Monday 29 September 2014

We are too busy.

We are too busy
fighting other peoples wars
solving others problems
carrying their weight
curing their ills
salving their bruises
taking their pain
filling their voids

We are too busy to notice

each other

anymore.

Friday 26 September 2014

The Golden Cross reappears on Portobello Road.




















Like some primeval petrified forest exposed by an exceptionally low tide the Golden cross has re-emerged on Portobello Road.

Immortalised by Martin Amis in his novel 'London Fields' This will for the time being surely become a shrine for literary tourists.

It is good to see it again and be reminded of a very good book.

Is Keith Talent going to perform the opening dart throwing?

Thursday 25 September 2014

Olive Ants of Umbria. How olive oil is really made.


A guest blog by our foodie/travel writer Rusty McGlint. He ain't got a camera so there ain't no pictures.



Foodie vegetarians or Vegetarian foodies (if that is not an oxymoron) look away.

I have just spent three weeks high in the sun burnt Umbrian hills following the most noble of oils from its source on the branch to the drizzle on an artichokes heart.

My hosts, Pietro and Enid (her father was a Blyton fan) manage 15,000 olive trees on a hillside which runs down to hillside lower down the hill but not as steep and eventually to a level bit where Top Gear presenters race each other in flash cars and then it goes up again to another hill. Pietro's family has owned the land for generations and milked its trees for oil for longer still. 'Oil is in our blood'. He says. 'And our blood is in the oil'.

I spent my days on the hillside witnessing the virgin birth of oil and my evenings getting ratarsed on the Bulgarian 'Chianti' that the family buy in bulk and then re-label for the British market.

The food, provided by Pizza Hut, down in the village, was classical Umbrian fare.

But the oil. The oil.

As I mentioned before, Pietro has 15,000 olive trees. Each tree is the 'factory' for the ants nest which lies below.  The Umbrian olive tree is the life giving umbrella to the Olive ants of Italy and indeed gives its name to the region.

Olive ants (not to be confused with the Eleph ants of ancient Israel which have slightly larger bodies, thicker skins and trunks) build vast nests containing up to one million insects, each nest grows an olive tree from which oil, the life blood of the ants, can be harvested.  They say there are a Million olive trees in Umbria which means there are a million million olive ants. An old Umbrian saying has it that there are more olive ants in Umbria than there are stars in the heavens.

Anyway.

The ants build a nest and plant an olive tree. The ants then nurture the tree until it reaches fruition whereupon they, during the olive season, collect the oil from the fruit and take it down into their nest to provide succour for the embryonic olive ants through to maturity. They do say that over the millennia enough oil was spilled during this process to create reservoirs big enough to embarrass Saudi Arabia.

What Pietro, his forebears and his countrymen do is to catch the ants on their way down the tree- belly full of oil- throw them into a press whereby the oil is squeezed out of them. Using modern day techniques most of the ants die in this process which is causing disquiet among conservationists. Pietro insists that the ants reproduce at such a rate that this is not an issue.

In days past the ants were gently squeezed by pre-pubescent girls to extract the oil, allowing the ants to return to the trees. This oil was traditionally known as Virgin olive oil. The later, gentle but resented squeeze by a raddled old hag forced into going back to work in old age was known as the second pressing.

I'm geting bored with this. Can I just say you might not have ants in your pants but you certainly have ants in your pantry.










Tuesday 23 September 2014

Bonkers Bankers Bunker in Ladbroke Grove.

This hole is being dug out on Ladbroke Grove on the corner with Elgin Crescent.






















It is on a tiny site which once contained a small single storey building. The developer could not get planning permission to build up, so has gone down, and down and down. 3 floors down to be precise.

The refusal of planning permission for anything taller is laudable, the spaces between and adjacent to the large victorian houses of the area are necessary for a number of reasons and must remain.

But to burrow into the ground like this is ridiculous. whoever buys this place (no doubt for Millions of pounds) will become the owner of nothing more than a dungeon, lit naturally only through light-wells and no doubt requiring sumps and pumps to keep it dry. If the new owner is not already depressed by the price of this thing, he and his family will need psychotherapy shortly after moving in.

It is not in Notting Hill, Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts will not be strolling past hand in hand, snow will rarely shroud the road in pristine white and Junkies and drunks WILL most certainly piss through the letterbox.

Mad. Mad. Mad.


Saturday 20 September 2014

Saucepan Bark.

A guest blog form Rusty McGlint in Lizard Bend. Idaho.


























I don't hold with this gender-steroetypical dressing of children so we are letting young Morgan go his own way.

I kinda like this cross dressing/Dolly Parton look he has chosen and a pink ukelele sure beats a gun.

He wrote his first song today. It goes like this:

Gonna get me a doggie
gonna walk him in the park
Gonna call my doggie Saucepan
just to hear that saucepan bark.

saucepan bark
walking in the park
a pissing on the trees
soaking all the bark

saucepan Bark
laying down his mark
and chasing off the muggers
that are hiding in the dark

Saucepan bark
Saucepan bark
gonna call my doggie Saucepan
just hear that saucepan bark.



Friday 19 September 2014

Carnivorous Marrow found in Notting Hill.

A Serious Pest Control team was called in to a garden in West London today to deal with a rare carnivorous marrow.

The owner of the beast, Jan Nieupjur, told me:

"When the plant first started growing by the compost heap I thought it was a self seeded courgette but over the weeks the bugger just kept growing but never producing any fruit. A couple of weeks ago, having taken over the garden it suddenly produced something. In the space of 10 days it became rather larger than a courgette. I thought: OK it has aspirations of marrowhood, but it didn't stop there, it started to resemble a green pumpkin.

A few days ago the garden became empty of birds, even the wood pigeons disappeared, and then the neighbours started to lose their cats (no bad thing to my mind) and small dogs so I knew something was up.

I sat up last night with a torch and a bottle of schnapps to keep an eye on things and was amazed to see the vegetable pounce upon a nocturnal squirrel and eat it. Bugger me I thought: This thing could eat one of the kids so I called in the pest control people who confirmed (by inspecting its mouth parts) that it was in fact carnivorous".

                                Mouth of the carnivorous Marrow



A spokesperson informed me this evening that the Marrow has been taken to a secret location in Kensington where it will be propagated in order to grow more of the monsters in the local parks in order to eradicate the rough drinkers congregating therein.




Friday 12 September 2014

Why Rimbaud gave up poetry.

From our Arts correspondent Jan Nieupjur.



A lot of people ask me why Arthur Rimbaud gave up poetry.

Actually thats a lie. No one has asked me, it is just a lazy, cheap bit of journalism.

But now I know. I recently came across a bundle of documents handed down over the years from a Kipper seller in Camden. Among the papers was a poem written by Rimbaud apparently in payment for some kippers he purchased. At the time he was living in Kentish Town with Verlaine and on the run from his mum and Verlaine liked a kipper.

Anyway, the document I have reads as follows:

At the price of just one florin je
suis désolée
down the market place to
see the value of an orange
The sun of fruits
at its apogee
yet cheaper than a door hinge.

(I feel I can do no more).   A.R.




Thursday 11 September 2014

Previously unseen Rothko found in West London.


Arts Correspondent Jan Nieupjur writes:


























Walk through Notting Hills streets these days and the chances are you will stumble upon a Banksy screaming to be noticed and then scraped from its wall in order to be sold to save a youth club or some such worthy institution.  However if you open your mind to the unexpected far more worthy works of art are to be found.

The image above is one of a series of panels commissioned from Mark Rothko by the Four Seasons burger bar in the 60's. Prior to delivering the works Rothko visited the restaurant and was horrified by the quality of the images of plastic looking food on the walls and promptly withdrew from the contract, selling the panels to a firm of hoarding contractors in Shepherds Bush. The panels have remained hidden in their warehouse until recently when they were used at the Sarm West Studios site in Basing Street W11.

The works are important in that they show clearly how Rothko was moving away from Abstract depressionism towards the light of 'Nieupjurism' to which I had introduced him in the late 50's.

These paintings should be preserved for the nation but sadly one must assume that they will be overpainted by some Banksy wannabe in the near future.

























The works in situ along with 'Bags of Rubbish' by Sala Murat and 'Postbox' by Tracey Emin.



Jan Nieupjur is Emeritus Professor of daubing at the University of Life. He is the founder of both the Abstract Depressionist movement and the Nieupjurist school of painting. His Autobiography, 'A figment of my imagination' is unlikely to ever see the light of day.

Harp in the Royal Albert Hall. no:2


























Getting ready for Prom No: 72.

Monday 8 September 2014

Gourmet baked beans… The planet is doomed.

We've gone mad, completely mad. fortnum and Mason are selling baked beans for nearly £5 a pot.

Half the world is starving whilst trying to live on less than that a week.

Anyone considering buying a pot of these fuckers should buy a tin of Heinz beans and give the balance to charity.

And listen up Mr and Mrs posh. The fuckers will make your farts no sweeter nor more melodious.

If Nero were around today he would be, without doubt, fiddling with a can opener and some of these as Rome burnt.

Sunday 7 September 2014

The twins.

When my parents were alive they lived outside a village in suffolk. Across the field in front of the house was an oak tree, it looked like a single tree from a distance but a closer inspection revealed that it was in fact two trees growing side by side. so close were they to each other that one had to surmise that they had grown from a squirrels buried stash of acorns.

Over the years these two trees individually grew apart as they grew up; each in search of its own light and space but such was the proximity of their origin neither of them had a say in which way it could grow, but grow apart they must.

One of the trees has light green foliage. The other dark. Other than that, as I have written, they could be one tree with a double trunk.

























In the late 50's my twin sisters were born on Christmas day. It is one of my earliest memories; A christmas day (or perhaps a day later) spent in the hospital, unwrapping our presents and from what I can glean from said memory, the presents were more important that the arrival of sisters. I got a yellow bulldozer. I cannot tell you anything about the twins except that they were suddenly there.

The younger of the twins was sickly and fighting for life, she spent weeks in an oxygen tent and probably developing a completely different approach to life than her healthy sister.

From that day onwards the twins were simply 'The Twins', they were dressed alike, had the same haircuts and were referred to as a single entity even though they were not identical, came from separate eggs and had separate life support systems in the womb; two little acorns planted very close together.

From then onwards they started to grow apart, each craving her own light and space.

Thinking about it now, 55 years later I wonder if perhaps they had entered in to some unspoken pact that would allow each a degree of individuality in  their shared existence. 

One became more thoughtful and quiet while the other extrovert and capricious. Now it is as if one suffers life's hardships while the other revels in its possibilities; one tree watered from a glass half empty, the other from a glass half full. It is of course the sister who struggled for life in the beginning who makes the most of it later on. I could identify each of them simply from statements about their behaviour, If one was expelled from school, of course it was 'X', if one excelled in exams, of course it was 'Y'. One had dark emotional foliage the other light. Was this in some way considered (albeit subconsciously) and intentional or was it purely instinctive?

I used to, rather cruelly, think of them as two halves of the whole person but that of course is not the case. They are two individuals who have struggled to find their own light and air from very stifling beginnings.

I have come to the conclusion that treating twins as one entity, especially dressing them identically and never referring to them individually, considering them as accessories, is nothing short of child cruelty. 






Saturday 6 September 2014

Under Milk Wood. Promo video. Roeddwn wrth fy modd! Anhygoel!



Kevin Allen aided and abetted by Murray Lachlan Young, Rhys Ifans and others appears to have pulled off the impossible, making visual sense (or appropriate nonsense) of Dylan Thomas's audio play Under Milk Wood. The link to the promo video is: http://vimeo.com/105008724

Under Milk wood is one of those things, you know, everyone nods knowingly (even the Welsh) when it is mentioned but not many people have heard it and even fewer have read it. Most peoples contact with the poem will have been the execrable Burton/Taylor thing. This forthcoming film will, I think, change all of that.

I watched the promo with the muse (she is of course very Welsh). She was both ecstatic and gobsmacked. Roeddwn wrth fy modd! Anhygoel!

There is an oscar in the pipeline here.

Wednesday 3 September 2014

Alexia Coley. Drive me wild.


Alexia is a neighbour (I live in a cool neighbourhood) over the years I have seen her sing in various places locally and with the Rotten Hill Gang amongst others. Alexia has had her share of ups and downs, especially the past year, but she always has a smile, always has time, always makes you feel better than you did before.

This is her first single. It is far better than most of what I hear these days, I love it!

When my daughter wants to dance we put this on…. And we dance.








Tuesday 26 August 2014

Grace and beauty on Portobello Road.





















Now that carnival is over for another year peace returns.

There is something wonderfully organic about this image.

Monday 25 August 2014

Carnival 2014. A child's view.

A guest blog by Morgana the Sultana of Boo (aged 15 months).

Buggeration (my first swear word ever) that was bonkers.

Two days of being prisoners in our own home watching very silly drunk people piss in the garden while calling daddy a racist and trying to punch him because he asked them not to piss in the garden.


A pisser.


Hmmmm don't think I want to play out there again.

There were lots of people selling beer and rum to make people want to piss everywhere but not one stall selling nappies…. Wise up grown-ups, wear a nappy, end those horrors of needing to find somewhere to piss. Mind you today was so rainy that no-one would notice that you had pissed in your pants. It is scrummily warm down there when you piss yourself too.

Mummy got cabin fever and climbed up the wall. If I could talk I would have suggested she cleaned off the cobwebs while she was up there.

The sound systems were just loud. I could do the same job with a biscuit tin and a wooden spoon if I were given a million Watts of amplification.

Daddy said that the rain was a godsend as he managed to score two cases of beer at cost price during the afternoon… He needs to drink a few of them before he is obliged to go out and clear the garden of the detritus (new word) of carnival before the street cleaners arrive.

Tomorrow I am going ice skating on the oil slick left behind by the jerk chicken stalls. Any excuse to wear my tutu.

As I write this I can hear the plaintive peep of a bladdered whistle blower as he or she crawls drunkenly through the shit that is left on our doorsteps. Shit that I personally think they should have kept to themselves.



Sunday 24 August 2014

Thousands die at Carnival.

A guest blog from A Chicken.



Tens of thousands of my people have been held in captivity in disgusting concentration camps only to be mercilessly killed and then thrown onto open fires alongside innocent sheep dressed as goats in order to meet the craving for salmonella poisoning of a million carnival goers who congregate annually to watch a few thousand of their own kind dressed up as exotic chickens getting pissed out of their minds before crawling home through the detritus of the massacre.

The air is thick with the smoke from the charnel fires, the area is bombarded with the boom boom boom of sound systems. Vegetarians passively ingest my people via the smoke and the vegans must be dying a million inner deaths.

And they call us the Jerk!

The great irony is that my people, when thrown onto the fires, come face to face with sweetcorn, rice n peas; all foods that they were denied during their cruel short lives in favour of food pellets made from animal by-products. Even the pigs grunt goes into chicken feed.

Friday 22 August 2014

Mangrove steel band in All Saints Road.






















Setting up the pans in preparation for the Mangrove steel band pre carnival rehearsal in all Saints Road W11 from 7.30 until midnight.

For those who find the carnival too much this is a great little street party.

Wednesday 20 August 2014

Notting Hill carnival 2014. Boom boom boom an ting.

boom boom boom boom an ting.

the tits are not pecking at the feeder
the larks not ascending on the wing
the pigeons not cooing in the cedar
the jackdaws not stealing all the bling

the birds have left
the air's bereft
of everything avarian
in favour of
jerk chicken and
soul food rastafarian

the robins, once quite common
and the wrens once four a penny
and the sweet black bird all will not be heard
theres no room for the few 'mongst the many

the birds have left
the town's bereft
of everything on wing
to be replaced by
boom boom boom
boom boom boom boom
boom boom boom boom

an ting

Sunday 17 August 2014

Step ladder, spade, hoe and shovel.


























This is our ladder. It isn't mine, it belongs to the muse but I look after it now… I guess it is my step-ladder.

Beside it are my hoe, spade and shovel. I am a plain speaking man: I call my hoe Darlene, my spade a spade and the shovel is full of shit.

The rake is a cad and a bounder and the less said about that the better.

Friday 8 August 2014

Shakespeares carparks. Much ado about nothing and the fucking up of Stratford upon Avon.

I was born in stratford upon Avon. Until 1972 I lived not too far away. I haven't been back since then…. Until today.

Stratford has been turned into one giant car park fed by a one way system. They have demolished the interesting architecture to make way for the car parks, they have eradicated the little old market town to make way for the car parks so that bus loads and car loads of tourists can be shipped in to look around the towns various car parks… There is Anne Hathaway's car park which is a quaint half timbered affair and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre car park which can be quite dramatic on occasions.

The town is now full of signage for car parks wherever you look, the roads are full of tourists reading the signs. There is nothing to see in Stratford upon Avon but car parks and people trying to park.

Everything that can be done wrong with tourism can be summed up in that , once lovely, little town.

That shithole I'm ashamed to call my birthplace.

It occurs to me that if Shakespeare could see the town now he would immediately set about re-writing 'Much ado about nothing'.

Wednesday 6 August 2014

Sasquatch sighting explained.








































The reason why the Sasquatch, or bigfoot has never been sighted is due to its excellent camouflage skills. I was lucky enough to catch sight of a young one who had not fully honed her skills.

Wednesday 30 July 2014

Israel… God's chosen scum.

There are no words to describe the evil that exists in Israel.

This is not about Judaism but about the arrogance of man.

I am truly sickened by what these butchers are doing, sanctioned and financed by America and allowed by us because any criticism is seen as anti-semitism but criticism of Israel is not anti-semite it is pro-humanity.

Oh, and did you know that Barack Obama is backed primarily by Zionists…

It is well past the time to stop feeling guilt about the holocaust and time to stop the genocide in Gaza.

Saturday 19 July 2014

Kitten found safe and well in Gaza.



























The Russians may be shooting down airliners and the US backed Israeli's bombing women and children but the world can sit back and relax in the knowledge that a kitten has been found alive in the debris of a bombed out Gaza house.

The owner of the cat, who would not give his name, said: 'My entire family was wiped out in the blast but this little fellows safety makes it somehow worthwhile'.

An emergency UN meeting has been called in order to celebrate the safety of the kitten who has been name Jesus by the regimental rabbi of the 3rd Bethlehem Butchers who found the animal stating that the little fellow seems to be able to perform miracles.


Editors note: Sadly little jesus was killed in the stampede of journalists rushing to cover the story.


Israel targeting the Kingdom of Heaven ?





















I am getting reports that Israeli rockets are targeting areas of the kingdom of heaven in order to eradicate the Palestinian women and children it has sent there. Are they mad?

David, who sells falafels down the road and therefore knows as much about the situation as anyone tells me that Jesus promised them the kingdom of heaven but for reasons of disbelief they turned it down, however they now want it and will do what they like with it and there is certainly no space for Palestinians in the Kingdom of Heaven.

According to other sources American pro Zionists are funding a stairway to heaven as a means of moving the heavy artillery up there.

Jimmy Page declined to comment.

Saturday 21 June 2014

Jesus's 'Book of Miracles' found.
















A well preserved fragment of parchment unearthed in Palestine appears to be the journal of Jesus of Nazareth. From the parts that have now been deciphered it appears that Jesus kept a record of his daily activities including details of his 'miracles'.

One excerpt reads: Sermon on the mount.  good turnout at the rally today, 50 thousand at a guess, not too many hecklers. Got a bit hairy at lunch time though… Mary came to me and said there was going to be a riot if we didn't feed them all and all we have is a few fish and some bread. I said don't fret Mary, I know these people, they are all sitting on picnic baskets but don't want to bring them out in case they are asked to share with others. Once they see food going round they will all suddenly discover their own stashes and tuck in. I bet we have loads left over at the end.  I was proved right as usual and another 'miracle' was born.

Another: Turned water into wine today… Visited a local merchant who was expecting us,  I asked for wine for myself and the crew, the guy said: 'Sorry. Times is hard, all I have is water.'  I know my merchants well and suspected that he had filled his wine jar with water in anticipation of our request for refreshments and put the wine in the water jar.  So I says, quick as a flash, I'll turn your water into wine and before he could stop me I poured a glass from the water jar… Sure enough it was wine. Another 'miracle' done and dusted…


Wednesday 18 June 2014

The curious incident of the bread in the park.




















This is a pile of 'designer' bread dumped today in the corner of the little park on Tavistock Road. It raises a number of questions:-




Sunday 8 June 2014

Boo's reviews No.2. The Red Lemon.

An occasional guest review type thing. Written by a child who knows about stuff.



It is hard to find a pub to review within walking distance, I'm only one and can't walk that far and the elements seem to be conspiring against pubs these days, especially around here.

If the poet pushes me the first 200 Metres I can consider the Red Lemon to be within walking distance. I'll review that then.

I've been drinking in the Red Lemon all my life, I've been drinking in the Red Lemon since it opened. I like a drink… My tipple used to be milk but I've moved on to water now but I invariably take my own to the pub. The poet and the muse drink pub drinks and they say that the Lemon sells draught beers and stuff at very reasonable prices unlike other pretentious places in the neighbourhood.

The staff a friendly and invariably wave back when I wave, they sometimes pick me up which is comforting when you fall over in the pub. I fall over a lot right now but I'm getting steadier.

There are sometimes parrots in the Red Lemon.



I didn't know what a parrot was until I went there so I can honestly say that the place is educational.

The decor is stripped down Victorian, painted grey throughout but not austere. There is sufficient soft material in the place (banquettes and blinds) to stop the place being the echo chamber that so many trendy pubs become.It is my opinion that high ceilinged Victorian rooms demand big blowsy velvet drapes and stuff to absorb all the echoes from the punters therein. Pubs and breasts are very similar, they should be soft and warm and inviting. Ask any man or baby.

The food is good and sensibly priced according to the poet and the muse, they take me there for lunch sometimes. I invariably get a piece of bread which is both good to eat and good to throw. I have yet to be scolded for throwing bread so must surmise that bread throwing infants are welcome.

On saturday mornings when I drag the poet to the pub there are often other children there with their dads in tow. The place has newspapers for the grown ups to read while us kids are people watching, beguiling grumpy people into smiling, gummily pulping inappropriate stuff and things like that.

All in all the Red Lemon is a good, family friendly local pub with far better than average food and sensible prices. It is rarer than hens teeth in this part of London.

The Red Lemon is on the corner of All Saints Road and Tavistock road. W11.


Thursday 29 May 2014

Racism in the UK today.



Jan Nieupjur writes:


I read today that 25% of the population is openly racist. Add to that the 50% of the other 75% who weren't being honest that gives you a figure of 62.5% of the population as racist in some shape or form. Full marks to UKIP for tapping into this. My prognosis is that the Tories will move to the right to capture this voting mass, Labour will move back to the left in an an attempt to regain some honour, the Lib Dems will go back to buggery and shooting dogs (apologies to anyone who does not remember the glory days of the Liberals), UKIP will vanish and the Green party will remain a single issue party without a hope in hell. Shoot my dog If I'm wrong Jeremy Thorpe.

Wednesday 28 May 2014

Terry Gilliam's Cellini at the ENO and stage door security.




















This is a bit of a coup. It is a photograph of the set for Gilliam's production of Berlioz's opera 'Benvenuto Cellini'  for the ENO at the Coliseum which opens next week.

Stage door security was crap!

Details HERE 

Tuesday 27 May 2014

UKIP openly pissing in the swimming pool.



The United Kingdom is riddled with intolerance, bigotry, racism and prejudice. No one is without guilt and no one is more guilty than our political parties.

Let us consider the UK as a public swimming pool… Everyone is quietly pissing in it as they swim, we all know this and we all accept this. It just is!

Along come these UKIP chaps and instead of doing the normal thing of getting into the water to disguise the pissing they are openly standing on the edge pissing in on everyone else.

Everyone else is screaming 'foul play' while they continue to piss themselves.

But the truth is that the pool is full of piss and a little bit of honesty will actually cause discussion and hopefully, action.

Tuesday 13 May 2014

Death of yet another Portobello pub and bad news for dolphins.

























The Market bar (latterly Shannons) was once reason enough to come to Portobello Road, it was quirky and original until the health and safety jobsworths interfered. Now it is closed!

The basement is being dug out in readiness for a sushi restaurant and bar.

Sushi, to my mind, is the emperors new clothes of the food world. Over priced, pretentious and as useful as origami or feng shui. I cannot see it doing much business on that site, the tourists only want a slab of street food and the locals will not be able to afford it. The Bankers do not stray that far down Portobello, they get nose bleeds passing All Saints!

A new sushi place means more tuna being caught, more tuna fishing means more dolphins getting killed in the process… An origami butterfly flaps its wings in Portobello Road and a million dolphins die on the other side of the planet.



Thursday 1 May 2014

Boo's reviews No: 1. The Electric Diner, Portobello Road.

An occasional guest blog by Morgana, the Sultana of Boo. Her views are not necessarily my own.


One of the first truth's I have learnt in my short life is that it is far better to have just enough money rather than shedloads of the stuff. If you have too much money you forget what a treat is and ones life flattens out into a salt pan of excess. Just enough money means that one can have a real treat that doesn't involve flying to the Seychelles in a private jet.

It is the Muse's birthday today so I took her and the poet out for lunch, a late lunch, at the Electric diner which is attached to the cinema (which in my opinion should show more films like Bambi) which is part of the Soho house chain.


















Inside it is nice, because it is a long tunnel of a space it feels like a tunnel but with light at the end of it but without any trains. There is a long bar on one side and booths on the other. We had a booth and I got a clamp-on baby seat which meant I could stand up in it yet still be strapped in. This is important as I spend most of my time practising standing at the moment with a view to walking soon.

The staff were lovely and the service great, I made a point of smiling at all of them, my fur coat was much admired.

The Muse had chicken in a honey glaze thing and the poet had a burger and fries. I browsed from their plates.  It is Diner food but very up-market diner food and very good.

No one complained about the mess I made and when I threw in a scream (of joy) or two no one raised an eyebrow.

With two glasses of wine and a pint of beer the bill was very reasonable and no more expensive than a number of local 'gastro pubs'. They also do a good kids menu and if you have a cinema ticket the bill is halved which makes me think it would be a cool place for a birthday film/dinner type treat for a young lady… Especially if they were showing Bambi.

When we left the poet left his phone behind but the waitress came after us with it. that saved a lot of swearing I should think.

In all a treat for not much money in an interesting place with friendly staff and, unlike the Seychelles, no danger of being bitten by a crab.

Anyway. If you live in Portobello Road you don't need to be rich because your life already is.

NB. Only nylon animals were harmed in the making of my fur coat.







Sunday 27 April 2014

The influence of Brautigan on my poetry.


















When people ask me
who influenced you
in your poetry
was it Brautigan?

I say
no it wasn't.

Chez Lize, Bringing it on home.

This video came my way accidentally. I was curious about what the film maker did.

What the film maker did was to bring something home to me.

I'm lucky, I've got a home.

On top of that it started me thinking how in our wonderful society the mentally ill are the ONLY people blamed for their illness…. They are blamed for their illness because we don't know how to handle it.

The junkies, the alcoholics, the obese, they are allowed to blame an age, a society, a culture but the mentally ill must blame themselves because of course our age, our society, our culture is above imperfection.

The people in this film are beyond blame and beyond responsibility and something bankers should note before they dive out of the 34th floor is that they are (and should be) happy knowing they are cared for.

In the old days we looked after the needy. In this modern day we don't because they don't earn a buck.



Tuesday 22 April 2014

The KPH Ladbroke Grove: The worst pub in London and nothing more than a clip joint!

I'm fucking furious!

Vince Power took over the KPH a few months ago, spent a few quid giving it a lick of paint and now manages it himself. So far so good.

A very old friend has his birthday today, he chose to celebrate the day with a drink in the KPH; his local. I turn up, Chris (a teetotaller) offers to buy me a drink, of course I refuse and buy him one.

NOW GET THIS… One pint of Heineken and one soda water with a splash of blackcurrant cost me £9.00. That's right, NINE FUCKING POUNDS! The soda water cost four pounds.

You bet I'm fucking furious.

I told the barman that that was the last drink I will ever buy in that pub.
























A crowded KPH, customers 3 deep clamouring for the most expensive drink in London.




Vince Power has painted the inside of the pub green. No doubt to match the colour Vince Power thinks his customers are.

If you are in the neighbourhood of Ladbroke Grove please don't think the KPH is a local boozer, it is not. It is a clip joint pure and simple and Vince Power should be ashamed.

Now Vince Power is a man who should understand that the 'pub' is a working man's institution, posh people with posh pockets go to flash places with accordingly flash prices. By doing what he is doing Vince Power is insulting his own kind. He is taking the piss and then selling it on at four pounds a pint!

Avoid it like the plague.

Sunday 20 April 2014

What Easter is really about: Destruction of the rain forests.

Now, I think I have got this right:

A rabbit was crucified for impregnating the Roman Emperors pet chicken.

























When taken off the cross the rabbit was thrown into a briar patch. Unbeknown to everyone, the rabbit was not dead and scuttled down a hole into his warren to re-appear some days later and be heralded as the Messiah.

The hen laid a dark brown egg. The hen was equally revered.

We now buy 5 million tons of chocolate eggs in order to celebrate the union of the rabbit and the hen each Easter. To meet the demands for chocolate eggs the rain forests of the planet are being destroyed in order to make room for vast Palm oil farms  (hence Palm Sunday) to supply the oil which is now the main ingredient of cheap chocolate. The deforestation and the planting of non-sustainable plantations is having a major negative effect on the planet.

If we really cared about the planet and the cycle of life that Easter originally celebrated before the Christians got hold of it we would be planting a native deciduous tree each spring and boycotting the chocolate industry.

Happy Easter!

Friday 18 April 2014

Over milked Dylan

I doubt if any of the people at the BBC planning to make money out of the Dylan Thomas Centenary have even read or listened to Under Milk Wood.




Gideons bible red,
red as the Portobello sunset;
the eyes of the coke snotted producers schmoozing the Electric.

As

they plan

an




Over Milked Dylan.






Thursday 17 April 2014

Pink moon sighted in Portobello Road.


Tesco, rotten fruit and best before bollocks.




















Tesco sold us these yesterday. the label says 'best before the 17th April'. I'd say they were best a long time before that.

And it now seems that Tescos was better a long time before that orange overestimated its value by 25 percent.

Caged by harp.





















Bristol Banksy is not a Banksy. And why should we complain about graffiti in Cheltenham being defaced.
















This isn't a Banksy but a forgery perpetrated by that old scoundrel Jan Nieupjur who would do anything for a bit of publicity. I also know that Banksy was playing bingo in Pinner at the time it was put there.

Loves a bit of bingo does Banksy.

I read with interest that a lot of folks are complaining about Banksy's Cheltenham graffiti being defaced by, wait for it, graffiti.

For fucks sake graffiti is graffiti, it is all illegal, there is no hierarchy in graffiti. Graffiti exists because it is mildly anarchic. You cannot seriously expect to take this seriously when what it is really about is property owners wanting to capitalise on the defacement of their property and then getting pissed off when someone else comes along and defaces it.

Banksy is obviously sniggering over this one.




Tuesday 15 April 2014

Portobello Photography Gallery






































A welcome addition to Portobello Road and a pleasant change from the usual rubbish aimed at tourists the Portobello Photography Gallery is well worth a visit.






































"The Portobello Photography Gallery is devoted to offering hand-crafted photographs direct to the public at an affordable price.  
Created by London-based Photographer Paul Anthony and fellow enthusiast Matthew Cunningham, the Portobello Photography Gallery will exhibit an evocative range of vintage and contemporary photographs from original glass plate negatives to hand-printed x-rays.
All Black and White images will be crafted solely by Melvin Cambettie-Davies, a leading light in photographic toning and fine art printing. Owner of Master Mono, Melvin has over 46 years of experience in the photographic industry enhancing the images in his own inimitable way. 
All colour c-type photographs are professionally hand-crafted at Isis Laboratories in Clerkenwell, London."

The gallery website is HERE

Sunday 13 April 2014

Portobello Green: A shithole 'enhancing the lives of the community'.

These images were taken in Portobello Green this afternoon,  the little green oasis littered with the detritus of the drinkers and junkies that make the place unsafe for the community. The pond life cannot even use the bin situated next to the bench.
What is WDT thinking when they say that this 'Enhances the lives of the community'. It does not.






























The sign says: Alcohol free zone… Joke





















even bigger joke!...

Saturday 12 April 2014

Jaygun Crichlow. Die 4 u video

I've known Jaygun for a few years, our paths cross occasionally on Portobello Road or at local gigs. He does what he does very well.

Nice video too, filmed locally.



Roger Pomphrey. Noel Maclaughlin's Guardian obituary in full.

As is the norm the obituary that Noel wrote was not the one that appeared in the Guardian earlier this month. Here is the obituary in full:

Roger Pomphrey 
A tribute to the renowned and hugely loved filmmaker and guitarist who died aged 60


   


A late-night bar in West London, summer 2013 - The Paradise by way of Kensal Rise. My friend, film director and musician, Roger Pomphrey, is treating the packed room to his trademark soaring blues guitar, a weekly ritual he greatly enjoyed. On this occasion the renowned guitarist has realised that his makeshift band’s vocalist has vacated the stage leaving the microphone free while his fellow musicians swing into a slinky down-tempo groove. Undeterred, Roger takes up the lead vocal slot – not something he was in the habit of – as he preferred to let his guitar do the not-so-gentle weeping. He was to further surprise the enthusiastic throng, most of which were well-accustomed to his musical talents: instead of singing, he treated the audience to a wry and funny improvised rap, which detailed insightfully and succinctly, the social injustices wrought by the current coalition government; his expressive guitar licks creating angry, spiralling spider’s webs to accentuate and underscore each point. Much of the power in this performance arose from the incongruity. Roger didn’t possess a rapper’s vocal authority and timbre – his voice was more English in the mode of Ray Davies than Chuck D – but it was all the more affecting for it. He brought the house down. 
This potent mix of music, oppositional politics and caustic humour was a key aspect of his character. This was, after all, a man who had been an integral part of the infamous Warwick Castle Group, a loose agit-prop collective that included Joe Strummer and Keith Allen in its ranks, and named after the Portobello Road pub in which they met, planned and schemed, agitating against, among other things, the gentrification of that famous London street and the corporatisation of an area with a rich and healthy history of cultural, political, and of course, musical dissent. 
Indeed, while struggling with the liver cancer that eventually took his life in King’s College Hospital, Roger – or Dodge as he was known to his friends – was required to undertake an interview, a routine procedure for patients in his condition. One of the stock questions on this questionnaire (no doubt designed to assess the patient’s mental, as well as physical, welfare) was, ‘are you confused? ’ He nodded ruefully, all faux solemnity and Bambi-eyed. When asked to qualify his answer by the nurse, her pen poised in readiness, he responded in typical Dodge fashion with a twinkle in his eye: ‘Yeah, I’m confused... How come one per cent of people have all the wealth and the rest of us – the 99 - are left scrambling around in the dirt trying to make a living?’ And swapping politics for the surreal, he added … ‘And volcanoes, how deep do they go? How close can you get without being incinerated?’ He even managed to convince the nursing staff that a group of close musician friends were going to have a band practice in his room, replete with drum kit and amplifiers, but assured them that ‘we’ll keep the volume down and be sure to finish early’. This good, yet penetrating humour, along with his generosity towards others, stayed with him right up to the end. Exhausted as he undoubtedly was by his illness, Roger made sure each and every one of the many visitors who congregated around his hospital bed had nothing less than his full attention, charm and wit. 
Roger was born to Fred and Audrey in Fishponds, Bristol where his father had a heating engineering business. He was the middle of three brothers, Rick and Chris, with an older sister, Elaine. As a teenager he showed exceptional promise as a guitarist and, with his brothers, would experiment with elaborate, highly-improvised sound-systems in the family home and garden, much in the spirit of the sonic explorations of his beloved Jimi Hendrix, and a desire to push what was possible with the instrument.
Indeed, pushing boundaries, taking risks and restless experimentation were to mark his life and his work. He attended Alexandra Park Secondary Modern in the Fishponds area but left school without sitting any exams, determined to pursue artistic, rather than academic avenues; although he was in no sense anti-academic, and was an avid reader (WW2 military history being a particular favourite), had a fond appreciation of good cinema, and possessed of tremendous intellectual energy and curiosity. He quit a job as a lathe operator in his native Bristol and decamped to the US for a period in 1976 which reinforced his love of west coast rock: The Eagles, Santana, but especially Little Feat, whose song ‘Willin’ he performed particularly beautifully. 
Roger came to some kind of public prominence as a guitarist with Eurythmics, co-writing two songs on the band’s debut album, 1981’s In the Garden. This underrated record featured Kraftwerk producer, Conny Plank, and members of legendary German band Can - Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit – and Blondie drummer, Clem Burke, and is musically noteworthy for its novel hybrid of English pop and Kraut Rock rhythms (although it performed relatively poorly in commercial terms). The album demonstrates that Roger’s considerable guitar-playing abilities extended beyond the blues paradigm into a more experimental, post-punk realm. But he departed the group before their breakthrough to enter the world of filmmaking, and it is a director that he is most widely known. 
He truly did personify the well-worn, if little lived, adage of ‘working your way up’ in the industry. He started out as transport captain on Mike Leigh’s feature film Meantime (1984), where he became firm friends with Tim Roth; to runner; to assistant director on Channel 4’s The Comic Strip Presents (1982- ) - an especially important period, as it was when he began his longstanding friendship with the Allen clan of Kevin, Keith and singer and goddaughter Lily – and on to directing.
Dodge directed the first video for friends, and fellow Bristolians, Massive Attack with 1990’s ‘Just a Matter of Time’ aka ‘Looking for Tricky’. This experimental short film, shot in grainy black and white, is redolent of David Lynch’s distinctive and noirish early work. It was to set an important aesthetic template for the pioneers of trip hop. ‘We are so sad to lose our friend, the great Roger Pomphrey’, Robert Del Naja of the seminal collective has said. ‘He was a lovely man and a brilliant filmmaker. He inspired us to treat each video opportunity as a movie-making experience and paved the way for collaborations with other great directors like Baillie Walsh, Jonathan Glazer and Walter Stern to name but a few. He will be greatly missed’. 
Other important works about music followed. Among his triumphs, he directed what many aficionados regard as the finest film about Jimi Hendrix, The Making of Electric Ladyland, for the renowned Classic Albums series (1997). He also directed The Alchemists of Sound (2003) a documentary history of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a programme revered for its rich and innovative photographic style; one that conveys the very distinctive, and quirky, world of that cultish collective. Who the Hell is Pete Doherty? (2005), follows the controversial singer at the height of his fame, graphically relaying the chaos surrounding Doherty and his entourage. For Channel 4 he directed a film series set in the US, Beyond the Groove (1990), produced by friend and former band mate, Dave Stewart. This episodic and idiosyncratic six film series featured appearances from Tom Petty; Eurythmics; Dr John; the Neville Brothers; the Womack family and Harry Dean Stanton amongst others. 
While films about music formed the core of his work he was, by no means, reducible to this. Away from music, he directed the hugely popular, Three Men Go To Ireland (2009-10) with Dara O’Briain, Griff Rhys Jones and Rory McGrath, and Whine Gums (2003), a series about performance poetry for the BBC which included kinetic routines from new and established figures in that world: from Murray Lachlan Young to Benjamin Zephaniah. Moreover, Roger had a flair for directing comedy – perhaps borne of his own distinctive and avuncular sense of humour – and the fourth session of the Armstrong and Miller series demonstrates his skill in the form. This versatility doesn’t stop here, however, and Roger has directed programmes on a whole variety of topics, from cookery to social injustice, such as ‘On Pain of Death’ (2005) for the Dispatches series. 
The award-winning, Life, Death and Damien (2000), about Damien Hirst, is a particularly impressive part of Roger’s oeuvre in its innovative filming of the artist’s work, and is full of long, slow graceful tracking shots and painterly compositions which exemplify how music and rhythm informed his distinctive, and poetic, approach to visual style.
He was also a passionate and talented chef who enjoyed hosting elaborate feasts for friends and loved ones; even cooking each summer at a variety of music festivals (where he was known as ‘the camp chef’) for his close friend, the late Joe Strummer. The Six Nations rugby tournament was a particularly momentous occasion, as Roger, a fanatical rugby fan, would gather together a coterie of close mates around his large kitchen table. The ‘tradition’ on these occasions was to ‘eat the enemy’, and Dodge would cook up wonderful examples of the opposing nations’ cuisine. After food and sport he would DJ, cranking up his vintage Bang and Olufsen sound-system, selecting eclectically from his extensive record collection (all vinyl, of course). Roger especially loved playing guitar and strapping on his battered, yet cherished, Fender Stratocaster. In makeshift line-ups he was lucky enough throughout his life to have played alongside, and on occasion recorded with, some of the biggest names in rock and pop, including Mick Jagger, Joe Strummer, Bono and UB40. Or rather, I should say, they were lucky to have him. One such occasion he really loved, and where he could play with such key figures, was at the annual Gang Show at the Groucho Club in London’s Soho, where in many ways he was the house band. 
All in all, Roger leaves behind an impressive body of work: over 400 films, television programmes, music videos and concert films (George Harrison; UB40; U2; Dusty Springfield; Simple Minds; Pet Shop Boys; PiL and many others). He even co-wrote Terence Trent D’Arby’s hit single, ‘Wishing Well’ (although, alas, he remains un-credited). Despite this impressive creative résumé, he was in no sense smug or self-satisfied. Rather, he often felt he’d under-achieved and frequently expressed an ambition to direct feature films for the cinema; and it is such a shame, both for him and for audiences, that he never got to do so. In the same vein, and to return to his improvised rap at the beginning, on departing the stage he came bounding over looking for reassurance concerned he might have made a fool of himself (in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary), a sign that self-assurance sat alongside a healthy self-doubt, even self-deprecation. Roger was never an over-confident big ‘I am’. 
But perhaps more importantly, he was a respected, hugely loved and widely known figure in his home area of Notting Hill, where every year since the late 1990s, as a local community fixture, he directed the star-studded Notting Hill Pantomime, a charitable event his name became synonymous with. He also freely donated his considerable and energetic directorial skills to Mick Jones’ Rotting Hill TV, a local community project-cum-television series featuring a host of artists from Alabama 3 to Beth Orton, with The Rotting Hill Gang as the house band. He even managed to perform on the series, playing guitar, and arranging, a sublime version of a song, that for obvious reasons if you knew his hair, could have been an ironic anthem for him: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s ‘Almost Cut My Hair’ (well, he did cut his own hair, but it was never anything shorter than about a foot long). It is an arresting interpretation of the famous hippy anthem, and much of its power is down to a wonderful lead vocal from his close friend, Rob Alder. The two good mates were used to playing together regularly and the performance exemplifies how voice and guitar can expressively combine and trade off one another beautifully. 
My regular Saturday stroll with him down Portobello Road was an enjoyable, if lengthy affair, as Roger – all cork-screw long greying hair, leather jacket (in various lurid colours), cowboy boots and boundless energy - stopped to swap stories with one and all (in fact, this stroll had a precursor: the young Dodge apparently used to be late home from school as his walk back took ages as he stopped off to visit, and talk to, numerous friends). 
He even had a name for everyone: the local fishmonger on Ladbroke Grove was George the Fish; a friend’s over-enthusiastic girlfriend was simply named, Lovesick. Close mate and erstwhile collaborator, the respected cinematographer John de Borman, was dubbed the Guzzler, due to his warm-natured enthusiasm for the good life; Pete Chambers was, for some obscure season, Pete the Watch. In a similar vein, his local pub, The Cow, was rarely referred to by its given name, and was alternatively christened HQ or Repetition Inn (if he felt it was being inhabited too frequently). 
Three close friends in the area, he formed into a little association/gang of sorts which he entitled, the Brethren of Numbskullian, even going so far as to have a crest and logo designed. The gang – which he sometimes simply referred to as ‘the boys’ - were drummer Kevin Petillo, who had the dubious honour of being ordained as Grandmaster of the makeshift lodge; Rob Alder was bequeathed the title of Good Doctor; and I, university lecturer and popular music historian, being lucky enough to be one of this ‘brotherhood of idiots’, was known as the Scribe - or less flatteringly, Scribbler. As academic titling played a part here, reciprocally, Roger, as alpha male and the most senior, was automatically, the Professor. How could he have been anything else? A title which we all felt was apt and earned. 
The Professor’s last work was directing 2nd unit on the visually arresting feature film, Circus, set in Wales and directed by Kevin Allen: He was a terrific, intuitive filmmaker with a great eye’, Kevin has said. ‘I couldn’t have completed the film without his fantastic contribution and companionship’. 
Roger’s electric personality, big-heartedness and good humour were hugely loved and it is an understatement to say that he will be greatly missed. His funeral service, so beautifully and appositely narrated by Kevin Allen, was packed to capacity with people from all aspects of his life and drawn from different places and periods – Massive Attack; Tim Roth; Rhys Ifans; Keith and Lily Allen; and punk ‘aristocracy’, such as Mick Jones, Patti Palladin and Eddie Tenpole Tudor, amongst many others. While Roger loved the company of so-called ‘names’, he was certainly no name-dropper and valued just as much those, as he had put it, ‘fortunate enough not to be famous’. Whichever way, all who attended were united in their grief and love for this wonderful, generous, talented and funny human being. And while he didn’t suffer fools gladly, he always endeavoured to make everyone he befriended feel special. 

Roger Peter Pomphrey, director and musician, born Bristol 11 January 1954. Died King’s College Hospital, London, 29 January 2014. Roger is survived by his former wife, Caroline Thomas; and son Tom; mother Audrey; sister Elaine and brothers, Rick and Chris. 


Noel McLaughlin