Rusty Solar Panel Flower

The third unconventional flower in my Coastal Flowers collection is the Rusty Solar Panel Flower.

Now this really looks like a flower. You hardly need to define a flower loosely. It has a stem ( the pole), a head (the solar panel) , and seven stamens ( seven short wires sticking up on top ). And if that were not enough, the Rusty Solar Panel Flower is cream, red, brown and orange.

It is a pole, in a prominent position on the esplanade, just south of the Arch of Remembrance and the Brighton jetty, opposite the fish and chip shop and the Esplanade Hotel.

If it is a piece of street art, it is more ingenious and tricky than a seaside council would generally allow. It is a pole with a solar panel on the top. The lower part of the pole is black, then there is a narrow band of red, and the rest is painted cream. The metal pole has rusted in the most spectacular fashion, and a brilliant efflorescence of rusty reds and browns has broken through the yellowing paint, so that the pole appears to glow.

I stopped to take a photo of this pole, just as a mother stopped to take a photo of her baby. She did not want the pole in hers, but happened to be standing by the pole. Our photos would have crossed. She let me go first.

And that is why my photo doesn't show the sign on the pole, or what it says. The sign was side on to me, where I was standing.

I would like to tell you what the sign says, but I didn't see it face on. That is neither the mother's fault, nor mine. It is just the way it happened. But I have seen it before. If I remember rightly it doesn't say anything about the solar panel. Instead it features a linear map of the coastal walking trail, and underneath the map it says that some parts of the trail are not accessible.

The Flower That Is A Talking Fish

The second of my unconventional coastal flowers is the Talking Fish.

For the Talking Fish to be considered a flower I must redefine flower even more loosely as something orange.

That's ridiculous. I'll try again. Something that stands upright on one leg and has a head....and is orange.

The Talking Fish is another piece of esplanade art to be found at Seacliff. It has a message. The government is building a desalination plant in the gulf, which will result in saltier water. There are those who think this will be unpleasant for the fish.

Look now, at the Talking Fish. He is stencilled in black onto a sand coloured shade cloth tacked to the wire fence beside one of the sandhill exits. His body is coloured orange. He stands upright on a bifurcated tail fin. He looks angry. A speech bubble comes out of his open mouth. The words in the speech bubble are, I can't live in brine, Desal is not fine.

It is disturbing on so many levels. Firstly, the artistic. The orange colour reappears in ghostly form behind the fish in some sort of blotting accident. The final 'n' and 'e' are badly blurred, and the words are placed too low down in the bubble.

Secondly, the Talking Fish is obviously a goldfish, and they don't live in the gulf anyway.

Thirdly, the most disturbing thing of all....maybe it's just me but.....I can't live in Brine, Desal is not fine....okay it rhymes, and scans, with five syllables in each line, but somehow it doesn't seem to.

That is all I'll say,
Until the next day.