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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Portobello Documentary.

This is from 2011, I have not seen it before. It is ok but it could have included a much wider range of voices.

Portobello Live coming soon.

'Portobello Village' development from a child's perspective.

A guest blog from Morgana, aged 22months.

I have looked at the drawing of what Westway want to do and it isn't very good.  There are no cars or vans in the picture but in real life the place is full of them, making me think that the drawer can't draw cars and vans or they want to make it a dull pedestrianised area like Huddersfield town centre (I like the word Huddersfield because it almost says shudder which is what I did when I saw the drawing). Huddersfield town centre only has pound land shops, hair salons, nail bars and a Greggs. Oh and lots of expensive coffee places that cost twice as much as Wetherspoons which is the only pub left. I am not allowed beer or coffee so I don't think that is very good.

Cars on high streets are good because they make people walk on the pavement close to the shops and see what is in the windows rather than walking down the middle close to the drinkers and homeless people and the concrete planters full of dog poo and dead plants.

Vans would have been good in the drawing because it would have told me that there was still a market there because all the market people have vans for their stuff and if there were no vans there would be no stuff to sell so the market people might as well stay at home. Especially when it is cold.

I don't like the big pink thing in the drawing. It is not very good and I could make a better thing with my lego and it would be colourful not pink (even though I am a girl and supposed to like pink). This building will take up space where, on non market days, us children learn to ride bikes or skateboards, play with remote controlled cars and stuff like that. I particularly like practising my walking there and have recently moved on to an unsteady sprint. I like climbing the concrete blocks that stop the tent blowing away when it is windy.  Kids do this stuff under the tent because the park next door is full of smelly people drinking or taking drugs or letting their scary dogs run around pooing everywhere. The other nearby park in Tavistock road is just the same. I thought parks were for everybody but it seems not, these days parks are only for the aggressive disenfranchised (I found that word in my thesaurus and like the shape of it, it is nearly as good as hippopotamus).

They should have a little cafe in the park with tables and chairs for the grown ups to sit on while we play and the people who run the cafe could tell the nasty people to go away or they could get a slide shaped like a fierce dragon which would frighten them away ( and their dogs who are frightened of dragons too).

I hope Westway change their minds about this drawing. I have a new set of crayons and will do them a better one if they want or I could make them a lego model (I only have big lego at the moment because I could swallow the little stuff and I'm having enough trouble swallowing the nonsense that Westway are giving us).

People say that not enough people go to the shops under the Westway on days when the market isn't there but if they put shops there that had stuff people wanted to buy every day the shops would be full.  We need a proper toy shop, a sweet shop, a big pet shop with lots of real animals in it (not dog porn like the shop in Westbourne Park Road which is for ladies with rich husbands, not children who want to look at pets or buy a toy for their new puppy. I have a new puppy called Pandora, she is 10 weeks old and I would buy her lots of toys if there was a shop under the Westway to sell them to me) and a place full of coloured balls like at Ikea. Oh. And a Poundland!

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?

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.

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.

Westway Development Trust to open 'refuge for junkies and alcoholics under the west way'?

A guest blog from Jan Nieupjur.

My mole under the Westway has been hinting at a new radical proposal by the Westway Development Trust. The rumour is, that, after the success of last years initiative to turn Portobello Green over to the junkies, winos and vicious dog troupe, the new year will see the opening of a designated doss space beneath the flyover in the bay which presently houses the pop up cinema.

Facilities will allegedly include some tatty soft furnishing gleaned from the local pavements, a brazier, a designated fighting space and a corner to piss in. A booth will be open 24 hours a day offering crack, spliff and cheap alcohol, either for cash or in return for stolen phones and computers. I am told that W D T are pissed off that they cannot 'earn' from the street people and that this is a way of making some sort of income from them and which will provide additional funds for their holiday homes abroad.

There will be an on-site retail outlet for the sale of stolen technology, manned by unpaid assistants provided by the job-centre. It is hoped that the 'receiving stolen goods' experience will be a big hit with the tourists especially as a 12 months 'immunity from prosecution' guarantee will be provided.

There will be a curtained off 'mugging area' so that street criminals may avoid the stigma of being seen at their work and provide a more comprehensive 'mugging experience' for the tourist and local alike.

The doss space is also designed to cater for the increasing number of 'care in the community' victims who are at present under catered for in the neighbourhood. It is hoped that, by putting them all together they might actually start getting some care… From each other.

Dog owners will be obliged to let their animals bite children and shit everywhere.

It is hinted that, if the scheme is a success, a licensed brothel will open in the neighbouring bay, operated by a bunch of Eastern European human traffickers and staffed by friendly girls brought in for the purpose from around the planet. I'm told that although this may sound odd, even though they are illegal immigrants and victims of crime at least they have a roof over their heads and a source of income which can be taxed. It will also bring this kind of activity into the open where it can be monitored more easily.

In the summer months it is hoped that a kasbah styled bedouin brothel tent can be operated on the Portobello green itself for  frisky, al fresco fornication fun!

good to see that W D T is working for the community.

Westway Trust Ice skating scam on Portobello Green. Notting Hill.

Bollocks and criminal. It is not an ice rink!

There is a criminal offence in gaining pecuniary advantage by deception, it is the act by which con-men are prosecuted. The Westway Development Trust, in calling their scam on Portobello Green an ice rink and charging people to use it as an ice rink, fall into this bracket. It is a plastic area whithout a sign of ice, except the icy glare of the hooded con men running it, described as an ice rink  and costing kids £3.00 a pop to be seriously disappointed by fuckwit grown-ups making a buck out of deceiving kids. No wonder kids don't trust adults and rebel.

Westway development Trust, you are not only a joke but a bunch of criminals conning anyone who comes your way. It is not an ice rink, it is a bit of lino. Kids would have more fun sliding around their kitchens in their socks.

It is yet another example of self important inadequates deceiving innocents in order to flatter themselves and then bringing in a bunch of thugs to help out.

We want our money back and an apology Westway Development Trust. Shame on you, you are stealing from and letting down the community you claim to be helping! If there were a Santa Claus he would be coming down your chimneys with an axe.

Portobello crime scene. RBKC guilty!

Gosh! I'm a criminal...

Yes I did it, I put my hands up, caught bang to rights etc etc.

On Thursday evening I put out a number of bags of garden waste for collection by RBKC the following morning. I had researched the methodology (a word local authorities are very fond of) for disposal of garden waste, I bought the green bags as required, I made sure the day was correct for collection on this street. I did everything asked of by RBKC.

The following morning the RBKC crew turned up, removed one bag of waste and left the remainder on the pavement.... Sheer idiocy! Why on earth could they not take it all?

This morning I found that the good people of RBKC had visited and declared the situation an 'Environmental Crime Scene'. The garbage added to the garden waste by the morons visiting the market doesn't help.

But am I the criminal?  My actions were those of a law abiding resident following instructions from the RBKC website. RBKC however (or it's minions) did not follow the instructions on their website. Surely this makes them the criminal.

I have telephoned the number on the sticker placed on the bags and have been fobbed off with the promise of a call at some time from the environmental officer... I await the call with enthusiasm.

At exactly the same time as my supposed crime the following photographs were taken directly opposite the house.

 As you can see from the lack of yellow stickers RBKC do not consider this a crime yet this scene is repeated weekly in this street due to a total absence of waste bins or skips within the market area of Portobello Green resulting in post market detritus being dumped on the streets and in our gardens. Oh, and if we should leave the litter in our gardens we are threatened by RBKC with prosecution.

Come on RBKC sort it out and clean your shit up!

Saporitalia Portobello Road. Dancing on Tesco Disco's grave. (The best pizza in Notting Hill).

The muse wanted a pizza and when the muse wants a pizza there is only one solution....

I decided to try Saporitalia at 222 Portobello Road. I wrote about the place when Tesco Disco closed some months ago and decided that enough time had passed for the place to iron out any wrinkles and soothe any teething pains.

The place looks and smells good and the staff were great considering I had gone in during a very busy Saturday night to order one solitary pizza; they could have been extremely snotty but were not!

I ordered, asked how long (seven minutes) ran an errand and was back on the dot to find said pizza waiting...

So far excellent. But what would the muse think?

Best pizza in the area by a mile was the verdict and the muse has tried them all. Good fresh ingredients, plenty of it, absolutely gorgeous and at £12.50 better value than anywhere else too.

Ten out of ten then! I'll be back.

The website is HERE

Bess Cavendish at Mau Mau, Portobello Road.

Bess was captivating!

You do not capture a butterfly in a net or a glass jar but in gentle hands that understand every nuance of that butterflies movements.