Notting Hill Diary

  

If the arch looked like this we’d all be happy

How do you feel about it?
I’m in about 6 minds about it. My main one is that it’s sad that it’s had to come to this.

The police have come a very long way in their understanding of how to manage the second biggest street party in the world without appearing intrusive and without unwittingly provoking the sort of trouble we’ve seen in the past, so I do hope that they can implement these checks without making people feel uncomfortable.

So where’s the problem with the detectors
Actually I’m not sure whether it’s a problem or not. Most of us are grown ups and know how to behave. Why anyone would set out to Carnival to cause trouble is completely beyond my comprehension, but the rest of us tend not to like being treated like kids. That said, I’m totally down with the whole not-being-stabbed thing.

Morons
By the way I first picked up this nugget of information from some white supremacists’ forum (believe me I wasn’t looking, it just came up as a google alert!), presumably clutching at straws in an effort to denigrate an tradition that’s really hard for them to come to terms with.

   

Almost certainly not the steel band I can hear outside right now

lWhat’s that then?
Well I just put my head outside (to change the cat litter, since you ask) and I can hear the sound of a steel band rehearsing for Carnival. It’s a lovely sunny evening in Notting Hill the week leading up to Carnival and there’s a steel band playing somewhere in the area. It doesn’t get better than this!

Where are the floats?
Yes I know Carnival is supposed to be all about the floats, but let’s face it, we mostly go wandering from sound system to sound system don’t we?

Um true. So what’s sound systems are playing this year?
This is the most up to date list we could find. It’s subject to change, plus you always get those wonderful “impromptu” sound systems that will never feature in any official list.

I’d actually be hard pressed to tell the difference between this year and last year. Anyway, here we go.

Gaz’s Rockin Blues
103 Talbot Road
Classic Ska, Revival, New Orleans R&B

If you’ve been following you’ll already know that Gaz’s theme this year is Around the World in 80 Days and that at 3:30pm on Monday you can see Rotten Hill Gang in full Dickensian flow.

Good Times
West Row j/w Southern Row
Funky House, Good Times classics

Norman Jay MBE shows us why he’s MBE

Channel One
Leamington Road Villas
Strictly Roots and Culture

Stand in front of the stacks to relieve any constipation from Carnival street food.

4 Play
West Row near j/w Kensal Road
R&B, Old Skool, Soul, Rap, Bashment, Funky House, Sexy Soul Garage

Aba Shanti-I
East Row j/w Southern Row
Roots Rock Reggae, Dub

Confusion
St Lukes Road facing Lancaster Road
Soulful House and Garage

CMC/Matrix
All Saints Road opposite The Pelican
Drum n Bass

Disya Jeneration
12 Powis Terrace
R&B, Hip Hop, Bashment, Soca, Calypso and Old Skool

The Fun Bunch
Talot road at junction with Sutherland place
R&B, Hip-Hop, garrage, boogie

GI Roadshow
Adela Street
Reggae, Bashment, Salsa and R&B

Gladdy Wax Roadshow
304/306 Portobello Road
Roots, Reggae old & new, Ska, Rocksteady and Dub

GT FleX Roadshow/Mayhem Crew
St Stephens Gardens/Westbourne Park Villas
R&B, Soul, Ragga, Revival, Old Skool

High on Hope
Bonchurch Road j/w Portobello Road
R&B, Reggae, Hip Hop and Classic Garage

Jah Observer
Ledbury Road with junction Of Talbot Road
Roots and Culture

KCC & The Rocking Crew
Wornington Road
US House (Old & New), House Anthams

Killerwatt
St Lukes Road outside Metro Club
Across the board, no discrimination

King Tubby’s
Clydesdale Road, outside Clydesdale House
Reggae with regular guests from the Reggae Hall of Fame!

Latin Rave Street Jam
318 Portobello Road
Pure Latin and Salsa

Level Vibes
18 Oxford Gardens facing St Lawrence Terrace
Uplifting House and 70s/80s Soul and Funk

Lord Gellys
47 Cambridge Gardens
Reggae, R&B and Soca

Love TKO (RamJam Radio)
Golborne Gardens j/w Hazelwood Crescent
Reggae, R&B, Hip Hop, Revival and Soca

Mastermind Roadshow
Canal Way/Canalside House
Upfront R&B, Hip Hop, Soul, Old Skool and Reggae

Mellotone
Telford Road near j/w Lionel Mews
Soul, Ragga, R&B, Revival

Metro Glory
Ledbury Road j/w Westbourne Park Road
Ragga, R&B, Hip Hop, House, Garage, Jungle and Roots

Midnight Express 747
Corner of Middle Row and Southern Row
Reggae, Soca and Soul

Nasty Love Mixing Lab
Colville Gardens (Middle)
Ragga, Dancehall, R&B and Hip Hop

People’s Sound Featuring Sufferer
Opposite the Walmer Castle Public House
Ragga, R&B, Hip Hop and Soca

Pineapple Tribe
Junction of Ledbury and Lonsdale Road W11, opposite the Walmer Castle Public House
Techno, Breaks and Beats

Rampage
1 Colville Square, Colville Gardens
Across the Board

Rapattack
23 All Saints Road
Soul, Funk, R&B, Hip Hop, Garage, Old Skool and Rare Groove

Rough But Sweet
Conlon Street j/w East Row
Reggae, R&B, Revival, Lovers, Garage

Sancho Panza
Middle Row facing Conlan Street
Funky House

Saxon Sounds
St Lawrence Terrace North of j/w Chesterton Road
Ragga and Reggae

Sir Lloyd
54 Leamington Road Villas, Tavistock Road
R&B and Reggae

Sir Valdez
Golborne Road
R&B, Hip Hop and Ragga

Studio One Sound
Powis Square (East side)
R&B, Reggae, Hip Hop, Dancehall, Garage and Soca

Virgo International
Outside People’s Theatre, Oxford Gardens
Reggae, Bashment, Soca, Hip Hop, R&B and Garage

  

Michael, you make me feel so good!

“Jung junga jung jung jung jung jung jung jung ‘Now here is your news’” rang out from the juke box. “Jung junga jung jung jung jung jung jung” the rhythm insisted again. “Dugga dung dung, dung da dung” replied the muted drum roll, and thus I was introduced to Mikey Dread’s “Radio One”, having flipped over the Clash’s “Hitsville UK”, itself unusual enough, at least you were expecting to hear a classic slice of three minute punk fury.

Radio One was unusual not because it was a great piece of dub, we’d been hearing that since the early 70’s, and not just because it was on the B side of a single by the foremost exponents of the most exciting thing to have happened in a decade, but because here was a man, chatting in his own voice, about something I could relate to, to wit, how bad the main source of modern music in the UK at the time was.

  

Dread at the Controls

Listening to the lyrics it was so obviously something I could relate to just as surely as a musician being forced through the record industry’s musical blender could relate to the A side, or any kid being made to sit exams at school a couple of years earlier could relate to the Specials’ “Rat Race” (grrr! Thanks lads, I was trying to sit my A-levels at the time!).

But beyond even that, here was a brilliant piece of dub, being done with a huge dose of humour. I have no idea how the track came about, despite once asking Mick about it, although I do have another version of the rhythm somewhere (maybe on a Scientist album?), but on it Mr Campbell comes across as a lovely guy.

I met him a couple of times later, not funnily enough, through the Clash, but when he was doing front of house engineering for Aswad (when they too played exciting dub before realising that the way to have hits was to edge poor Brinsley off the mic in favour of Drummie Zeb’s lover’s rock voice) and he was indeed a lovely guy.

What’s this got to do with Notting Hill? Um .. OK, maybe the reason the song comes to mind now is a delayed reaction seeing Mick singing Career Opportunities with Lauren (his daughter) taking Ellen Foley’s part an octave higher at one of the Carbon Casinos at the Inn on the Green earlier this year. Is that enough of an excuse?

Or maybe it’s just that when Mikey Dread passed on in March of this year I didn’t yet have a blog in which to write about it. Either way, incongruous as it was, Radio One was the perfect flipside, both literally and metaphorically, to Hitsvile UK. Besides, I’m sure Mikey loved this time of year in Notting Hill!

 

A fine beard that I can only aspire to

I’d never had a beard before the last couple of months, partly because I was frankly incapable of growing one, but more honestly because I thought there was something “weird” about them, as if the wearer somehow lacked confidence, or was possibly a computer programmer or archeologist.

My current crop of facial hair began as most probably do, the byproduct of sloth. I had no particular social engagements to shave for and after a couple of weeks noticed that the stubble had got past the “scruff” stage and reached “designer”.

 

A nutter

The clincher was that the following weekend, Gary and I DJ’d at something of a society wedding at the Carlton Club, a Tory hangout and the former Conservative Party HQ. The walls are adorned by portraits of prominent party members, mostly painted in the 19th Century, many of whom sported the most impressive beards (and statesmanlike guts to boot).

All of a sudden it clicked. My excuse for not shaving was now to be that it was all for the band! Rotten Hill Gang currently have this whole Dickensian thing going on you see, because of our track “Pick a Pocket”, a rap based around the late Lionel Bart’s Oliver song of the same name, so it seemed important that one of us looked the part of a .. well I’m not sure what, but something Victorian.

So for now the beard stays. It’s already been through the “uncomfortable itchy” stage and hovers between “properly trimmed” and the “difficult to eat egg mayonnaise or pizza politely” stage, having only once visited the “Sadam being pulled from the foxhole” level of dishevelment.

But the fact is, despite all evidence to the contrary (as in, my face in the mirror), I still think of myself very much as a clean shaven man.

  

No really, that’s what Little Wormwood Scrubs always looks like!

A play, al fresco
I’m all up for using the environment around you as you find it for creative purpose and who doesn’t love a bit of open air theatre on a late summer’s evening? Ryan Saunders, Nicola Stuart and Samuel Collings perform what sounds like, from the description, a retelling of the Adam and Eve story sometime in the future.

Little Wormwood Scrubs
The setting for this post apocalyptic tale, is appropriately enough, that sad, forgotten outpost of either eastern Wormwood Scrubs or western Notting Hill, depending on your perspective. When I first mentioned this to Wifey, she asked if the play involved foul mouthed kids doing wheelies on suspiciously small bikes while threatening passers by, in other words, an average summer’s evening on Little Wormwood Scrubs.

Well I won’t prejudge the performance any further, I’ll wait till I’ve seen it. After all it is free and, unlike an appalling performance wifey and I once caught at the Bush Theatre (the high point was one of the actors pissing into a cat litter tray), it shouldn’t be to hard to escape if the going gets rough.

Hopefully it won’t come to that - we wish them the best of luck.

Thursday to Sunday until August 31, 8pm, free.
Tel: 020 8237 1111
http://www.riversidestudios.co.uk
Tube: Ladbroke Grove then 7, 70 or 316

Blackberries, rich in vitamins C, E and all sorts of other stuff

OK strictly speaking it’s W12 …
While not exactly in the area, Wormwood Scrubs is an area of grassland designated in 1879 as a public space. It’s in the borough of Hammesmith and Fulham, though in fact the eastern part, known as Little Wormwood Scrubs is within Kensington and Chelsea. The Scrubs deserves an article of its own because it has an interesting history.

… but that’s close enough for me
It’s close enough to the western end of Notting Hill to be the nearest open space, so many of us from this end go for walks there and today Wifey and I decided to go blackberry picking. During the last couple of weeks they’ve really ripened and the biggest and softest of them are deliciously sweet. We picked a couple of kilos and we’ve decided on making urbanberry jam, urbanberry crumble (well, I have) and to freeze the rest and use them in smoothies.

The sounds of Carnival
The experience was good in a husband and wife team building sense and was made all the more pleasurable by the fact that we could hear a steel band rehearsing somewhere in the distance for Notting Hill Carnival next weekend.

Sarah Anderson - an inspirational woman

As I wrote in a previous article, it’s well documented that the Travel Bookshop at 13-15 Blenheim Crescent London W11 is the inspiration behind the Travel Book Company in the Notting Hill movie and most definitely NOT the shop itself.

Not that this seems to concern estate agents Kinleigh, Folkard and Hayward, who are in the process of selling the flat above on behalf of its owner, author Sarah Anderson. Explaining that “This is a dream home for a buyer who wants to be in the heart of Notting Hill surrounded by real film nostalgia”, they describe the flat as “A beautiful double bedroom duplex apartment with study”, which I’m sure it is, “situated above Notting Hill’s famous ‘The Travel Bookshop’.”, which it is, but there’s a clear attempt to make it sound as if it’s the shop in the movie.

No matter, I’m more interested in Sarah Anderson herself, an inspirational woman to say the least and writer, among other things, of “Inside Notting Hill” which, judging from the excerpts on her website, looks very good and, you would have thought, would be required reading for someone like me. I plan to address that as soon as I can and I’ll write a review.

Sarah is a fascinating character, having opened the bookshop itself in 1980. At some point I think I’ll write an article on her.

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The travel bookstore that’s not actually on Portobello Road and they didn’t actually use in the movie

Travel Book Company
First things first. The bookshop in the movie isn’t really the one tourists keep photographing themselves in front of and there is no “Travel Book Company” on Portobello Road. The shop on which that was based is the “Travel Bookshop” round the corner at 13-15 Blenheim Crescent. The space where they built store for the movie is at 142 Portobello Road, now occupied by a Chinesish furniture and knick knacks store called Gong.

And now back to the plot.

Portobello Road
Probably one of the most famous streets in London and despite all the hype surrounding a certain movie (oh OK it was Notting Hill starring Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts and Rhys Ifans and yes, thank you fror the house price dividend) and the two decades’ worth of gentrification, Portobello Road has managed to maintain an air of unselfconscious shabbiness.

You would think by now that by now only the richest corporations could afford to open up here and it has its fair share of places you’d have to be nuts to buy furniture in, but there are still plenty that have been there for decades and plenty that have hand painted signs.

 

Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts stand woodenly as they flirt with each other

Amazingly such independent record stores as Intoxica (which formerly rejoiced under the dubious name of Vinyl Solution) and Saints Tattoist, the tattiest tattoo parlour (pardon my aliteration) in town still co-exist alongside Starbucks and Coffee Republic, more of which later.

My favourite halal butcher
One shop that has closed is what I used to call “My favourite halal butcher”. This may surprise regular readers on two counts (three including the claim that I have regular readers). Firstly, if you read any of my pub or restaurant reviews you’ll know that I rely on my wife much of the time because I’m a vegetarian. Secondly I’ve given no indication that if I did eat meat it would need to be halal.
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