My dad haunts my selfies.

Every time I take a selfie my dad photo bombs it.

Kenny Zulu Whitmore and a London Taxi.

Walking to the pub last night I found this London taxi on Portobello Road. This kind of thing is what makes this place so special and of course I stopped and asked the people about their amazing vehicle, It is not a paint job it is covered with individual mosaaic tiles, is truly beautiful and is designed to raise awareness for the plight of Kenny Zulu Whitmore, someone I was not aware of until I saw this cab and asked.

I do not yet know enough about the man to be able to comment further on his predicament but it sounds shitty by any-ones standards. There is some connection to the Black Panthers which I guess is enough for American white folks to lock him up and throw away the key.

This taxi and the people working long and hard to make something beautiful in order to raise awareness of a single human's plight is the best example of its kind (on every level) I have ever encountered.


There is a website HERE

Tertius Peat. The last true Englishman.

Tertius Peat is on his deathbed in a secure hospital in Wiltshire. Tertius Peat is the last true Englishman, by that I mean that he is the sole remaining Englishman without an ounce of foreign blood. Tertius Peat (in his lucid moments) puts this down to  the fact that incest protected the family bloodline from immigrant corruption.

It is true that incest deprived the bloodline of mental ability and physical stability as well as reproductive reliability but incest kept the bloodline English.

The Peat family motto states: 'We may be inbred but we are pure'.

Tertius Peats great great grandfather and second cousin twice inbred Primo.



Tertius told me recently: Well my brother was my dad and my ma was my sister and my grandpa's were my mothers older brother and there is a family book that goes back to domesday that says no foreign blood runs in our veins nor no foreign sperm in our women.

He went on to say: We was shagging our siblings as we built stonehenge and we was still shagging them in 1066 (much to the horror of the French). At Agincourt there was non of us lot there, we was all at home shagging.

Ensuring true English blood untainted by immigrants.

Our early forebears were ugly, so ugly that none would touch us, save each other and save each other we did from the evils of masturbation and cross breeding.

We had no surname until the first census and then took our name from the fact that our ancestors dug peat. Since then all us Peats have, well, you know, just dug Peats.

Prime Minister surgically removed from Man's arse.

The prime minister was surgically removed from David Cameron's arse earlier today in an operation later described as 'a piece of shit' by surgeons.

A NHS specialist stated that there had been a number of reports of someone talking out of Cameron's arse and tests had shown, without a doubt, that it was Cameron himself (a keen ventriloquist) lodged firmly up his own jacksie.

Mrs Cameron has issued a statement claiming that it was just wind.

Advice to Vegans on arriving in Hell. Meat your maker.

Believe it or not quite a lot of vegans go to hell. Percentage wise there is no difference between vegans, vegetarians and omnivores (all carnivores naturally go to hell).

On arrival in the inferno the average vegan might think that he/she had arrived in heaven because the only food available is quinoa and brown rice with occasional tofu which is always out of stock.  Let me tell you, quinoa and brown rice day after day, year after year is hell.

There are barbekew pits in hell but, as no animals go to hell the only meat available is human flesh and rule 17 of the terms and conditions of entry states that only volunteers may be roasted for human consumption.

Lucifer, at his waggish best, informs all vegan arrivals that, should they give themselves willingly to the barbekew pit, they will be reborn in Vegas. Vegans queue to be barbed only to discover, on incineration and human consumption, that they find themselves reborn in Las Vegas with a chronic gambling habit, no money and a craving for pork. Therefore condemned to an eternity of scouring the sidewalks for dropped coins to feed slot machines and hot dog leftovers while they stew in guilt.

At this point Vegans often turn to meat. To meat their maker so to speak. To speak of the injustice of judging man by his diet.

Dole scroungers have it hard enough without Immigrants.

A guest blog by Jan Nieupjur.


As a dole scrounger of 50 years I find it sickening that my way of life is being threatened by these immigrant johnnies muscling in on my hand outs. My Jewish grandfather did not come to this country from Holland to see it overrun by families on the run from tyranny and war.... No, he thought: Let me be the only one for I am chosen.

Send the immigrants to Antarctica, they have not taken a single one yet. Oh, and Atlantis could take a couple of thousand.

God bless mankind for he has cast evil in his own likeness and then blamed God.

Nitrous Oxide and how it works.

As a layman I am frequently asked: "How does laughing gas work?"

It is simple really. You decant the cylinder into a balloon then inhale the contents of said balloon while all your mates look on laughing like drains. The resultant feeling of being the centre of attention is said to be euphoric. The euphoria is, however, short lived, soon being replaced by a sense of utter stupidity.

Carnival detritus.


Recreational use of the gas is not a recent phenomenon. It was discovered in 1772 by British scientist Joseph Priestley and within 30 years the chemist Humphry Davy was using it recreationally.
Davy began inviting his friends round to inhale the gas from oiled silk bags and in doing so started a craze. "The nitrous oxyd [sic], or laughing gas was inhaled by a gentleman who after laughing sprung up in the air to the astonishing height of six feet from the ground," wrote a correspondent in the Times in 1819, describing a popular stage show.

Notting Hill Carnival 2015.

Apres Ska.

The real stars of Carnival, after the bands and dancers, are of course the street cleaners who work through the night to remove the tons of debris. They do a brilliant job. Oh and they are mostly immigrants who are happy to do the jobs that we turn our noses up at.

Notting Hill Carnival 2015.

There is always one idiot.

As the hoarding go up in Notting Hill the graffiti guys arrive like a swarm of wasps at a jam pot. Sadly there is always one moron who tarnishes the whole thing.

Carnival. What Carnival?

St Luke's Mews in the heart of Carnival is a surreal place today. A totally dead street yet the air reeks of sound systems and everything vibrates to the abundant frequency of jerk chicken.

Observation. 

All Saints Road. Riot police at the ready.

 

Compulsory smoking for the obese and other government wheezes.

A guest blog from Jan Nieupjur. As usual Jan's views do not necessarily reflect my own. He is completely senile now but that do say that  insanity often spawns the truth.


MY mole in Whitehall recently disclosed to me (over a pink gin or two in the Wheeltappers Arms) a number of proposals being considered by David Cameron to deal with the growing problem of obesity in Great Britain. They include:

1. Compulsory smoking for the obese. This works on many levels; one of the benefits of smoking is loss of appetite so a pre-prandial gasper whenever hunger sets in should reduce food consumption, the tax on their cigarettes could offset the current vast drain on NHS resources caused by obesity, the Government endorsement of smoking would be an enormous fillip to the often criticised 'healthy smokers' and finally an outlet would be created for the millions of packets of Capstan Full Strength currently stockpiled in Kineton Warwickshire.

2. All branches of Greggs and other purveyors of donuts should be forced to reduce the width of their door openings in order to exclude those with an unhealthy BMI.

3. Supermarkets should be instructed to Narrow the width of ailses in which buns, cakes, sweets, sugar and other fattening stuff is sold to a width that would only allow access to the healthy. Obviously parents with buggies would be inconvenienced but in view of the child obesity situation this would be no bad thing..

4. supermarkets should introduce scales at checkouts whereby customers could be weighed and those found to be obese and buying unsuitable products would be charged an extra tax on those items which would go directly to the NHS. This would both encourage the purchase of healthy items as well as bolster up the beleagured health service.

Immigrants. An analogy.

Talking with the kids the other day we got onto the subject of immigrants and their positive effects. I found a perfect analogy in the garden:

We have a blackberry 'bramble' that leans into our garden through the ivy and over the wall from a neighbouring garden. We did not plant the thing, we did not invite it in but we have come to welcome its presence. Each year we enjoy blackberry and apple pies, blackberry jam (2 1/2 Lbs this year and counting) and blackberry ice cream. It costs us nothing but adds to our lives. all we have to do is keep the ivy at bay and ensure it has room to thrive.

It got me thinking about the other plants in the garden... Yes. A lot of them immigrants and some of them sneaking in via the digestive tracts of birds (tunnels of sorts) visiting from elsewhere, appearing to shit on us from a great height yet bringing forth bounty.

Banksy speaks about his drab 'Dismaland'.

Banksy, the Entrepreneur, chancer and snake oil salesman formerly known as a vandal has finally decided to crawl up his own aerosol and talk out of it regarding his latest con trick.

'Yes it is not very good'. He told me. 'But if thousands of gullible fools are prepared to part with good money for a chance to walk round a dump I'm the man to pocket the dosh.'

He then ran out of gas.

Lard.

I am a worshipper of noble lard
alabaster queen of fat
the renderings of the regal pig
in a half pound grease proofed pat
lard has none of the pretentiousness
of sunflower or olive oil
her origins are humbly rooting about
in Anglo Saxon soil.

Sing hey to lard
sing ho to lard
sing nonny nonny no to the olive

etc...

Post 'sleepover' narcolepsy explained.

I am frequently mistaken for a child psychologist, probably because of my empathy with both dogs and children. Treat them the same is my way of thinking but be more gentle with dogs, they don't know better.

Frequently, when mistaken for a child therapist, I am asked: 'What is post sleepover narcolepsy?'

Post sleepover narcolepsy (PSN) is very common among children between the ages of 6 and 13. It is a virus which attacks the child 12 to 18 hours before symptoms manifest themselves. The virus lives in someone else's house and has the appearance of a well meaning parent (sometimes working in pairs; one male, one female). The virus bombards the child with fizzy sugar laden drinks, MSG pizza and copious quantities of blue sweets and then bullies the child into playing computer games until the early hours of the morning. Stage two of the attack takes place at the following breakfast time when left over MSG pizza is re-introduced to the child.

Symptoms of PSN are obvious: Surliness and disobedience combined with drooping eyelids and shoulders leads on to a desire to sleep.  The desire to sleep soon overtakes all cognitive reasoning.

A child in later stages of PSN

The cure for PSN is straightforward. The child must be prodded, goaded and frequently shaken in to wakefulness for 8 to 10 hours followed by bed rest for 12 hours. Nintendo, Playstation, TV and film should be avoided at all costs. This treatment may need to be repeated for a further 24 hours.

That will be 100 guineas. Thank you.

America. A poem.

SPIT!

Molly and John had been childhood sweethearts
Shared sodas at picnics
in the meadow by the Big Loving
as it snaked easily through the county.
Shared illicit beers beneath the bleachers
when she cut cheerleading and he cut track.
Shared moonlit skinny dips in the same old Big Loving
at the sand bar on the bend
where the turtles basked back in the day.
She had run naked laughing through poison ivy;
he had spat in his hand and rubbed it in the itching places.
Later she did not need the ivy to make the itch,
she had an itch of her own 
and he rubbed his spit onto that itch 
but that itch never completely went away.

Molly took that itch to New York.
John took his spit to LA.
Molly found music in the cafes at night, 
revolution in the air. 
‘New York City, imagine that’. 
She wrote him - as she itched at a sidewalk café 
– in an early westbound letter.
‘Yes I can imagine that’. 
He had replied. 
But he couldn’t.
So she itched in the city 
closed her eyes to the viscous string of men 
while he spat on the coast at a succession of starlets 
who practiced the Stanislavski itch  
tunelessly singing the Hollywood orgasm.

Fast forward… 
The two of them came together again, 
out of boredom most likely. 
Boredom and guilt, 
prompted on her part by the metronomic click of the clock, 
on his part by the young guns on the boulevard 
the fear that he was all spat out.
When they married the orange blossom was already dead. 
The children when they arrived 
trod the rotting petals into the floorboards 
of their Chicago brownstone.

He made money; she spent it. 
The American dream.

Molly sat on her itch for twenty years, 
took a course in etching early on 
never looked back and couldn’t look forward. 
Her life etched itself into her face. 
She got a part time job 
filling condom machines at railway stations.
Twenty years of itching and etching on molly’s part 
as she watched john occasionally drool diddle his secretary 
(did he buy his condoms at the station?) 
was enough.
　
　
　
Molly came to Spain 
change of life, 
change of continent, 
change of tense. 
for a week.
John had grudgingly agreed that she could take a vacation, 
a break from the shattered life they now shared. 
She would visit a friend in Toledo  
maybe take in an El Greco or two.
On her last day of work prior to traveling 
the itch had slipped a dozen condoms into her purse  
then dragged her into Victoria’s Secret on the way home.
The flight was uneventful; 
she sat between the two overweight boors 
each airline is obliged to provide. 

Marta met her at the airport.  
The Spanish air crackled.
The bullfight was - to Marta - an odd choice 
for an afternoon’s entertainment 
but Molly had read Hemingway,  
wanted to sit ringside  
black beret scarlet lipped 
as Eva Gardner had once done. 
She had little experience of bloodshed save her own; 
but blood in the afternoon held no fear.

Manolo arched his back,
flicked a disdainful cape 
at the snorting bull  
an ubiquitous sneer at the crowd,
stood in his black slippers
stained with blood and dust 
hawked a glistening gob of spit 
that sizzled as it hit the sun scorched clay. 
The bull died bravely as bulls in such tales do. 
The spit dried to a disc of mother of pearl 
that shimmered against the blood red earth 
as the bulls ear parted unhearing from the head; 
arcing it’s way into the stands, 
into the lap of Molly. 
An unrecognizable Molly. 
Molly lost, Molly found. Molly free, Molly bound.

‘Manolo.’ 
She whispered much later 
when the sun had gone down 
and the fiesta had dissolved itself 
into the barrios and tourist hotels. 
‘Manolo.’

I took up the dog eared copy of THE TIN DRUM. 
It fell open at the chapter titled ‘fizz powder’  
I read to her again of little Oskar 
spitting into the navel of Maria.
　
Molly flew to Boston four days later  
made her morning connection to Chicago 
.....in good time.
　
The fire-fighter moved dazed 
through the rubble of what had once been the World Trade Centre. 
The dust was thick and acrid  
he wished he had some kind of mask or respirator. 
He hawked and spat into the debris at his feet, 
onto a small black slipper. 
A slipper stained with blood, dust and tears.

America.
　

If Longfellow lived now. Hya Amy Winehouse.

Should you ask me, whence the bullshit? 

Whence these legends and traditions, 

With the stinking of the ghetto 

With the dew and damp of homelessness,

With the curling smoke of guilt,

With the rushing of great kettling,

With their frequent repetitions,

And their wild reverberations

As of thunder in the mountains?

  I should answer, I should tell you,

"From the ghettos and the high streets,

From the great lakes of the Hampstead,

From the land of the Cockneys,

From the land of the hipsters,

From the coffeeshops, shoe shops, and feng shui-lands

Where the heroin addict, the crack head,

Feeds among the reeds and bushes.

I repeat them as I heard them

From the lips of Amy Winehouse,

The musician, the sweet singer.

  Should you ask where Amy winehouse

Found these songs so wild and wayward,

Found these legends and traditions,

I should answer, I should tell you,

"In the coffee shops of the Angel,

In the boozers of Camden Town,

In the hoof-prints of the banker,

In the eyry of the pigeon!

  "All the immigrants sang them to her,

In the moorgate and the feng shui-lands,

In the melancholy Hackney marshes;

Barney, the cabbie, sang them,

Mahng, the loon, the wild-goose, Wawa,

The blue heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,

And the grouse, the Mushkodasa!"

  If still further you should ask me,

Saying, "Who was Amy Winehouse?

Tell us of this Amy Winehouse,"

I should answer your inquiries

Straightway in such words as follow.

  "In the vale of Hampstead,

In the green and silent valley,

By the pleasant water-courses,

Dwelt the singer Amy Winehouse.

Round about the Hampstead village

Spread the meadows and the corn-fields,

And beyond them stood the forest,

Stood the groves of singing Kenwood,

Green in Summer, white in Winter,

Ever sighing, ever singing.

  "And the pleasant water-courses,

You could trace them through the valley,

By the rushing in the Spring-time,

By the alders in the Summer,

By the white fog in the Autumn,

By the black line in the Winter;

And beside them dwelt the singer,

In the vale of Chalk Farm,

In the green and silent valley.

  "There she sang of rehabilitation,

Sang the Song of rehab, no no no.

Sang of her wondrous birth and being,

How she played fast and how she lost,

How she lived, and toiled, and suffered,

That the tribes of men might prosper,

That she might advance her people!"

The Schadenfreudian slip.

We all came out to Montreux
and when the smoke on the water had cleared
I met the woman of my dreams
and met the end that I had most feared

among the poets convening was fraulein
Schaden Freude a German by birth
she was my sun my moon my Venus
I feared I was the scum of her earth

but I'm a poet and poets are dogged
wouldn't take no for an answer
having seen her on the nightclub floor
wrote my ode to a disco dancer
I had some stiff competition
in a doggeralist from France
he couldn't rhyme for the price of a lime
but boy the bugger could dance

now dancing is fine in the hours after nine
but daylight offers other parameters
I wood her with elevenses
(you know food like what heavens is)
and un-pedantic hexameters

the girl was mine
I felt sublime
I gave up rhymes or reasons
then went round to see the cad
at his room in the four Seasons

I reached his door
I took a grip
I vowed to punch him on the lip
but as the door swung slowly in
I saw Fraulein Schaden Freude
in her silken slip

I slunk away I was distraught what of the ring that I had bought

the following day in the concert hall
as the Frenchman decried his crocodile tears
and told the tale of his dead love
I drank innumerable beers
when he got to the crux of his inordinate grief
the burial of his dog
I dialled his mobile number
and it rang to the sound of the laughing frog

it rang to the sound of the laughing frog

it rang to the sound of the laughing frog but the frenchman never laughed.

I did.

fraulein Schaden Freude never forgave me
but her hatred ran hot to cold
she married the bassist from Deep Purple
together they grow stylishly old

Me I gave up poetry
I joined the devil-may-cares
underwent gender re-alignment
and changed my name to Pam ayres

Carnivorous Pandas

Nom Nom the carnivorous panda
was the least kid friendly petting zoo beast
for while he considered bamboo a duty
a three year old child was a feast

Nom Nom, born in far away China
at first was the star of the zoo
but quickly out-stayed his welcome
when he ate a female gnu

The gnu was a present from Kenya
so to Nairobi Nom Nom was sent
but quickly moved on to Paris
when he ate three kids in a tent

In Paris he munched through two orphans
before moving on to New York
where once weaned off his taste for kids
he was fed on a diet of pork

Nom Nom the carnivorous Panda
is living the American dream
eating hot dogs for lunch and for dinner
beside a bamboo shaded stream.

Portobello Images.

(Picture: Flickr/Terence J sullivan)

Pissers in the sky. With apologies to Norman Greenbaum.

when I’m dry and I can't wash my vest

gonna go to the place that is best

before I lay it down to dry

going up to the pissers in the sky

going up to the pissers in the sky

that’s where I’m going to go before I dry

before I dry and lay out my vest

going to go to the pissers that are best

prepare yourself you know it’s a given

you gotta have a brand of cheeses

so that you know when the water runs out

you got something to sell

we are the pissers in the sky

gotta recommend ourselves

we’re the pissers in the sky

and we’re where you gotta go when you’re dry

before you dry and lay out your vest

you gotta go to the brand that is best

we’ve never been givers, we’ve never gived

We’ve got a brand of cheeses

so you know that when you die

your only hope in hell is

the pisser in the sky

so tie yourself to the pisser in the sky

that’s where you’re gonna go if you don’t buy

if you don’t buy then sonny you die

you gotta come to the prices that are best

yeah, the water prices that are best.

Why Britain's women war heroes are responsible for the election result.... An anarchist writes.

A guest blog from 'Steve'. Leader of the Russel Brand Anarchy on the dole brigade.

Look. Russel was right! If no-one voted there wouldn't be a Tory government in power.

Women died in order to get the vote.

The memorial was to dead women.

If they hadn't died there wouldn't be a memorial and no-one would vote and Russel Brand would be Emperor or something like that and we could all smoke pot on the dole and that monument would have just been a wall and Banksy would have got there first and an American would have bought it and shipped it to Texas and it wouldn't have got in our way on our march for democracy.

Or something like that you know man.

Aspirations of buggery within the Tory party.

We all know Leon Brittan was at it but were told to leave the old bugger alone to die in peace. Maggie knew Leon was at it but protected him. William Hague must have known Leon was at it when he had his 'chat' with him. Did Hague have Brittan behind him when he made his famous juvenile speech at the Tory conference all those years ago?

We all know Jenner was at it but we are told to leave the old bugger in peace, hiding behind the dementia curtain that old buggers hide, twitching.

Westminster is full of paedophiles and amateur buggerists. As long as the buggerists are toffs and the victims are in every sense 'infra dig' the system will protect its own kind.

No doubt Keith Vaz will hide behind claims of dementia when the time comes for him to explain why he protects the paedophile buggerists within government whilst failing to protect the victims. We all know that Keith Vaz would do anything to protect that which he aspires to and from what I can see he aspires to being a tory toff who can bugger boys at will if he so chooses.

As a teenager I was the victim of a paedophile buggerist. I know what I am talking about. These paedophile buggerists offer you the world and then fuck you up the arse and the only world up my arse is the world of poo and you have to wonder what these fucked up ex public school boys find of wonder up a rent boys arse. Are they looking to relive the shit of their childhood?

I am accusing no-one of anything and no children were hurt in the making of this blog.

No such thing as a free gift from Tesco.

It annoys me when a free gift is in reality an advertising hoarding for a retail outlet.

Tesco have cleverly left space on this bag for a spot of customisation.

Taurus Trakker. Motormouth.

Three Thousand Hangovers Later on Portobello Road.

I nicked all this from Ant Easton's  Facebook thingy. I don't know Ant (or maybe I do but don't know that I do) but I know Ray and I know the Castle, which is now a shadow of its 80's self and I think this is a book begging to be made....

Ant Easton writes:

I've edited and designed this book of photos taken by my friend Ray 'Roughler' Jones and we're hoping to raise the money within the next five weeks to publish it on Crowdfunder.co.uk. The photos are of the great and the not-so-great of Portobello / Notting Hill in the 1980's - from Joe Strummer to Underground Steve, Neneh Cherry to Pete the Murderer, whoever he may be. There are several different levels of pledging, from £10 for an e.book to the top level of £199 where, amongst other rewards is a personalised tour of Ray's Portobello Road. Ray promises NOT to sing. Whatever, follow this link, take a look at the video and see if you want to get involved.

http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/three-thousand-hangovers-later…

THREE THOUSAND HANGOVERS LATER

http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/three-thousand-hangovers-later-1/

CROWDFUNDER.CO.UK

West Thirty Six. A muse eyes view (The death of Golborne Road).

West Thirty Six, spawn of Beach Blanket Babylon, has arrived on Golborne Road. I went there this afternoon by pure chance. I'll be reviewing it another time but in the meanwhile I will leave it with the muse:

Fucking hell, £150.00 for a bottle of gin and they cannot even put a staple in the right place on a booze menu.


As I said I will be reviewing the place later.

I wouldn't hold your breath.

Tate Modern Gifts.

Tate Modern gift Ideas.


How about a Banksy grafitti kit complete with stencls, spraycans, balaclava and false balls.

Or a Gilbert and George Rococo shit embellisher. Containing resin and gold leaf for the perfect ormolu stool. (Shit not provided but may be bought separately from the Tate gift shop in handy 30g tins. Price: £97,250.00 courtesey of  Piero Manzoni)

Other items on sale include theTracy Emin camping condoms. Signed by the artist for authentic safe artistic fucking intent.

The 'LOOK AT ME' Nicholas Serota mirror... Just repeat after me; If I say it is art it is ART! (This gift works well with Last years 'Emperors new clothing' Curators costume.)

Chapman brother faced false penis noses (set of two). Now you and your brother can look like a pair of dickheads.

The 'Munch Scream' cot and buggy mobile. Ideal for disturbing the very young artist.

Andy Warhol bald patch. Impress your friends with your impersonation of Andy without a wig!

Warhol without wig: http://jannieupjur.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/club-21-remaking-scene.html

The 'Jackson Pollock' Muse beater. An authentic paint spattered singlet ideal for the 'Abstract Depressionist*' during alcoholic rages. Works equally well on long suffering wives/boyfriends.

The Damian Hirst animal mutilation starter set has been withdrawn due to legal issues... It was rubbish and overpriced anyway! 



*Abstract Depressionism: Copyright. Jan Nieupjur 2009. http://jannieupjur.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/barking-on-thin-ice-in-search-of.html

Portobello Road celebrates the resurrection of tourist tat

If you were one of the numerous tourists strolling down Portobello Road on Easter Monday you no doubt came away with the impression that we Londoners are a curious lot.

While Filipino's are busy nailing themselves to crosses and the Pope is busy pontificating to the massed fanatics in St Peters Square, we in London are in worshipful homage to the great God Tat, his crucifiction and subsequent resurrection from a hole called Carnaby Street !

There was nothing open except the nasty little shops selling fridge magnets, model busses, T-shirts sloganing a love of this city and any amount of rubbish bearing the Union Jack.

People pay good money to come here for a vacation, surely we can offer them something better than that!

Half a mile away the peacocks of Holland Park are nonplussed too.

Portobello Mysteries No:1. The blind windows of CASHINO.

 

The blocked out windows above 'Cashino'.

CASHINO is one of those nasty little government endorsed dens of inequality.  A room full of slot machines designed to fleece all who enter there. No one leaves these places a winner except the operator and the government.

Why are the windows on the top floor of this building blocked off?

Is it full of money.

Is it where they chain up the occasional winner until he/she hands the money back.

Is it occupied by illegal immigrant dwarves who work inside the machines.

Is it where they train children to steal from parents purses and wallets in order to feed their gambling habit.


We should be told.

Help finance Hot Wind.

News of this arrived via a friend. Check out the promo film and click on the link to find out more.

Heck, you know you always wanted to be in the movie business!

¡Amigos! 

Our Round II Indiegogo campaign for "Hot Wind" was just launched!

Please stop by for a visit at the following link:  

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hot-wind-film-round-ii/x/80020

Trampolines in high winds are the latest status symbol.

We have had some relatively strong winds overnight and the BBC invited people to post pictures of the damage. Here are 2 examples:

These images tell us more about the people inhabiting the Home Counties than about the weather; they scream: "Look at me, I've got a trampoline in my garden". I doubt if there are many of us who could give a stationary fuck, let alone a flying one about a piece of flimsy gym equipment that the owners failed to secure properly.

I look forward to the new phenomenon being taken up around the world after hurricanes, cyclones and tornados.

Perhaps 'the comparative distance travelled by a trampoline' could be added to the international measurement of stuff index (alongside the equivalent distance in double decker bus heights or football pitch lengths or the toss we couldn't give length).

Cyclists should dismount from their high horses!

The guy in the picture is not a youth who has nicked his bike, he is not an arrogant courier or 20 something king of the road. He is a late middle aged man who should know better. He is blithely cycling the wrong way down a one-way street.  He is one among many hundreds of idiots who do this every day, endangering their own lives as well as the lives of pedestrians. And probably, like all the other idiots on two wheels, he doesn't give a flying fuck about others.

I constantly hear the whinging of cyclists about their safety but if they refuse to abide by the rules of the road they have no come back.

A few days ago I watched as a cyclist got knocked down by a car in Portobello road. the woman driver was understandably distressed. The cyclist picked himself off the road, extracted his bike from under the wheel of the car and then, waving, yelled: 'It's ok, I was going the wrong way on a one way street'. then got back on his bike continuing his wrong way journey.

Cyclists pay no road tax, therefore we can safely say that they are using roads that are financed by motorists. They are the privileged  guests of said motorists and should show a little courtesy.

Cyclists do not, like motorists, have to take a test, so we only have their word that they are competent. Many of them are not.

Cyclists should, like all other road users, be registered and display that registration on high vis clothing and on their bike.

Cyclists should also acknowledge that footpaths are for (surprise surprise) those on foot.

Cyclists should dismount from their cod-eco, moral, high horses and accept that the world does not revolve around them!

Oh, and it is not just men:

Monkeys on Lancaster Road. W11.

My dog is not a TV, my dad is not an alcoholic. How sad is that.

A guest blog from an 11 year old boy.

I got a puppy for Christmas, outwardly that looks brilliant, but after a week or two the polish wears off.

I cannot watch TV on a puppy, I cannot play games on a puppy,  I cannot google porn on a puppy. All a puppy does is live and breathe and love me.

You would not believe the things a puppy does: it shits and pisses and expects me to clear it up. When I shit and piss I have my mum to clear up after me because thats what mums are for. Kids like me are for having puppies that play computer games and stuff & puppies that sit on my lap when the TV is on so I can say I am busy puppy minding when I am really just watching TV. Kids like me are not designed to look after a fucking puppy that no-one said was going to piss and shit or require feeding.

No one told me I'd have to walk the fucker.

Modern society has not taught me that I have to consider anything other than myself and my selfishness.

It is not my fault that my puppy does not understand this. I did not ask it to love me or need me.

All I ask of it is that it enjoys Spongebob Squarepants and craps on somebody else's watch.

I wish my dad was an alcoholic so he would use my puppy as an excuse to go to the pub every day.

Then I wouldn't have to walk it.

And I might love my dad a bit more even though he was an alcoholic and probably would beat my mum up when he got home from the pub.

A dysfunctional family is a small price to pay for me not having to look after my puppy.

Butchers, bowels and burgers.

Provenance, the butchers in Kensington Park Road opened a while ago, a welcome arrival after the closure of the Edwardian Butcher on Portobello Road.

Provenance won the New Butcher of the year award and quite rightly so. They sell very, very good meat, they are pleasant, patient and informative people. Good news.

A number of people I have talked to have complained about the price of their meat. they should consider a couple of facts:

Half  a kilo of Wagyu flatiron steak will cost them about £14.00. That is enough to feed four people at (I'll do the maths for you) £3.50 a head.  We eat far too large portions of indifferent meat in this country and would do well to go for smaller quantities of better produce.  The complainers will happily spend £8.00 on an indifferent burger from a stall yet moan about spending less than half the amount on excellent beef.

Flatiron steak is not a well known cut of meat in this country, it is, as its name suggests a flat piece of steak. It needs fast hot cooking before being sliced. It is, when served this way, incredibly tasty and perfectly tender. If you like steak well done then stop reading and go and buy a burger!

Provenance sell very good burgers too, which, if you so desire you can incinerate.

Their black pudding (We like the triangular one) is proper black pudding, not the pastiche sold by supermarkets. Enough for 4 people to have a slice costs £1.00, the same price as a bag of haribo jellies, How is that expensive.

Last Christmas, instead of the usual insipid turkey or overpriced goose we had a large chicken from Provenance. It was agreed by all that it was the best Christmas lunch ever eaten. It cost £17.00, how much was your Tesco, shed reared turkey that you had to overcook then smear in cranberry jam in order to introduce any kind of flavour?

You could always go to the popcorn shop round the corner where their stuff works out at over £85.00 per kilo.

So... Instead of complaining about the cost of quality they should be thinking about changing their dietary habits and minds. After all, minds are like bowels, better when frequently opened!

Provenance. 33 Kensington Park Road, London W11 2EU 020 7229 8814

Orange coffee, Portobello Road.

Forget the likes of Starb***s, N**o and Rep****c. forget the expensive hipster places. If you want a good coffee on market days visit Orange coffee.

This is the sort of thing that will go if RBKC and Westway Development Trust get their way with the proposed development of the area. Ironically it is exactly this king of enterprise that makes the area so popular with Londoners and tourists alike.

They are opposite the tented market by the Westway. Their Facebook page is HERE

More on the Westway Development Trusts proposal for Portobello.

I swiped this from the Portobello Radio Facebook page.

Chris Sullivan writes:

As you might know the campaign against the horrific development under the Westway is underway see petition above) but here's what Rishard Adams has penned to underline what will be lost :

With regard to the proposed Westway Portobello Village development, it might help you to better understand their proposal if you were to google:

http://www.thesourcemag.net/index.php…

A. The development is shown as artist’s impressions:

Site A: Portobello Green Arcade
Site B: Elevated restaurant
Site C: Acklam Road Car Park
Site D: Acklam Village

B. Having now had the development looked at, we can surmise this is a:

1. United development with raised pavement linking the four elements
2. Is a retail lead destination common in new-build mini shopping malls (Site A)
3. It seeks to generate its own brand
4. Is targeted to generate value and increase high-end foot fall
5. There is cultural element, but the focus is on corperate events (Site D)
6. There is a leisure/ cafe/ restaurant/ terrace/ attraction, again targeted at generating high-end footfall (Site B)
7. There is a small vintage market under the elevated restaurant (Site B)
8. There will be a development of high-end luxury flats (Site C)

C. What are the consequences of the above?

1. The were no black people or people of colour in the architects site visualisations. Of the 40 people pictured in Site A+B+C+D, 85% were white, 4-10% could not be identified, a single figure, or 2.5%, might be a person of colour. To date, both the architect Stiff & Trevillion and The Westway Trust have made verbal apology, but black residents who saw the drawings are clear that all parties engaged in their generation have behaved in an ínstitutationally racist manner

2. The Portobello Road as a tarmac road with paving, will go (Site A+B)
3. The International Brigade Memorial under the Westway at Portobello Road, will go (Site A)
4. The Portobello Green stall area by tube bridge, the colonade area, will go (Site A)
5. The vintage market canopy will go, the market area will reduce (Site B)
6. The ‘Saturday' market stalls from the canopy to Ladbroke Grove, will go (Site A+B)
7. The Ácklam Road/ Norfolk Place stall area will go (Site B)
8. The four motorway bays 55, 56, 57, 58, will go (Site D)
9. Bay 55 that is currently for market stall storage - for the vintage and Council markets, will go (Site D)
10. The Acklam Village and the Pop-Up Cinema, will go
11. All the current shops trading in Portobello Road and Portobello Green, will not have their leases renewed. They may apply to come into the new shopping mall or they will go

In summary everything you see today on weekday or market day will no longer exist. This development, led by a private consultant Phil Dibsdale, is akin to the Highland Clearances: seemingly 'no blacks, no poor, no bohemians' in the Portobello Village

Westway Trust and Phil Dibsdale want to go to planning in the summer, traditionally the time when people are away on holiday, we must devise every strategy now to defeat this appalling scheme. Letters, press, creative demonstation, everything that chips away or implodes the Portobello Village brand.

Please forward this information to all the people you think will share our concern 

FURTHER INFORMATION
The deadline for ‘comments to consultation’ looms. The deadline is on Friday, 20th March, but in my experience if the body of protest goes beyond the date by a few days, then the sheer weight of public opinion can’t be ignored. The person to write to is:

Angela McConville, Head of Westway Trust
The Westway of Trust
1 Thorpe Close
London W10 5XL
Angela.McConville@westway.org

Portobello Radio are HERE