It’s easy to forget the biggest museum in the world is free and never closes. The city, its streets and the people who bring them to life are everyday objects with a thousand stories to tell. What matters is the way we see.
Is George Street in Hove another banal high street in which to buy shoes, have our eyes tested, pay our bills? Or is a living organism filled with exhibits to stimulate our mind?
For comic sociologist and offbeat tour guide Inspector Sands, everything from the net curtains in the flats above Nationwide to the dubious investment decisions made by the owners of Savers (the military junta in Burma) are worthy of interrogation.
We were handed a plastic carrier bag (to look inconspicuous, of course) with binoculars and headphones. An oddball Doctor Who-looking figure sitting in Wetherspoons came over the line. He ordered us to regard the surrounding minutiae - and suddenly everyone and everything could have been part of the performance.
A chugger had water thrown in her face. Then the offender went on strip down to something racier and later dance in the Clarks shoe shop window. Was it was set-up?
Nick Cave, dressed to kill, walked past. Was he in on this too? He was not the only one who stopped and looked quizzically at 30 people giggling and wearing headphones.
Our guide hid in shops and changed his identity. He was witty, informal, informative.
The piece was quirky and perfectly pitched: 30 minutes long and as sweet as a sedentary Saturday morning stroll; thought-provoking without being weighty.
We whipped out the binoculars and gazed up to look at the clouds in the sky. A busker begun. And for a few seconds we were gazing up from the most interesting place in the world.
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