Kent is very good, though I don't know a lot about their staff. Brighton has a brilliant academic culture, and the tutors are fantastic and well respected. The person who controls most of the second half of my MA which consists of Structuralism-Post Structuralism-Post Marxism, has been very good, as is the course leader I mentioned. I have learnt a lot, and they seem to genuinely care about making a difference. It also helps they mostly are committed leftists. If you do decide to go, consider Brighton, at least have an open day visit or short interview over the phone, they would be more than happy to help. Plus, there is quite a strong presence of left unity around here, which is also encouraging. The only issue about Brighton, which is fairly ironic, is that the organisation and such is pretty flakey at best. Nothing gets done on time and things are always delayed, but that is probably par for a lot of the humanities departments, or at least was until the thought police invaded. It hasn't really bothered me though.
If I did leave the UK, it wouldn't be far, probably France.. ideally I'd get citizenship for Iceland and live in Reykjavík - but the chances of that happening are a million to one. Hey ho, stuck in England for now.
Sagan: In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
Basinski: I wanted Cascade to become this crystalline organism like a star or a liquid crystal spaceship, a jellyfish traveling through the galaxy…