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# I peered Pierre eating a pair of pears on the pier
- URL: https://vaughan.ai/blog/i-peered-pierre-eating-a-pair-of-pears-on-the-pier/
- Published: 2001-07-07T22:06:23.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-07T23:19:20.000Z
- Author: Vaughan Fergusson
- Tags: UK, #medium-import

Our train to Brighton left London eventually at 8pm. We had to stand in the station for several hours waiting for it though and when the first one that turned up (first as in after several hours) a mass of people surged for it. At the train station you play a little game called train rush and the rules go something like this. Because you don{q}t know which platform your train is leaving from until 5 minutes before it leaves you have to stand with 500 other people staring at all the TV screens waiting for the platform to be revealed. Then when it is you race to get to the train in time to get a seat. We failed miserably in the first round of this game and found that by the time we reached the train it was full and there were people squeezing into whatever cracks they could. The second train that arrived we were ready for. First of all we excluded all the platforms that we figured the train would not be leaving from. This was calculated by which platforms had trains due to arrive from other destinations and which platforms were not likely to be clear of its train by the time our train arrives. This would give us the general area of the station to loiter in. We would then position ourselves to be where we could see all the TV screens on all the platforms. Although we could not actually read what was on the screens we could see when a screen changed and we would bolt for that platform to find it was the wrong train. Eventually our call came and we ran. We didn{q}t have time to read the screen as there were already a sprinting mass of people heading for our train, so we picked a car in the middle of the train and settled on a couple of seats near the door. People crammed in and were climbing all over each other for room. After all the trains in Thailand I have never seen behaviour like that on the trains in London. To be a spectator it is quite humorous. I could spend a whole afternoon at the station watching clouds of people racing for trains. I wouldn{q}t be surprised to see bookies at the station taking bets on people. It wasn{q}t long into the journey before the people thinned out and there were a few seats spare around us.

The second hurdle was that in our rush we failed to read the screen that said only the first four carriages would be heading to Brighton. The last four would be heading off to somewhere else. What do they drive up a big hill and then release the last four cars down it as the train continues on to Brighton? Our problem was that we didn{q}t know which car we got on and by looking out the windows at the train behind and in front we couldn{q}t tell either. In the end we asked at a station and the conductor told us that “Oh no you will need to move forward up the train”. So we sat there waiting for the train to stop at a station long enough for us to run up a couple of cars. This never happened as the train would only stop for 30 seconds or so at each stop. In the end we watched some people walk up the other end of the car and disappear. Honest! The cars had the doors linking them off to one side and hidden so when you looked up and down the car it appeared that there was no way to walk between the carriages. In the end we decided to explore and we found the mysterious door. As we didn{q}t know what car we were in we just kept walking towards the front of the train until we came to the end and decided that was far enough and sat down as the train split and we hoped we were heading for Brighton. Apparently this isn{q}t an uncommon mistake people make — later we were told a story about a couple of our friends in Spain faced with the same predicament. Except they were sure they were in the right car. Anyway Vanessa (that{q}s what we will call her) decided she wanted an ice cream and Aaron (another fictitious name) told her to go the dinner car but not to go too far towards the front of the train as it will be splitting. Well you can guess what happened. Vanessa went one way across Spain and Aaron went the other. Vanessa had no money and Aaron had all the bags. Needless to say once they both explained their plight to the relative conductors on their relative trains they arranged for a taxi to reunite them and all was okay. I have a feeling that they have a taxi on standby at the stations for that train in Spain.

We arrived in Brighton late and wandered the streets on a Friday night looking for our Bed and Breakfast. Down to the waterfront and turn left. We found our B&B and it was quite lovely. Four-poster bed and a bedroom view of the water and Brighton{q}s Famous pier. We hit the sack very exhausted after our first long distance English train journey. In the morning we awoke to a beautiful sun and beautiful water. The pier was quiet and so after breakfast we decided to head over and explore it. Brighton Pier is an icon of Brighton with its roller coasters and attractions. It was opened in 1899 and was decreed the finest pier ever built. In 1940{q}s Brighton took off as a post war summer holiday destination and the pier was covered with excited children and patient parents for 20 years. Brighton was the seaside gem of England for those 20 years and as Mel and I walked around the Pier and Brighton itself we tried to imagine Brighton in its heyday with the sidewalks bustling and the pebbly beach covered in bathing holiday makers. However in the middle of winter we saw nothing even close. From the pier and up the coast are massive wide sidewalks, four in total. Two on either sides of the road that stretched from one end to the other, one raised sidewalk halfway up the cliff-top and another on the top on the cliff. Obviously they were catering for a few people in the summer times! In February these sidewalks were looking kind of empty. We wandered onto the pier and explored the rides and donut shops. At 10am in the morning there weren{q}t too many people on the pier. The pier itself is massive and covered with arcades and food vendors. Roller coasters and Ferris wheels. We decided to come back in the evening when it was likely to be more exciting and headed into Brighton Town. We explored the Brighton Lanes, a maze of winding lanes full of shops selling nicks and knacks. There were art shops and coffee houses and trinket merchants and an armoury that sold big old guns and swords. We got lost and found and lost again. We visited the Royal Pavilion, the fantastic seaside palace built by the Prince Regent (Later King George IV) in the later part of the 1700{q}s and looks like it can{q}t decide which region of the world it is in with it{q}s Indian domes and Chinese décor.

We wandered around Brighton till we could wander no more. I went back to the hotel while Mel went on an important shopping mission (It was my birthday in a weeks time!). I sat watching the ocean stretch to the horizon and the clouds drift by. That was one sight I missed ever since we arrived in London. The horizon with blue beneath and blue above. It was an edge of the world kind of horizon too. There were no islands in the water and no boats. Just flat blue water until it dropped off the edge of the world. But still it was nice to be able to focus on nothing and to be able to see further than the brick wall across the street from our London apartment.

When Mel returned from her mission with some mysterious bags we decided to check out the Sea Life Centre on the waterfront. The centre was offering the Captain Nemo attraction and you could ride in his submarine. We paid our small ransom to the nice girl at the front counter and noticed on the activities sign that the shark feeding was in 20 minutes. I dragged Mel through without wasting any time and we quickly examined the initial collection of fish in tanks and made our way to the Shark tanks. The way they had set the place up was just like you were on Captain Nemo’s submarine, the Nautilus, as you walked through its corridors and past portholes that looked out to fish and sunken boats. Then we found the shark tank. A glass tunnel in which you were surrounded by sharks and stingrays. I love these tunnels, they are magic. The thing I love the most is the strange optical effect the curved glass provides. Firstly it magnifies everything and secondly the fish look like they are swimming right through the glass. Mel and I would stand there with our noses to the glass and wait to be scared silly as a shark swims over our heads and down in front of our noses. It is very unnerving especially the first time you see a stingray float over you apparently inches away. We continued through the tunnels and came across the bridge of the Nautilus and to the big pool of swarming sharks that we were just under. Here they were feeding the sharks and a guy dressed up as Captain Nemo was giving a little talk. The Centre staff were dressed up like crew and it really felt like you were on the submarine and this was really Captian Nemo. Even when Nemo had finished his talk and the staff were talking to one another about cleaning the tanks and other chit chat things they would refer to “The Captain” and “The Nautilus” and generally kept the whole illusion up the whole time.

Having had my shark fix Mel and I then explored the rest of the displays. We saw seahorses, octopi, piranhas, fish, fish and some more fish. The displays were wonderful and really well done. We could have spent the whole day there and we should have really. The amount of money it cost to get in you would want to be there for a few hours. In the end we had enough fish and left, but not before trying my hand at one of those limp-grip-claw machines where you have to navigate the dangling claw over a soft toy and hope by some fluke its got enough grip to carry the toy to the little hole. Well by some fluke I got the stuffed fish, as it was in this occasion, to the hole and felt like a real boyfriend winning my girl a stuffed toy. With our new prize in hand we left feeling like it wasn’t as expensive as we first thought.

Well being surrounded by fish all day led us to a certain craving that night and we decided to go out for some World Famous Fish and Chips, the claim that the Harry Ramsden{q}s chain of Fish and Chip restaurants makes and as two Fish and Chips connoisseurs Mel and I thought we could put them straight. The restaurant was a few doors down the road and we poked our heads in expectation to see tiled floors, a collection of mismatched waiting chairs, 5 year old magazines on a coffee table and a vat of oil manned by a guy in a white apron called Steve. What we saw was a family restaurant. We were seated and offered the menu. Mel and I ordered the fish and chips strangely enough, mushy peas included. While we waited for our would famous fish and chips we browsed the posters on the walls and their claims of best-ness in frying fish. I was surprised to find this was a chain of restaurants and one of the original restaurants holds the world record for making the most fish and chips in a day back in 1950-something. Well the meals came and the fish was monstrous, the chips plentiful and the peas mushy. But they were all just mediocre to be honest. They weren’t bad, just not the worlds best in my own opinion. Mel and I were bloated and found it difficult to move afterwards. One thing I will say is that Harry Ramsden’s sure know how to fill you up. After dinner we waddled back to our hotel like a couple of stuffed fish. After recovering a little we headed across the road to Brighton Pier to check out the night life. I think the time of year had something to do with it, but the pier was not very busy. But never the less it was still all go with the test-your-skill stalls where you throw balls into holes too small for them, or try to shoot a bow and arrow with a loose string on the bow. You know the things I am talking about. Mel tried to knock over three parking wardens for a pound. She hurled the baseballs at the metal warden writing tickets and found her balls just bounced off them. Parking wardens one, Mel nil. I tried my luck firing a bow at a bull’s-eye but found my arrows were impaling the soft toys and weren’t getting anywhere near the bull’s-eye.

The pier is privately owned and I would guess would make a fair amount of money from all the suckers poking coins into machines and tossing balls into cans. There are also two big arcades full of games and gambling machines, and at the end of the pier roller coasters and what I call puke spinners. Bumper cars and go-carts. Although quiet, even on a winter’s night I was surprised at the amount of people out. In summer the pier must just go off totally. Crowds must swarm over it all night and day emptying their pockets and filling their stomachs with candyfloss and ice-cream. We returned to the hotel somewhat poorer and tired.

The next day we wandered a little more before catching an early train back to London. This time no queues and no split. We travelled back during the daylight hours so we could watch the countryside, something else we also missed since we left home. We were back home early only to be delayed at the tube station at the other end because someone tried to blow up the BBC and thus our line was closed for the night. I don’t blame them really, if you have ever watched BBC1 you will know why. We got home and prepared ourselves for work the next day.

V