Between the years 2000-2005 I lived in Brighton, on the south coast. Well, in ‘Hove, actually’. Most days I would see, and literally bump into Nick Cave, who lived just up the road from me (in a much bigger house, obviously). It became quite a regular occurrence, this habitual bumping into Nick Cave. If I was walking down the esplanade on a bitterly cold Sunday morning, there he would be, a vision in black, walking towards me. If I was standing in the queue at the supermarket, I would feel this presence behind me and there he would be, in the same queue, towering over me with his basket of organic goods. If I went to my local café for a coffee, there he would be with his children and wife, reading the paper or talking on the phone. If I went for pasta at the cheap Italian restaurant on Western Road there he would be, eating and drinking wine at the next table laughing and joking with the fat owner. It got to the point where we would politely acknowledge each other, and I imagined to myself in some act of vainglorious pride that he must have been thinking ‘Oh, there’s that pasty little lad again’. In fact, I admired Nick Cave for this, his normality, his ‘everydayness’ . . . I admired it a lot.Anyway, I live in London now, and don’t bump in to Nick Cave anymore. Here’s a review of his latest book by Steve Mitchelmore.
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