bognor by katharine eastman
Thank you as ever for your continuing total lack of interest in whatever nonsense happens here, it helps me sleep at night, knowing I create no disturbing ripples in the world. Of course, when I do get famous and all that stuff, I shall totally change tack and pretend that that is exactly what I want. Anyway today you will be interested not to read that I walked on over to Bognor Regis - stupidly paying heed to the weather forecast ("sunshine and showers") and therefore pretending that the relentless thunderstorm that dominated the first couple of hours of the walk wasn't really happening.
But the sun did come out. And I will come to the point and say that today has been one of those thrilling days when everyone I've met, with the exception of the inhabitants of Pagham, was bonkers and/or miserable and/or crabby and/or very rude. And the rudest unhappiest place of all was my misguided destination - reached more by luck than judgement because it was off my map - but it can't exactly be missed - just keep going eastwards and stay near the coast and Bognor is that area where everyone seems to have an IQ of about 6 and the manners of Herman Goering - and that's just the lucky minority who have any brain-function at all - all of the rest are mere fungal spores on the bottom of petri dishes.
I suppose the last time I was in Bognor was when I was at Butlins. Fact. I can't believe it was a family holiday (I was a child at the time), and it surely can't have been a school trip. It might have been some dodgy pervy neighbour who ingratiated himself in with my parents and groomed me and then whisked me off to Butlins to, well, I won't go into details, mainly because I've blanked them out, but that is probably why I have avoided Bognor until I reached the age (now) when I genuinely no longer give a fuck about anything.
Recently Bognor topped some huge national poll for being the crappest seaside town in Britain. Perhaps a lot of other people were abused in Bognor when young. But whatever, today I really could see why it has such a dismal reputation. It is a dismal place. Truth is, Bognor is what I was expecting Folkestone to be like. But Folkestone turned out to be bigger and funnier and happier and brighter and waaay more characterful than Bognor.
Oh and you could swim in the sea at Folkestone. Bognor and the beaches nearby are currently classified as dangerous and you are not allowed to swim there because you will die. As I walked through Pagham and then cut on through directly to the beach there was (is) a big electronic screen with big words running across it telling you basically to turn round and run for your life - you'd have a happier time scuba-diving in a blocked motorway service-station toilet.
And as you walk along the huge beach from Pagham to Bognor (took way longer than I expected - no solid paths, just wading through big pebbles) you keep on hitting hurdles of vast rusting pipes running from the towns and downs and Sussex bottoms across the beach and then just dropping their brown water in the middle of the mid-tide line. Charming.
By Bognor I was buggered indeed and I decided to get the bus back to civilization - the bus-stop display said 7 minutes till the next one to Chichester. I am of course a Luddite and wish we were all travelling on horseback. But when it comes to buses I wish everywhere was like London or Southampton where you just tap and go - but oh no, you get out in these crazy places and it takes about twenty minutes for you and the bus driver to sync ideas on exactly how to manipulate your bank card to get the necessary ping.
The driver and I parted in good convivial spirits. But I still had Chichester to battle with. Glorious Goodwood ... oh this is for another time - Pompey fans out on the travel-razzle because the trains aren't running tomorrow for the derby and the whole of everywhere was total chaos, and then when I got off the train at Southampton I remembered that it was Music In The City and yet again I had not been invited. Another year of failure. But as I've already said - I truly do not give a fuck - cultivate that - it is the greatest superpower you can have in this miserable stupid crazy nervous cuntnest.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/27/bognor-regis-back-at-bottom-of-uk-seaside-rankings-which
recorded this evening, photo Bognor Regis this afternoon
