Brighton is full of coffee shops, like nowhere else I know in fact. There’s a sense in Brighton, that life is for enjoying whenever you can, however you can. I always say that Brighton is the place where young people come to retire.

Those coffee shops, are full of young mothers with pushchairs the size of Mini’s; full of nomadic journalists and technologists tapping away of keyboards; full of intense young people reading serious literature and seemingly very deeply engaged with it too, not just a prop. They’re just people doing their own thing, something that Brighton very much seems to enable in the right kind of person.

In the last 15 years I’ve lived in San Francisco, Seattle, Chamonix and Paris for various extended periods of time. I’ve loved them all (although not equally), but I come back here. It pulls even though I have no extended family here and I didn’t grow up here.

We have a different type of political representation to that of the entire rest of the UK. Jedi was the largest recognised religion here in the last census I believe. We’re 50 minutes from central London by train, when they work (Snow Day!). Our climate is generally warmer too. And people smile more. We’re a lot better looking here than in other UK towns too. I may have made some of this up but I’ll let you work out which bits ;)

I travel a lot. I wish I travelled a lot more. But I’m glad I have Brighton to come home to. It’s probably one of only two places on earth, that if I knew I could never travel again I would be happy to stay in.