Am I alone in feeling patronised and puzzled by your repeated assertion that this "city" thing means we can feel "self confident"?

City as therapy? Get a life - to use Brighton and Hove Council's language.

My impression is that the news bemuses many people. It is something remote from life as it is really lived - a bit of a Brighton thing.

And surely if Brighton, Hove, Portslade, Southwick, even Whitehawk, deserved to be a city, then we already had this "self-confidence".

My suspicion is, as with Christmas and the millennium, the city bid was much touted, then it comes along - and then what? Business as usual.

-Christopher Hawtree, Westbourne Gardens, Hove