Apple Festival – Middle Farm

Music, dance, fun and feasting in celebration of English apples

Middle Farm’s annual Apple Festival is one of the most popular events in Sussex, attended by thousands of people each year. There are live bands, morris dancing, a cider bar, hot food, stalls selling apples and many different kinds of local produce, and of course the theme throughout is the celebration of apples.

Apples and Pears, local food fair, apple pressing demonstrations, puppet show, cider bars, hot and cold food, funfair and morris dancers.

2 live music stages.

For Children

Wishworks Puppet Theatre, with a full programme of shows on both days.
Magical and Mythical Children’s Activity Workshop: lots of apple-related crafty things to make (small charge for this)
And of course, the Harris Bros Fun Fair, with a merry-go-round and other traditional fairground rides from 100 years ago

Open Farm Activities

There will be plenty of fun activities on the Open Farm. Details to be confirmed shortly. The cows will be milked from 3.15pm onwards.

Food Stalls

Lots of different food stalls to choose from:

Middle Farm Barbecue: homemade beef burgers, pork and apple burgers, pork and cider sausages.
Barbecue Shack (British Barbecue Champions 2011): Ribs, burritos, authentic pit smoked meats.
French Revolution: sweet and savoury crepes.
Veggie Love Bites: veggie and vegan falafels and burgers with dressings.
Boudoir Bliss: Moroccan fusion food and blissful drinks.
MUU Japanese food.
Michael the pizza man: freshly made pizzas.
The Tea Set: mobile ice cream bicycle.
Pig in a Bun: fantastic burgers, sausages and bacon rolls.
Somerset Cider Brandy tombola marquee.

www.middlefarm.com

• £12 for one day
• £20 for both days
• No charge for under 12′s

It’s All About Sharks! Brighton Sealife

A groundbreaking research project and a Jaws amnesty are just two of a host of shark-related events at Brighton Sea Life Centre this month.
The centre is supporting European Shark Week – beginning Saturday, October 15th – but continuing its shark-themed celebrations right through to the 30th.

Along with sister centres across Europe the attraction has announced that it will be supplying shark teeth from the bed of its ocean tank to a research team at Birmingham University.

“Tiny oxygen particles retained in the teeth as they develop can reveal the temperature of the water the shark lived in,” said curator Carey Duckhouse.

“The two year study supported by Sea Life will hopefully prove that this is the case across all shark species.

“The researchers will then be able to examine fossil shark teeth to learn about climate changes millions of years ago, which will provide clues as to why sudden spurts of evolution or mass extinctions occurred.”

Data from the fossil teeth may help explain why the megalodon, giant 60-foot ancestor of the great white shark, died out 1.6 million years ago after being top of the ocean food chain for 14 million years.

While the scientists focus on prehistoric marine events, the Sea Life Centre will be more concerned during Shark Weeks with man’s current impact on the seas… and in particular sharks.

Tens of millions of sharks are killed annually as by-catch or for shark fin soup and many species are teetering on the brink of oblivion.

continued
While the recent spate of shark attacks has not helped their cause, Sea Life experts argue that such incidents are invariably the result of human folly.

And shark conservation efforts have been hindered for decades, they say, by Jaws… the best-selling Peter Benchley thriller and subsequent blockbuster films that it spawned.

“Though Mr Benchley became a staunch advocate of shark conservation himself in his later life, his creation continues to damage the interests of sharks even now,” said Carey.

“Horror shark movies have become a whole new genre, the latest example of which is the Shark Night 3D film,” said Carey.

So in a bid to reduce its harmful influence a little, the Sea Life centre is offering a free return ticket to anyone who turns up in Shark Weeks and hands over a copy of either book or film.

“We will collect as many as we can and find an environmentally friendly way of destroying them,” said Carey.

Other activities during Shark Weeks include:

An underwater art exhibition
Face-painting
Special talks
Quiz trail
Colouring & activity sheets
Fact of the day

www.visitsealife.com/brighton

Gathering by Melanie Manchot at Fabrica

This autumn Fabrica are delighted to present two films by artist Melanie Manchot. The exhibition, Gathering, will feature new work Walk (Square) and 2010’s Celebration (Cyprus Street).

In Walk (Square) a thousand schoolchildren stream out of their school gates and become part of a vast choreographed crowd in the square outside the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg. For Celebration (Cyprus Street) Manchot worked with the residents of Cyprus Street in the East End of London and the resulting film is a continuous tracking shot that records a community coming together and posing for a traditional group photograph.

Melanie Manchot worked with the participants of both films to construct and record incidents that examine collective identities, codes of behaviour in public space and develop her continued interest in portraiture as a performative event. The films also express Manchot’s interest in walking as a form of democratic expression, to parade or to protest, and resonate with the wave of mass demonstrations that have swept across Europe and the Middle East from anti-cuts protests in the UK, to the Arab Spring.

Legitimate protest or riot? Street party or demonstration? The politics of the mob or the genuine voice of the people? Gathering promises to be the focus for a highly topical debate on the power of human action directed to a common goal.

A full programme of events and activities will sit alongside the exhibition. Full details http://fabrica.org.uk

Brighton Comedy Festival – 10th Anniversary

The Brighton Comedy Festival has established itself over the last ten years as a jewel in the crown of the British live comedy circuit. Over three weekends around fifty of the best comedians working in live comedy strut the boards of the Brighton Dome’s three venues – the Concert Hall, Corn Exchange and Pavilion Theatre. Brighton has always been a place where one can escape and there’s no better antidote to these modern times than a good laugh.

This year’s star acts include TV’s Ed Byrne, Paul Daniels, Sarah Millican, Margaret Cho, Jo Pasquale and Andy Parsons as well as popular and award winning stand ups like Reginald D Hunter, Milton Jones, Tom Stade and Jack Whitehall, alongside hot newcomers like Nick Helm and Seann Walsh.

www.brightoncomedyfestival.com

“New Paintings” by Philippa Cannan at the Hop Gallery, Lewes

Animals possibly symbolise life’s deepest energies. Through her paintings, Philippa Cannan at the Hop Gallery takes a glimpse of a horse and rider, a deer or a bird in flight into an area of reverie or daydream. Perhaps what Freud called Free Floating Attention.

Hop Gallery, Castle Ditch Lane, (off Fisher Street), Lewes, BN7 1YJ
• www.hopgallery.com