A youth near the coach stop asked me “what’s it like being posh?” as I walked past.

I wasn’t even wearing my beret.

There was a plaintive undertone to the miscreant’s pointed question, beyond the simple diss.

I was wearing a hand-me-down tweed jacket, a monochrome shirt with ferns on it, black jeans, and adidas trainers.

Sartorially, a mess, if anything.

But to this kid – in regulation tracksuit, with matching regulation haircut – I must have looked every inch the monied alien.

One thing I’ve liked about Brighton is how people dress. Usually no-one bats an eyelid at the myriad styles, and my own outfits have increased in eccentricity by approximately fifteen percent.

Last week, for example, I saw a guy I like to think of as the King of the Grebos: completely bald on top; long dreads at the back, dyed pink; tracksuit; full length fur coat; dog on a string.

And while writing this I was passed by a lady in a pink wide brimmed hat and a young man in a bowler.

But there’s also a proper townie feel to the city that might surprise outsiders and day-trippers. Walking down London Road can feel a lot less like Bohemia and a lot more like Crawley.

There are so many class signifiers. Had I responded to the youth, my accent would have confirmed his suspicions, though my story is a little more complicated.

I went to a posh school, but my family upbringing was more working class to lower middle: the generation who came over as migrants with very little, and worked hard in an era of near full employment, social housing, and free education.

I’m more comfortable in pubs than at dinner parties, but often feel an alien interloper in both.

But I’m also lucky. I have a chameleon ability to talk to most people; I know enough about the football, the geopolitical situation in the Middle East, and south London house prices to muddle through multiple worlds.

I wonder where this kid feels comfortable.

Waiting near the burnt down hotel and coach stop to London, making sarcastic asides to strangers? Sure.

Most other places, I’m not so sure.

The world we’re building seems increasingly designed for people that aren’t me.

But it’s sure not for this kid either.