What the hell is a pier anyway? Some folly that can't decide if it's a static boat, or a floating cul-de-sac, or what? A Victoriana whim to stash local councils' attempts at entertainment? A hemibridge?

I always find myself more interested in the struts and supports and structure than the sports above. Dolphin derby and tupenny pushers have nothing on undersea forests and iron pillars, propping up the old desire to walk on water, like Jesus hisself. Black angles, caught up in mangled, antique seaweed. Coated in waves. Steady and stubborn. An aspiration to the soul of the engineer.

The pier is a sentry, the architect dipping their massive toe in the water. Salt and storms stick to the air around the arcades, a litmus of metallic culture in the face of our harshest enemy, the sea. We do not promenade for fun, but to foretell, to taste the bitter swirl of our own pattern, ready to be washed away, like sandcastles under the tide.