Notting Hill Diary

After a few wonderful weeks, Mick’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Public Library is finally closing tomorrow.

Nick Reynolds and Viv Albertine thinking meaningful things at each other in the R ‘n’ R Library’s studio

We’ve had some great times there and made some new friends. Rotten Hill Gang played there last night (and thanks to Strummerville for having us) and various members of the band have been involved in a couple of the many recording sessions they had up there in the impromptu studio. One for Ronnie Biggs tune written my Gaz Mayall and Mick¹ and another this week with the Slits’ guitarist Viv Albertine, who I’d never met before, but was thoroughly lovely.

The amiable Ade Sabini, who has been looking after the place, has made a film about it, somewhat in celebration and somewhat commiseration, that I failed to see this afternoon because I was off teaching our new recruit, Gus Robertson, some Rotten Hill Guitar parts².

So all the stuff will now go back to the bunker. There are vague plans and discussions taking place about what to do with it next. One suggestion is for a shop/gallery and that was really Mick’s original idea that he’s been nursing for years.

There’ll never be another library like this and there probably shouldn’t be, because to try to do it again in exactly that way it would be like trying to recreate a great holiday. It can’t be done. Actually I hope it can …

¹It obviously worked because 2 days later he was freed, although where that leaves Gaz’s pile of “Free Ronnie Biggs” t-shirts in unclear.
²Actually teaching is a grossly unfair term. Gus is an excellent guitarist who can figure everything out for himself. We just needed to work out who’s going to play what.

Grrr!

I know I thought the same thing in a moment of madness but ..
It’s almost certainly nothing to do with me. Some other idiot (that’s an idiot other than me) made the same dumb mistake as I did and assumed that the “e” had been missed off the “creat”.

Yes I feel bad! But not as bad as the crazed hooligan who “corrected” the “creat” to “create”. Hanging’s too good for the miscreant.

I may feel more charitable in the morning, but I’m not so sure.

Street Art
Walking along by the Westway, just off Ladbroke Grove the other day I came across this little misspelled gem on the ground. Anyone have any idea what it is? What it’s all about? Who did it?

  

Create Something Out of Nothing - just off Ladbroke Grove under the Westway

2 flies are fighting on the cigarette, while a 3rd at the front is poised as if about to throw something

Wifey and I were walking along Portobello Road this afternoon trying to find an ATM that doesn’t mug you £1.60 for the privilege of accessing your own money to pay for a pair of beautiful sconces we’d just bought at “The Last Place on Earth”.

On the wall opposite the Spanish School we spotted some poems, part of the Portobello Poetry project, but next to it, almost impossible to see as you walk past, we saw the most amazing thing. I guess you’d call it an installation and I’m sorry that the image taken on my phone doesn’t do it justice.

Not actually part of the installation, but serendipidously (?) right above one of the tableaux is this natural exhibit!

A 1/2 inch thick piece of glass covered a large crevice that had naturally developed in the wall. Behind the glass, two dead insects had been posed on a cigarette butt in such a way as to suggest that the were fighting each other, while a third, further forward in the display, stood up on what I suppose one might describe as its hind legs, an object held in its right “hand” as if about to lob it at the other two.

It was impossible to capture this one, of part of the installation in Tavistock Square called Crows from Berlin, without including ourselves in the shot

You had to have pretty good eyesight to catch all the details. As we looked up we spotted a sign explaining that this was part of the Love/Hate Art Commissions Trail, which itself is lart of the In Transit programme of installations, performances, talks and tours in the public spaces of Kensington and Chelsea. I think it’s an absolutely brilliant idea, and once of which other boroughs (London and otherwise), would do well to emulate.

Looking further along the wall (and again I apologise for the quality of my camera phone shots), we found 6 or 7 other such pieces, each depicting a scene involving dead insects. Yep, even veggie boy could appreciate this exhibition! After all, even in my previous life as a carnivore I didn’t actually eat insects and have no idea as to whether their death was natural or not. I can comment that the imagination and skill that went into posing the insect tableaux was formidable and I would encourage anyone who visits the area in the next few weeks to look hard at the stretch of wall between Oxford Gardens and Goldborne Road. I’m not sure they will survive another weekend of the market, let alone Carnival.

A church is showing exhibitions?
Well more accurately that should be Westbourne Grove Church Art Space.

Life and Liberty is an exhibition that will run for 6 weeks from September 16 to October 26. Full details have yet to be announced, but one event that is to take place is SOCPA - The Movie, to be shown at 19:30 on Friday September 19, to be followed by a Q&A session with the film-maker.

What is SOCPA?
In a sledgehammer-to-crack-nut moment, SOCPA - “serious organised crime and police act” is a law that was concocted to try to prevent long time anti-war activist Brian Haw from campaigning opposite parliament by making it illegal to hold a demonstration within 1km of the building without obtaining permission and being subject to arbitrary police imposed conditions. Brian is still there.

Entry to Westbourne Grove Church Art Space is free.

Mitchy who?
If you’ve seen the covers of any of the following artists, Amp fiddler, Bugz in the Attic, Incognito, The Bees, among many more, chances are that you’ve already seen the work of Mitchy Bwoy, the multi-faceted artist, illustrator, clothes designer and now video producer/director.

Can you describe his work?
Difficult, because he’s done so much of it, but I’ll try. His characteristic style involves the use of ink, paint and bleach to create a kind of stripped down two dimensional image that reveals more about the three dimensions than, say, a photo ever could.

55DSL present a retrospective of the last ten years of his work at Craze Gallery, 253 Portobello Road from 6-9pm until August 21 2008.