Notting Hill Diary

Excuse me, but YADDA YADDA YADDA

I can barely remember a single year out of the past 30 years when Carnival hasn’t been threatened with cancellation or at the very least, re-routing. Each time it seems really seriously and each time it leads to nothing. Nada.

Yes, there were a record amount of arrests last year, but that was completely accounted for by the Police making the sensible decision to take pre-emptive precautions rather than allowing people to waltz boldly through with knives (much as the metal detectors on public transport pained me). And yes, there was some trouble at the end that I and the rest of Rotten Hill Gang got caught up in.

Those things aren’t good. In fact they’re very bad. But those and much worse things have happened before and the Police are now better at handling them.

My advice - don’t worry. Carnival will happen again this year and every year for the forseeable future.

Hawkwind - did punk ever happen?

Do I care much about Hawkwind? Well not very much is the honest answer, them having been consigned to the “But surely punk got rid of all that pompous nonsense” pile by my generation in their teens.

I will, however, admit to knowing little about them beyond Silver Machine and they did play their first gig 40 years ago this year in Notting Hill, so let’s be charitable about them for a moment for the following reasons:

1) They played their first gig 40 years ago this coming August 29 (as a band with no proper name) at All Saints in Notting Hill.

2) They had Lemmy on bass for three years (’72 to ‘75). We all like Lemmy don’t we?

3) Their 40th anniversary gig is to be at the lovely Porchester Hall and B.A.D did one of their earlyish gigs there (1986). I was a roadie back then. Well more precisely I was a computer programmer during the day, then I rushed along to Porchester Hall after work to sit at the side of the stage looking busy.

4) You could make a day of it, going for a session in Porchester’s Turkish baths before the gig.

That’s about it really, four rather specious reasons for giving them a mention. One day I’ll get round to writing about the music scene in the area (Pink Fairies et al) around 40 years ago. then again one day I’ll do a lot of things I keep promising to do.

Wifey and I have become quite partial to Persian food over the last year or so. We’re not sure if there genuinely is a proliferation of Persian restaurants of late, or if we’re just observing the “since I bought my new car I see them everywhere” effect, but we’re learning to tell the difference between good and - well - indifferent Persian food.

Behesht, unfortunately, falls into the latter category. We had passed it many times and Wifey in particular had one of those “feelings” about the place, so on Saturday we decided to try it for lunch.

On walking in we had high hopes. Split into five rooms and much, much bigger inside than you could ever guess from the street, the interior is a fantasy land of Middle Eastern décor and indoor water features.

We sat down and ordered from the very reasonably priced menu, which, by the way, somebody really should proof read. My okra main course included something called “green papers” while, alarmingly, several of the starters including my baba ganoush, had as their main ingredient either grilled or baked aborigine!

We were refused tap water. I think it’s an urban myth that it’s a legal requirement to offer it, but it’s the only restaurant I know of that doesn’t and that alone is enough to stop me from going back.

Something we really like about Persian restaurants is breaking a raw egg yolk into the rice. That too wasn’t available.

The service was, to put it politely, offhand. Our waiter had all the charm and some of the sleaze of a used car salesman and we were left feeling as if we’d turned up at an inconvenient time at the house of someone who then felt obliged to entertain us.

The portions though, are very generous especially given the price. So much so in fact that we decided to finish early and asked for the food to be wrapped up to take away. We were somewhat nonplussed when our waiter returned with three Tupperware boxes for us to pack the food into ourselves!

1082 - 1084 Harrow Road
London NW10 5NL
But don’t go there

While paying a congestion charge just now (it feels rather like being gently mugged) I happened to notice that
from December 25 to Jan 1 there will be no congestion charge.

So - er - wait - having said that it won’t be possible to repeal the corn laws remove the western extension for 18 months, what you’re now telling us that, actually, you can remove the charge any time you feel like it. Which is it?

Come on BoJo, it’s great that you’ve turned conventional wisdom as to which party listens to people on its head and we (Londoners) feel like our relationship has got off to a good start, but you’re sending us mixed messages and we’re confused as to where you see “us” going.

Soon to be ex-Woolworth’s on Portobello Road

Sadly, as we all know, Woolies, at least the one on Portobello Road, isn’t to see another Christmas. I popped along there between the soundcheck and the gig at Inn on the Green last night to see it for myself and it’s quite a maudlin affair.

These pictures were taken at around 8:30 in the evening as staff were - well doing whatever staff do at 8:30 in the evening. The woman in the first picture was also taking photos and she turned out to be an employee. She told me that it had been on Portobello Road for 68 years. Now I’m sure that when it first arrived, my grandparents, who lived on Oxford Gardens, objected to a multinational chain moving into the neighbourhood just as much as we don’t much care for Coffee Republic and Star*ucks taking over opposite corners of Westbourne Park Road now, but it’s been established for so long that it feels like it’s a bit of our own lives that’s being taken away.

An attempt to view the fixture-and-fittings sale board

My mum dragged me round Woolworth’s as a kid and yes, I do remember the pick ‘n’ mix and that the shelves were wooden. It was shabby years before shabby was chic and suited post WWII austerity to a T, but the trouble is that their idea of moving with the times has been to put the word “Local” in friendly, “hand written” script after their name in response to Tesco’s “Metro”.

Cheap? Well yes. Cheerful? Not really, but it had an atmosphere of its own and was so bloody convenient (listen to me, I’m talking in the past tense already).

The woman outside pointed out that you could see the board with all the prices of their fixtures and fittings, which is what I tried to take the second shot of. After I’d done that one of the staff inside came running to the door, thinking that I’d been voyeuristically taking photos of or gawping at them. Woman-outside explained that I hadn’t and woman-inside wandered away muttering something about being unemployed in two days, which made me think twice about writing this article at all.

I don’t expect there are any plans for the space that they are about to vacate yet, but I do hope that The Portobello Blog’s predictions of a giant supermarket don’t bear fruition.

Farewell Woolies! I bought my first, multipurpose screwdriver there when I bought my flat. It was the best £3.75 I ever spent.

We’re playing our last gig of this year tonight, fittingly enough at Inn on the Green, where we played our first gig back in January, courtesy of Mick Jones and Tony James, hosts of those fantastic Carbon Casino nights. Still trying to find out what time we’re on.

It’s been a great year for us with some real highlights, but the important thing is that we’ve stuck to our basic principle, laziness. Old fashioned sloth. If it gets too hard, move on to something else. We’re in it to make music that we like and to enjoy it. It took Gary months to coax me back into the studio, but I’m really glad he did. Enough of that!

Thanks to Trish, Pockets and everyone else at Strummerville for putting us on last night. It was a bit chaotic as always, but it’s probably how it should be. The “surprise” guest was Huey Morgan, who came on to sing Can’t Take My Eyes Off You (better, though incorrectly known as Too Good To Be True) with us. We all joined in on the chorus. Frankie Valli is reported to feel unthreatened.

Portobello Winterfest

Thanks to everyone who came to see us freeze our nuts off at the Portobello Winter Fest last night and thanks to the festival organisers themselves.

I arrived a couple of hours early because I wanted to catch Ebony Bones and I’m very glad I did. I first became aware of her a couple of years back when Rat Scabies (who was managing her … or something like that) asked me to try out on guitar for her. This despite the fact that I didn’t have a guitar¹, hadn’t played guitar since I was a teenager (and never on stage) and that Rat had never seen me play any instrument whatsoever.

Anyway that didn’t come to anything because I didn’t have the time, but she put on an excellent show and we were really indebted to her for pumping up the crowd.

It was so cold when we went on that the ends of two of my fingers went numb during the second song and I made what can only be described as a right hash of it. During the next two songs the temperature change threw my guitar wildly out of tune, leading to some dark looks from Mick. Which was fair enough!

But it went really well and we made a good few new friends out of it if the comments we received afterwards and the hits on our myspace page this morning are anything to go by. We were honoured to be asked to play the first ever Portobello Winter Fest and wish them all the best. One of the organisers was saying that they were hoping to make it a 3 monthly affair.

Don’t forget, tonight is the Strummerville show at the Tabernacle on Powis Square. If you like it last night, you like it tonight, because it’ll be the same. Only in tune. Oh and we have the obligatory “surprise guest”. No not Mick, it’d be a surprise if he didn’t play with us these days.

¹Actually strictly speaking I still don’t have my own guitar. The one I use is Wifey’s. She acquired it in a “settlement” when she split from a musician boyfriend in a medium sized US band I’d never heard of called Sister Machine Gun. I think he just never came back to collect it after they split up.

Uncles Café, Portobello Road. Hard to see, but Wifey is actually running backwards in slow motion.

Value for money: good
Atmosphere: good
Service: good (these days!)

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to remember to review Uncles, if only because going to whichever establishment has occupied that spot for around wo decades has provided me with a number of anecdotes.

Until the mid 90s it was known as the Portobello Cáfe. Yes, the accent was over the “a”. It did decent burgers, English breakfasts, coffees and the like, great for veggies (you have to be to survive on Portobello Road), reasonable prices and open 7 days a week.

As the years went on, the service got worse and the quality of the food deteriorated. The “cáfe” reduced its opening times to Fridays and Saturdays and finally stopped opening altogether. Many believe the aroma of hash floating out from somewhere that may or may not have been the direction of the kitchen had something to do with the chef’s inability to deliver an order in a timely manner, or correctly at all.

The last time I went there when it was in that guise, it took 45 minutes for our cappucinos to arrive (there were only two of us there) and when my veggie burger finally did arrive, the burger itself was nowhere to be seen within the two halves of the bun.

It then mutated into a passable sushi bar. Either it wasn’t really all that good¹ or the area wasn’t yet ready for a sushi place, but after no more than a couple of years it became Uncles, as it is now.

Actually it’s basically a much better version of Portobello Cáfe and we go there at least once a month at weekends for an eggs benedict/eggs florentine respectively (that’s with respect to wifey/veggie boy). And we always order chips. They do good chips (that’s fries to non UK readers). Then we ask for the Tabasco bottle, which we usually empty. Wifey and I are real foodies, but boy do we like it hot! Tabasco to us is like drinking fruit juice.

Anyway, the point is that they do the best breakfasts/brunches for quality and value in Notting Hill. Of course the Electric Brasserie is great, but friggin’ expensive!

Oh yes - the other anecdote. Early on their service wasn’t quite so good. At least their service per se was, but their ability to split a bill wasn’t. One week they tried to charge us for both our meal and the one the people sitting oposite us had had. The next week we thought we’d make sure it didn’t happen again. Low and behold it did. We told them of the problem, they apologised profusely, adjusted the bill and promptly handed us a credit card chit (this was pre PIN) with … you guessed it, the other couple’s bill added back again.

305 Portobello Road
London W10 5TD
020 8962 0090

¹Actually my appreciation of sushi is muted somewhat by the fact that I’m a vegetarian. Even if you do eat fish it’s probably one of the more espensive way not to fill yourself up, but the veggie options usually amount to a sliver of cucumber in some rice at 4 or 5 pounds for 3 pieces. I’m not sure it’ll ever be fair of me to review any sushi restaurants, though there are a couple in the area.

Portobello Winterfest

Aside from Carbon Casino 9 on Tuesday (and I’m looking forward to seeing Carbon Silicon playing again - it’s been a while), we’re playing At the Portobello Winterfest on Saturday Dec 20, the Strummerville Xmas Party on Sunday the 21st at the legendary Tabernacle and at Inn on the Green on Monday for another Strummer benefit.

In other news, I’ve heard that the CD has been selling well in Rough Trade and that they’ve asked for some more copies. About time to start promoting it properly I think - we just have all that lined up, we just have to give the word …

Strummerville Xmas Party

Notting Hill Gang - Pick a Pocket

Occasionally I’m accused of writing about stuff that’s - well frankly not 100% Notting Hill related and more band related, but now I have a good excuse. Our first single, Pick a Pocket is now available in Rough Trade. Rough Trade is in Notting Hill.

The complete track listing is as follows:

Actually you can hear them and a few other tracks on our myspace page (our own website is in development).

Obviously like most bands we put the acappelas on as a not so subtle hint that we’re totally happy for you to go away and do your own remixes. As long as you send us a copy of course. If we get any good ones I’ll feature them here.

Oh - and I have 5 copies of the single sitting right here to give away free to anyone who can give me a good reason as to why they should have one.

Rough Trade
130 Talbot Road
London W11 1JA
020 7229 8541