Wow, it has been an interesting half-year! Six months ago I decided to move to Brighton, which has turned out to be the best impulsive decision I have ever made. I moved here jobless, mainly friendless, and totally terrified, but I think things have worked out pretty well.

On Monday, I’m joining Future Platforms, which I mentioned a few posts ago, so tomorrow is my final day at Cactus Language. Cactus, incidentally, is a wonderful place to work, and I will miss it and my colleagues a lot — check out their blog — their passion for what they do oozes off the page. Moving into mobile will be an interesting journey, and one I’m really looking forward to. Mobile, as I’ve said before, has a very strong appeal to me for a lot of reasons, and I’ll no doubt be writing on more mobile-related theme over the next few weeks and months. I like it because I feel it’s nascent, it’s gathering momentum, and there’s a lot of room for development and change, a lot of room to experiment and apply theory.

When I visited Brighton for the first time in early September, I loved it. I was briefly conflicted, as I had already set my heart on moving to London; but this was quickly displaced by the jealous feelings I started to feel towards people already living in Brighton. I’m not sure what it was initially: the sea air, the positive ‘vibe’, the endless cafes, Banksy, visiting the Laines for the first time (full of the most exotic street signage I’ve seen, must blog it), the paradox of hippies and tech-geeks living side by side, vegetarians with iPhones. You can walk down St James’s Street in pyjamas and nobody would blink an eye. That’s not to say people are badly dressed: in general, people are as style-conscious as they are in London, but without the bitter snobbery. There’s an aura of ‘anything goes’, you can wear what you want. People are cool, and people don’t judge.

So, that was it. I moved to Brighton, about a week after I had visited for the first time.

Brighton is more bohemian, exciting, and liberal than Oxford; and it has more individuality, spark, and character than Reading. Admittedly, that’s not difficult in both cases, but this place is like nowhere else in the UK. It’s a place people feel lucky, it’s a place where people willingly get stuck. I spent my first night in Brighton sitting on the beach with strangers around a campfire. They were singing, spinning fire, dancing, drinking. Someone was playing a drum. Everyone I spoke to seems to have visited Brighton for a day… 17 years ago, and everyone seemed to be from Russia, or Finland, or Italy, or somewhere else.

Another thing that attracted me to Brighton was the technology community. I can’t really stress how great it is to be surrounded by people who are working in the same field as you, or closely related, and to be around people who are genuinely, seethingly passionate about what they do. There’s a real thriving community here that I love. I felt like a geek at university, but I am always outgeeked in Brighton. Another plus is that here, you are never more than 10 minutes away from a free Wi-Fi connection (thanks to looseconnection.com, and forward-thinking cafes and pubs). The beach itself was also a reason to move: living by the sea (I am 2 minutes away from it) is wonderful, and something I’ve never experienced before.

I’m beginning to sound like Julie Burchill. I wish, she communicates the Brighton thing much better than I do…