Bourne again

A boutique hotel, an indie venue, the only artificial surfing reef this side of Australia - fuddy duddy Boscombe is making waves on the south coast
Benji Lanyado,

The Guardian
Saturday June 16 2007


Arriving at Bournemouth station, my taxi driver can't work out which part of my destination is funnier. "The Urban Beach hotel?" he giggles, "in Boscombe?" I'll admit, it sounds unlikely. Boscombe is a small suburb of Bournemouth, which, as far as I know, is the spiritual home of the blue rinse, and about as urban as, well, Dorset.

When I arrive, the hotel's owner Mark Cribb, shows me around. "When we bought it a couple of years ago this place was a museum piece to 50s chintz - gold and blue chequered carpets, pink and blue flowery wallpaper, tasselled lights, doilies and Emmerdale on loop". Fast-forward a few years, and the building is now home to Bournemouth's first boutique hotel - a tasteful concoction of bay windows, brown leather, earthy shades and arty wooden furniture.

Grudgingly, I really like it. I have a natural aversion - an inverse snobbery, perhaps - to places whose toiletries have hand-written labels with words like "bergamot" and "lemongrass" on them (which it does), but the Urban Beach has managed the boutique makeover without retreating up its own, um, original feature. The bar staff potter around the polished pine floorboards in casualwear. On the sundeck that wraps around the building, a small thatched hut acts as the on-site cocktail bar. Blimey, it really does do urban in a beachy kind of way. The price isn't bad either - singles start at £60 a night, doubles from £90, including a full English.

The transition of a textbook south coast B&B into a double whammy of boutique buzz words (I mean come on - Urban Beach?) is illustrative of what's going on down here. In the autumn work starts to install the only artificial surfing reef outside Australasia next to Boscombe pier as part of an £8million redevelopment project, which could double the existing wave height, reshape the waves and improve the length of the ride. In layman's terms, you'll be able to surf better. In estate agent's terms, the local house prices have gone up 30% in the last year.

Boscombe's regeneration isn't just something to look forward to either. The vast, grade-II listed Opera House on Christchurch Rd (operahouse.co.uk) has recently re-opened for business after a £2m renovation. Built in 1895 as the Boscombe Grand Theatre and used since for balls, circus in the round and grand tea parties, its most recent (and horrible) incarnation was as a "rave cave" for clubbing brand Slinky.

Slinky's revamp - boarding over stained-glass windows, painting the original ironwork silver and purple - has been almost totally reversed, including the re-opening after several dormant decades of the "gods" on the third tier, complete with original Victorian seating. The target audience, however, is far from Victorian - the June 1 relaunch saw indie upstarts the Twang, the Young Knives, and the Holloways entertain a crowd of over 1,200.

But beyond the Opera House, Boscombe isn't much of a night out. For that, one must make the 10-minute bus journey into Bournemouth. Perhaps as amazing as Boscombe's imminent trendification is the recent emergence of a Bournemouth music scene that is - gasp - actually quite good.

Sitting in the front garden of 60 Million Postcards (19-21 Exeter Road, sixtymillionpostcards.com), a recently opened "alternative" pub, Sim Merivale of DJ and artist collective Kodaly's Code (myspace.com/kodalyscode) explains what has happened. "Bournemouth used to be all about bar culture; there were no pubs here, it was all shirted, clean white walls, blue lights and all that sort of Footballers' Wives crap. Postcards was a deliberate departure from all that." The exposed redbrick, discerning beer menu, burgers with sweet potato fries, and steady stream of arty, scruffy-chic punters filtering in and out demonstrate his point.

Other venues have followed Postcards' lead. We head to Dusk till Dawn (205 Old Christchurch Road), where the "Big in Japan" night has become the new scene's weekly get-together. Upstairs a slick bar (probably more accustomed to the Footballers' Wives crowd) has been given an electro makeover with jerky visuals projected onto the back wall. The music is retro-ish 80s sustained by a bouncing synthetic beat. Downstairs, it gets more frenetic under a low, black ceiling. The afterparty will be at Ibar (15 Holdenhurst Rd), a new "digital bar" - a hip internet cafe with knobs on - with a box room gig space in its basement. More of the same happens on Kodaly's Code's regular nights at the Consortium Club (3 Richmond Hill) on Bournemouth's main square.

I suggest to Dan Spinney, Big in Japan's founder, that it feels a bit like London. "Yeah, but think about where you are. Within a few miles you've got huge stretches of beach, the dunes over at Sandbanks [Bournemouth's answer to the OC], little pubs on the Avon at Christchurch, the New Forest, Durdle Door. You definitely don't have that in London."

It's true. The natural attractions around Bournemouth are all, as far as I'm aware, still there. What's surprising is that they are no longer the only reason to head this way.

· Urban Beach Hotel, 23 Argyll Road (urbanbeachhotel.co.uk, 01202 301509)

benji.lanyado@guardian.co.uk

if you haven't already heard, THE LIBERTINES did a REUNION gig at the hackney empire! BEST NEWS EVER? check out the footage on youtube. word from someone who went (bitch) that as soon as carl came on stage (it was a pete doherty solo show) it got a million times better and they bounced off each other just like before. both babyshambles and dirty pretty things are half the libertines, lets hope that this leads onto more things and dare i say it a full reunion with the whole band and new material (not very likely i know).

went and saw JACK PENATE at the kentish town forum, wicked set, if you haven't seen him yet go and do it. couple of new(ish) tunes which sound great. the EP's out go and buy it. look out for JACK and the MACCABEES playing the FIRESTATION on the 16TH MAY.

news fresh in from kodalys insiders at XL, NEW WHITE STRIPES TUNES are wicked. jack whites done it again, the guys a fucking machine! apparently he's promised a follow up raconteurs album by the end of the year. does he sleep? if you haven't already seen they're headlining the first day of the O2 wireless festival along with QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE (sick)

if you haven't got a copy of the kings of leon and arcade fires new albums get with the program. they've clearly come up trumps as the best bands of our time (along with the libertines of course)

if your in london tonight and have the money get your neon ass down to canvas for the ED BANGER rave its gonna be ill. JUSTICE, MEDI, UFFIE.. in the words of neil edwards

ALLOW

xxx

..was amazing. check out the friendly fires they were 10 times better than late of the pier. go and see digitalism live you wont regret it (are very own hello mozart was filming it the jammy little bugger!) so with any luck those of us who will there will beable to watch the tape back and revel in the memories and those of you who weren't can look on in admiration and envy. simian mobile disco were also wicked, capture the castle were talking to them and with any luck we might make an appearance in bournemouth this summer, watch this space..
went to sick of nature at 93ft east on the following night to probably the trendiest night i've ever been to, we have alot more fun than they do.


AOB:

if you weren't lucky enough to get a glastonbury ticket go to EXIT festival in serbia, on the beach by day and in a castle by night. acts include the beastie boys, wu tang, chemical bros and robert plant plus serbian women are the most beautiful i've ever seen, oh yeah and its only £60 for the 4 days. to get there book a flight for aprox. £50 to budapest and then get a train down to the serbian coast.

talking of travelling, if your thinking of jumping on a train and heading into europe this summer check out www.youngineurope.com it will give you lots of good ideas

heard the keiser chiefs new single on the radio this morning its called something along the lines of "everything these days is so average" ..oh how ironic (wankers)

has anyone been to ibar?

kodalys monthly print issue is out now so head down to 60 brazillians and pick up an issue, available at the aib from the start of term.

good luck to the third years, it'll be alright on the night.

send us some photos, drawings comments rants, love, hate etc

that is all

xxx

ANOTHER GREAT EARWAX AT THE OL CON CLUB LAST FRIDAY MY MEMORIES OF THE AFTER PARTY ARE MINIMAL.

PICS WILL FOLLOW SHORTLY

IN THE MEAN TIME ADD YOUR RUDDY OWN!

KC

WICKED NIGHT LAST THURSDAY
STOP MAKING ME PLAYED ANOTHER AWESOME SET FOR BIGINJAPAN WHICH WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD ON myspace.com/biginjapan84



POST YOUR PICTURES AND COMMENTS FROM THE NIGHT IN THIS BLOG.

KC

Word. Something seems to be happening here at the AIB…. Or not happening as the case may be. This is already glaringly apparent to those of us who are sidling up to the finish line of our respective courses, but for those of you just starting out, we've taken it upon ourselves to fill you in on the wonders that you are quite clearly missing.
Once upon a time a couple of years ago, the institute was probably the only place that actually lived up to all the typical uni clichés of sex, drugs and rock and roll. And then some. For many of us the past three years have been spent in a never-ending haze of all day/all night alcohol and drug fuelled binges dancing like maniacs on the dance floors of various house/ beach parties whilst wearing an assorted rainbow of ridiculous fancy dress items and having earnestly deep chats with a stranger you've just met on the grotty toilet floor at the aforementioned house party. (whom at the time you make drug riddled promises to be friends for ever and definitely, DEFINITELY meet up with the next day for a pint and a game of pool, but in reality the only thing you'll feel like doing is stay huddled on your sofa in a gloomy living room. But then that's half the fun of hitting up reality and finding ten new numbers on your phone with no recollection of how they got there.)
One of the things that sets apart the institute from other unis (in particular the perma-tanned pretentiousness of our lovely neighbours at Bournemouth uni) is how close knit we all are. Back in the day one could saunter casually into the AIB of a summer day and expect to see at least fifty or so people that you knew chilling out around the grassy square, kicking back in the sun, chaining rollies and generally time- wasting. In fact that was probably the sole attraction of hoisting yourself out of bed before lunchtime. The last few times I've ventured in recently every single person (FYI, none of whom I recognised, let alone knew well enough to share a casual high- five with) was actually doing work. That's right, not pretending to do research while chatting up some fit arty type in the library, but actually doing real, proper work. I mean, for fuck's sake! That's not what we're about! Whats happened to the ethos that underpinned the institute? Obviously we're not advocating sacking off work completely ( I mean this is the reason why we're all several thousand pounds in debt) but institute life has definitely taken a turn for the more serious side. This would all be fine if the house party scene hadn't seemed to have died a death recently. I can count on one hand the number of good houseparties I've been to since the start of the year. They used to be the one saving grace of Bournemouth that gave us variety from the questionable club scene of the town centre and fucking generic "student" nights. It seems to be the same houses willing to throw parties at the moment. This is simply not good enough. Whenever there has been a party more recently (most of them hosted by me or my friends I hasten to add) they've always been packed. So come on guys, return the favour, you're obviously all yearning for some hardcore party carnage yet less than willing to put the effort in to actually host your own. We need to step up the game and reinstate the reputation of the institute to its former glory.
Right, enough of the rant. These past three years have been the best of my life ever. (ever). I want this to continue and to go out with a bang. And that it will, I'm sure of it. After all, summer seems to be right around the corner,, and you know what that means. Festival season. Oh yes. Add to this that somehow Bournemouth mutates into some sort of tropical wonderland as soon as the sun gets its top- hat on and the possibilities are endless. So, there have been highs (plenty of those), some lows but generally a shitload of fun with a capital F. I'm gonna leave you then with a list of things that remind me of time here at the arts institute:
My first ever proper house party. It blew my mind- 'unbelievable'. Hot, arty, like-minded people, and so many of them all under one roof, what more could you ask for. Fucking brilliant. Being able to drink all day, all night, and then all day again, and for this to not only be a perfectly acceptable thing to do, but actively encouraged. FISH-SEEKS-BICYCLE. Wow. A massive old opera house filled to the brim with ridiculously dressed people suckling on balloons full of laughter and destroying the dancefloor until the early hours. Followed immediately by another three hours of uninterrupted partying at Dusk til Dawn's afterparty. Then straight to the pub for an entire day of drinking and banter of the finest kind. Why go to sleep when there's more alcohol to be had? Getting fancy- dressed up to the max for a great night out and pissing myself at housemates outfits. Hosting after-after-after parties on various nights until shit gets ridiculous. Busting out ironic breakdancing moves. Serious come down sofa action after a good night out. Massively oversized accessories. Looking like a generic rock and roll star. Wearing top hats as a general day to day look. The summer ball. In depth, philosophical conversations whilst on pills that go on for hours. Finding then losing your new best friend at a party. The moment when summer hits Bournemouth. The first BBQ of the year. Taking magic mushrooms on the beach. The fish seeks bicycle when the after party was at the beach. BEACH PARTIES in general. Triple whisky and cokes. Magners on ice in the Richmond Arms pub garden. These are just a few choice titbits of the general amazingness that Bournemouth can be. You guys know what to do.