Hastings junkie hotspots pop up on Google Maps Those of you planning a nice day out in the sunny seaside town of Hastings - previously famous for the 1066 1-0 victory of Norman Wanderers over Godwinson Athletic and now noted for the UK's highest ratio of drug dealers to pubs - will doubtless welcome this useful guide to local leisure activities, viz: "Map to show hotspots …
-quote- Those of you planning a nice day out in the sunny seaside town of Hastings - previously famous for the 1066 1-0 victory of Norman Wanderers -end quote-
If you look up the road a bit you find a place called Battle. I wonder why that is? Perhaps the battle was at Battle and not Hastings, so Hastings would be famous for being? But then at history classes they would have to teach about the battle of Battle. Or something like that. If it is history lessons. And not Humanities.
Can I go home now please? It is Friday afternoon after all.....
All this, of course, is a direct consequence of prohibition.
People inject heroin because it's the most efficient way of getting something precious and expensive into the bloodstream, they do it outdoors because they risk being evicted from their homes if they do it there, and they leave their used syringes lying around because ..... well, for the same reasons anybody leaves litter lying around, really.
Polypropylene (which is what syringe bodies are made from) has a higher melting point than germs can withstand, so they are actually recyclable. If some plastics factory offered a nominal financial reward for used syringes, the market would end up taking care of things .....
Last time I went to Hastings around 2004, the seafront was full of winos of various ages. I desperately needed a "Gypsies" and I managed to negotiate something akin to a bombed out building, similar to ones found in the game Fallout3!
Perhaps we can get all the winos tagged with radio transmitters and displayed on GoogleMaps? Then I could walk down the prom without being asked every 200 yards "for a couple of quid for a cuppa", no doubt wino-speak for 250ml of Turps!
No, really. It's been a while since there was a convenient opportunity to blame something on the Westminster Ripper, but she's definitely the culprit here. As the South East became more affluent during the early/mid 80s, the rise in rents, demolition/renovation of many large, grim B+B places and the dwindling availability of council properties pushed a lot of the recreational chemical consumers down to the coast, where cheap places to live remained in abundance.
Although Brighton got a fair influx, Hastings, never the most pleasant of towns, already had a grim reputation of its own, and was simply cheaper than its more stylish neighbour. There was already a well ensconced druggie fraternity, and quite a few druggie friendly pubs. The most notorious was the Carlisle, where a friend of mine earned the unprecedented distinction of getting banned for practising his golf strokes off the pool table using the pool balls and his walking stick, needed because he'd shattered his leg in five places in a bike accident and had been in plaster for a year. He later blamed the effects of the metal plate in his head (a bike accident involving a fire escape) and not the fact it was Giro day and he and half of the population of Hastings had been drinking stella since opening time.
While a few of these characters got their acts together and got out while they were still breathing, many just headed onto the downward spiral and were joined by any other misfits the Tories managed to squeeze out of other, increasingly wealthy South Eastern towns. Since Labour came to power it's been the dumping ground for any asylum seekers they can't palm off on anyone else, particularly since Dover started objecting to it's own status as an unfunded human tip.
Perhaps someone ought to collect all the needles and dump them on the doorstep of Tory HQ.
Alien, cos Thatcher was
As the title suggests, I'm still stuck as to whether my team should go to the Haven in Hastings for this cricket tour!
@AC I've been told the best thing about Hastings for entertainment is that it is close to Portsmouth and Brighton - thoughts?
> If you look up the road a bit you find a place called Battle. I wonder why that is?
> Perhaps the battle was at Battle and not Hastings, so Hastings would be famous for being?
LMGTFY.
Why yes, it is where the famous battle was actually fought.
Actually I already knew it and didn't need to Google for it because I drove through a couple of years ago on the way to see Bodiam Castle (from Herstmonceux). Didn't bother to go into Hastings, because, as you say, nothing interesting ever happened there?
Skull&Crossbones in honor of Bill the Conquistador.
I agree that the endemic use of 'traditional' words in new situations can raise the heckles a little, but that is the price we pay for living in a high-tec (tech? tek? teck?) society where new inventions demand and create a need for new words, or the bastardisation of existing ones.
Interestingly, the wiki article on sharps_container (the same article as sharps_bin) doesn't mention the word "sharps" at all.
But in reference to airports, the best I can come up with is "No sharp objects allowed", which would inevitably lead to husbands asking for their wives' tongues to be confiscated.
It seems to be ambiguous enough to allow the government/CAA etc to make up their own decisions on what is covered by the word 'a sharp' - are nailclippers exempt? What about tweezers? Sharpened 5H and above pencils? Who knows? The key here is that you probably don't.
Anyway, good point, well made.
@ Jolyon Ralph
"There are specific uses of sharp as a noun, for a type of knitting needle for example. But I doubt these are frequently used to jack up with heroin."
Well I certainly came across the word "sharps," and this was in 1998 when referring to the disposal of a standard 5ml used syringe or, "works." No doubt the practice emerged from out of medical jargon in hospitals, theatres etc and made its way out.
Certain pharmacies and doctors - probably would issue dark plastic boxes with a letter-box type aperture in which addicts could sensibly and safely dispose of their used "works." These were known predictably as "sharps bins" and carried a sticker which read: "used sharps only."
They were handed back into the chemists when full. Perhaps diabetes sufferers who have to inject insulin use them too? Unfortunately my limited experience is with their other usage.
If some of these people banging up street drugs were issued with these sealed portable plastic containers instead, then perhaps we might see a small decrease in gouched out junkies leaving their dangerous used works lying around. That seems fairer, more hygienic and sensible to me.
Perhaps...
Well having moved from North London to Hastings 6 years ago I can tell you that its like a bloody paradise compared to Stoke Newington, Dalston, Hackney etc. I like articles like these; staves off the inevitable gentrification for a few more years. Those Telegraph property articles from 18 months ago nearly ruined everything!
In the US, "Sharps" is a standard noun, used throughout the entire healthcare field. You wouldn't get a medical license if you didn't know what the word meant (although you probably WOULD get hepatitis).
It doesn't matter how it starts, but 90% of English is words that have been swiped from other languages and had the serial numbers filed off.
Don't you have anything better to do with your day? This is an IT magazine. Go read http://www.languagemagazine.com/ and pick nits with them.
>>If you look up the road a bit you find a place called Battle. I wonder why that is? Perhaps the battle was at Battle and not Hastings, so Hastings would be famous for being? But then at history classes they would have to teach about the battle of Battle.<<
I think you're right mate - it's Friday afternoon and you need to go home and lie down! :-) Your brain is clearly overloaded.
The battle of Hastings took place a few miles away from the town after the Normans landed along the coast at Pevensey Bay. There was nothing there at the time, or very little. It became called Battle later after William built the Abbey on the battlefield to attone for the dead. The village that grew up around the abbey later became known as Battle. It could never have been called the battle of Battle, because Hastings was the only significant centre of population in the area at the time.
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