a Dimensional Shambler to complete the entourage,’ she explained. Dad, Mercentile, was hugely proud of his offspring’s efforts, ‘I feel sorry for those lesser locals having to don an Asda witches hat and a bin bag to get scares. They must feel terribly inferior to us. Let’s face it Halloween celebrations of this magnitude did not exist until we arrived.’

Fear engulfed the Old Town this week as it was revealed that tanks were present on the streets and taking no prisoners.

Social media was set alight by the sighting of a baby being crushed by a tank and then left to whither in the arms of a concerned local. First at the scene was Marmaduke Glootanfrey, who had been visiting an artisan Elizabethan smock workshop, was horrified by what he saw. ‘It was like a horror movie. This huge tank just ran over the baby as if it were not there. I cradled the poor thing in my arms until it expired. I was so sad I had to vent at a popular local group after a quick tantric meditation session’

Witness Bob Fisher saw things in a slightly different light. ‘A 1993 Fiat Panda hit a baby seagull that was eating fag ends in the road after just nicking some chips from a toddler. Then some idiot in in a kaftan with a massive beard and fashion haircut picked the disease ridden flying rat up and tried to give it mouth to beak. Honestly these day trippers have nothing better to do. Next I hear that tanks were rolling in killing babies. You couldn’t make it up.’

Residents of the Old Town were put on high alert yesterday after a shift in the space time continuum saw it edge closer to disappearing right up its own backside.

The alarm was raised by local physicists who saw the beginnings of a small  black hole in Courthouse Street. A spokesperson said ‘It has been created by the ever more inward looking population creating a dense area that has unbalanced the natural state. When yet another vintage, bric-a-brac, retro styled, rockabilly coffee shop cum gallery cum muso/artist hangout opened it tipped the scales in the area from just clinging onto some credibility into full pompous self-hyped twattery and the Old Town, I’m afraid, started to climb into its own rectum.’

Recently localised trendsetter and turn-up enthusiast Furnicule Dowbrayman, was excited by the prospect. ‘It’s a great time to be here,’ he said, ‘The never ending small fish festivals, the crap art boutiques, the overpriced coffee, the silly beards, the spiralling house prices. They have culminated in the ultimate experience. I have had my head up my own arse ever since I got here so I can only recommend that the Old Town follows suit.’

Ordinary resident Bob Fisher was hoping there could be a solution but fears the worst. ‘We started off with a few bric-a-brac shops and some chancers with pop up juice bars. Now everyone thinks they are from the cast of Peaky Blinders or Happy Days and don’t mind shouting about it. If only they could forget about how amazingly ‘trendsetting’ they are we might pull the area back from the brink and gain back some realism.’

In a surprising turn of fate Google (and other internet search engines) have seemingly stopped functioning amongst the hipster bubble population that now inhabits Hastings Old Town.

A recent study has shown that although popular sites such as Facebook and Instagram are still working healthily to show fishing boats, heavily filtered sunsets, seagulls eating cigarette butts and peoples feet the search engine has gone out of fashion and, like all other useful services in the Old Town, has ceased to operate.

Rufus Well-Portant, a graduate in library science from Penge, was at his wits end. ‘I just needed to know if there was a local ethical yak hair embroidery class available and rather than just Google it I had top draw attention to how cool and self-important I am so I made a big fuss about it on one of the Facebook groups. I mean who has never embroidered with ethically source yak hair? This town is, like, in the Dark Ages. Thankfully one of the other DfLs who I had helped find a Peace Well to chant into came to the rescue’

It’s official, the seagull population of the Old Town is revolting!

Recent reports have highlighted the plight of the local gulls as they are forced out of their habitat by louder, more obnoxious, seemingly more sophisticated seagulls that are making the Old Town their new home.

‘It’s terrible,’ squawked local Steven Seagull ‘I used to love living here in this quaint place. I had the pick of the bins and kebab wrappings. I could dive bomb toddlers for their chips and eat as many fag butts as I liked unimpeded. Now, however, I feel pushed out by these new gulls. They just seem to have descended here and taken over everything.’

New gull Harvey Gulliver-Nester was proud of his achievement ‘Before us better gulls arrived the local gulls were living in the dark ages. I mean who scavenges cigarette ends anymore? It’s just so passe. We feast on gluten free focaccia, quinoa and organic hummus from the back of the more sophisticated restaurants in the area. Since deciding to nest here we have made sure to take over all the best roosting spots and we have been sure to make much more noise about how great we are as gulls. Other avians in the area know what a difference we have made.’

Businesses in the Old Town are preparing themselves for huge profits as a recent local consumer spending report indicates a huge upturn in sales.

A rare combination of circumstances has led to the areas traders being able to almost guarantee a successful year as long as they follow some simple guidelines.

‘It’s amazing’ said local entrepreneur Kennedy Himsworth-Kent ‘I opened a pop up, vintage, bric-a-brac, upscaling boutique cum coffee house and I literally cannot shift the stuff fast enough. The newbies lap up anything that has that shabby chic look. I am raking it in’

Jus de Flandres, originally from Peckham, loved the diversity of wares on offer. ‘The other day I went out to peruse pebble art and perhaps pick up some almond milk and focaccia bread and I came back with a rusty anvil, a broken child’s kaleidoscope and a dozen conkers. They weren’t just any old conkers either. They were bespoke, artisan conkers out of a reed basket, proper stuff!’

The residents of the Old Town are bracing themselves for gridlock on the streets over the festive season after local transport experts published a report on the expected traffic movements in the area.

The amounts of delivery vans and trucks on the roads in the area are expected to increase by almost 1200 percent as food hampers from various sources are imported to the Old Town.

Ocado, Marks and Spencers, Waitrose and Harrods trucks are expected to cause chaos on the streets as the reality of there being no useful shops in the vicinity comes home to roost like an angry seagull.

Local Pamela Goodwith-Bunting explained ‘When I moved here to set up my cat circus training school I found the area to be abundant with all the fashionable detritus people buy when being cool and hip but when the Christmas season arrived I realised that getting a Christmas pudding locally was almost impossible let alone a stuffed quail breast or honey dipped artichoke heart. The only thing to do was to get a Fortnum and Mason hamper delivered directly from London.’

The problems are set to continue into the New Year as more households realise that canvases of seagulls, yoga mats and conkers in buckets are not edible.

A spokesman for Waitrose said that next year it would be putting on a dedicated service to the area with a hipster Santa on board a fixed geared bike leading in a fleet of lorries much like the Coca Cola advert.

The level by which people are becoming offended in the Old Town was raised from ‘mildly annoyed’ to ‘full on Daily Mail rant’ earlier this week.

Locals, new and old, were made aware of the increase in threat level by hand-witten, bespoke, perfumed, artisan notelets after offence was taken at an online satirical observation article appeared on social media.

‘I couldn’t believe the audacity of someone taking a sideways and humourous look at how the Old Town has developed over the past few years. I just had to act,’ ranted former Croydon resident and dog crochet artist Ettiene San Dowlerford ‘It’s a total misrepresentation of how ludicrous the Old Town seems to have become to people who have lived here for more than six months. Let’s face it there’s a growing acknowledgement from people that have moved here that Hastings would just not exist at all if we had not arrived. How the locals even evolved from those slug things that crawled out of the sea without us is beyond understanding’

Carrington Foy of Lewisham, imported organic hummus expert, agreed ‘It’s ridiculous to poke fun at people who have pushed up house prices and gentrified the area beyond recognition after moving here on the back of a weeks visit and an article in the Evening Standard. I have brought my entire middle class family here to live an eccentric lifestyle I can brag about to those left behind in the metropolis. I deserve more respect.’

It has been announced that, after successful campaigning, Down From Londons or DFLs are to reclassified in the Old Town in an attempt to make them and the term more palatable.

The Pinky Dinky Group conducted surveys amongst the Old Town residents to find out what the problems were with the term DFL. Chief rebranding analyst Rose Bagel-Towers explained. ‘We found that the people that moved here from the Big Smoke were becoming increasingly alienated by the locals and they felt that is was the term DFL that was causing this. We here at Pinky Dinky looked at the options available and found that Failed In London Try Hastings was a real going concern but lacked that certain ‘panache’ even though the acronym summed the situation up. Then we tried Can’t Afford Brighton but calling someone a CAB would just get confusing.’

She continued ‘It was decided that we would go with New Old Towner or NOT. This would decrease discrimination as it didn’t label people or put them in boxes they didn’t want to be in. These creative types don’t really like labels’

Recently arrived wheelbarrow jam salesperson Heather du Bishope, dressed in traditional Old Town victorian garb, was delighted, ‘I’d much rather be a NOT. I mean I was feeling persecuted as I didn’t even come from London but from Bromley which as we all know is most definitely in Kent and not a Borough of South London. Now I’m NOT I fit in perfectly.’

A cultural shift brushed through the Old Town recently as news hit of Hastings Pier winning the prestigious Stirling Award for architecture.

New locals and ‘entrepreneurs’ were keen to jump on the band wagon and promote themselves and their businesses by following in the footsteps of the Piers design team.

‘It’s amazing,’ said Hilary Fonte former Shoreditch resident and proprietor of a pop up Kazakhstani inspired fusion noodle bar ‘I’ve made a total effort and ditched all the traditional plates for planks and even replaced the cutlery with small planks. I’m not going to serve anything on the planks as it’s a thought provoking space for you to develop yourself. I cannot wait for the national recognition I deserve.’

Another business owner was taking things even further. ‘I’m planning to burn my property down, let it rot for a while then ‘plank’ it over with a conceptual area for people to come and muse in. I’m not going to provide anything in that space because all the newbies love to bang on about how fundamentally inspiring a big empty space is. What could possibly go wrong? I’m sure to be rolling in cash and awards within months’

Residents of the Old Town were shocked recently when a man announced he was being forced to leave the creative, artistic bubble he had come to love in the last six weeks.

Pelligrew La Portre, a binomial puppet muse artiste, had relocated to the bright lights of Courthouse Street believing the roads were paved with gold, only to find that shortly after moving in his new favourite coffee shop was closing for the winter.

‘It’s an utter disaster,’he said, visibly shaken at the news ‘Where am I supposed to get my mid afternoon breakfast pick me up now? I’m entitled to have everything I want and cannot countenance going anywhere else for fear of a horrific attack on my sensitive palette, which has taken nearly as long to cultivate as my ridiculous beard and sense of self importance. A man cannot live his offbeat, exclusively quirky lifestyle without the correct means with which to flourish.I think the only answer is to pack up and leave.’

Other residents were quick to aid Mr La Portre by suggesting various outlets that would serve coffee, some even as far afield as the Pier, but it fell on deaf ears with him slating each establishment for not serving his special brew.

The owners of the coffee shop didn’t quite understand the fuss

The news that the Old Town of Hastings is to receive a £500 million injection to build a marina has divided local opinion.

The plans, announced recently, look to create a chic, wealthy enclave to an area that still receives funding from the Government as one of the most deprived places in the country, have been greeted with varying views from euphoria to disdain. 

‘I think it’s a fabulous idea,’ said occasional resident Jax McHugh, ‘My weekend breaks from the ‘Big Smoke’ will be massively enhanced by looking at a plethora of expensive yachts moored under the crumbling cliffs. Of course I’ll have to walk there as the road will be grid locked to both Battle and Bexhill but I cannot wait to bathe in the reflected pomposity of it all.’

Others are not so sure. True local Bob Fisher was cynical about the motives behind the scheme. ‘I wouldn’t want to say that the developers are trying to cash in on a fad created by clueless journalists in Sunday supplements but, you know, they are.’

The promise of a £26 million a year spending spree from the new harbour residents looks attractive but when you consider thats a couple of trips to Hendys, an overpriced vegan offering at a pop up restaurant and a piece of local artwork with a seagull on it not much of the town will benefit.

To address this imbalance the developers have come up with a solution the other end of Hastings, an area that actually requires regeneration. 

‘We have procured an old prison ship that we can moor off of the Bathing Pool site. It will house all of the displaced current proper residents of the Old Town, the twenty five percent social housing aspect as well as anyone who is against the proposed scheme. It’s a win-win situation,’ said a spokesperson for the development team.

The quaint Old Town of Hastings is preparing itself for a population onslaught from South London after one of it’s properties was briefly mentioned in a short paragraph of a Metro article last week. 

Londoners disillusioned with life near modern conveniences, proper culture and an easy commute to work from the leafy suburbs are flocking to one of the most deprived towns in the south east after the article described it as ‘quite nice in the sunshine’ and ‘up and coming’.

‘It’s just such, like, an amazing place,’ said new resident, Ffion Haber-Jones. ‘After flicking through the Telegraph supplement a couple of months ago and seeing a jocular article on the carnival week I thought to myself that’s it, I’m selling everything to get a piece of this little heaven by the sea. So thats what I did and with my new found freedom I can now look at the beach and feel smug I don’t have to work, except on my pebble compositions’

Yoga mixologist cum pavement artist Nathaniel Bartsome was also enthusiastic ‘This place gives me such a buzz. Especially since all of the same people as me have moved here from where I used to live. A notelet on Hendys Overpriced Emporium in the Evening Standard did it for me. Then I heard there might be a Brazilian festival to celebrate the cultural links between Hastings and Rio. I just had to be here. Plus, obviously I can’t afford Brighton.’