h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Mad Jack Fuller and the Belle Tout Lighthouse - A87827601
Author: Dmitri Gheorgheni - U1590784

In a serious omission, the Edited Guide has heretofore ignored the important history of one of the UK's most notable figures. I refer, of course, to Mad Jack Fuller, the visionary from Brightling.

To correct this, and to fulfill the Create Challenge to write something about weather, I offer Fuller's connection to the Beachy Head lighthouse which is now a B&B.

Fuller would have enjoyed that - especially if there were drinks going.

Thank you for offering this Dmitri, an interesting bit on an unusual person

A few quibbles;

>He continued to exert a strong influence on civic life all his days, not only in his native Sussex, but on a national level – and not only in politics.

Could you change one of the 'not only's into 'but also', or some other interesting substitute?

>Fuller may have done many things on a whim – after all, it is said that he built the Sugar Loaf, a lookout point, to win a bet that he could see Dallington Church from his estate.

I have always considered 'a lookout point' to be a natural feature, was it a wooden lookout, like pier, or did he create an artificial point of land by moving rock and dirt?

>Belle Tout

>'Belle Tout' is named for Bael, the Celtic god of war. (Why not?) The name means 'Bael's Lookout', although whether the ancient woad-wearing Britons would have recognised this nod to their mythology is moot.

I have long thought Bael to be either an ancient Canaanite God, or a Hebrew God before Moses. Could you expand on this a bit?

>After the war, the Council had had enough of all this vandalism, and bought the building. They rented it out as a film location, and the lighthouse got a new lease on life. From 1996 to 2007, it was a private home. Now, Belle Tout is a well-visited bed and breakfast.

>Belle Tout is famous now, having appeared in a James Bond film, The Living Daylights, been immrotalised in a rock song (by the Subterraneans), and redecorated on television by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen.

Immortalized? This could also use a reductions of one of the 'now's, maybe 'Belle Tout has become famous...'


>Belle Tout was decommissioned, replaced with a more practical structure at the bottom of the cliff. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Although I understand the Latin Translation, a footnote might be in order here.



F S

Thanks for commenting - I'll try to get back to this tomorrow and answer/cehck.

Just for now, the Canaanite god is calle dBa'al, not Bael. And I don't know anything at all about the Canaanite god of war, or why the lighthouse people named the point for him. It's just what their info said.

And . First comment, and you have already let me check one off on my Pr-spotting list. (It's like a birding list.)

I bet Elektra that somebody was going to ask for a translation of that Latin phrase, because we can't have people thinking it's normal to use Latin phrases, now,c an we?

I'll do that when I get the phrasing you suggested.Thanks for the help, this was a rush job.

Oh, and yes - lookout point don't have to be nautical, as far as I know? At least, Lookout Mountain in Tennessee doesn't have anything nautical about it that I know of. There's a river somewhere, but it's miles from any ocean. The Sugar Load was built up with rocks and dirt.

I'm no surveyor - msybe I should have said 'observation point'? I was just speaking colloquially.

Okay, I've tweaked the phrasing a bit.

Let me know if you see anything else.

Also, Southern England folks, let me know if you have anything to add about Beachy Head, etc.

You could mention that it's in the South Downs National Park and visible from the South Downs Way National Trail?

<BB<

Thanks!

It is also part of the Sussex Heritage Coast, Britain's first Heritage Coast.

<BB<

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PR thread read.

GB

I'm sorry I missed this! It's a lovely article about a lovely place.
I didn't know that Mad Jack Fuller built Belle Tout, though I've walked this part of the coast often enough.