Balls on Portobello Road, crack, curling and boredom.

The latest addition to the Tavistock Square refurbishment is a collection of balls. Granite balls to be precise. Quite why they are there I do not know, not high enough to sit on yet low enough to bark a shin on on dark nights. Perhaps they are humorous representations of the crack rocks popular among some elements of the local community. They are balls anyway.

On close inspection I suspect that the balls are of  a granite found only on Ailsa Craig; an island in the Forth of Clyde on the West coast of Scotland. A granite of such fine quality that it is used in the manufacture of curling stones; curling being the 'sport' which imaginatively combines ice, granite, RAF roundels and brooms. It is called 'curling' as a result of its toe curlingly boring nature. Balls!

Portobello Man: The Bevis Frond.

The half million pound loo seat on Portobello Road.

OK. they have nearly finished tarting up Tavistock Square on Portobello. Half a million has been spent on it; granite from China being a fairly hefty chunk of the cost! Who on earth specified chinese rock? what kind of bung was involved? We should be told.

What's the big difference?

The difference is a fancy circular seat next to the Auto piss machine; just the place to sit and eat your newly purchased, wood-fired cheese on toast, serenaded by the farts and splashes of thousands of tourists.

What on earth went through the planners heads here. There is more than one meaning to 'Public Waste'.

Another nail in the Portobello Road coffin, Intoxica is closing.

Yet another of the stores that make the road is going.... another victim of escalating rents, greedy landlords and the local authorities apparent desire to turn this once unique street into some kind of tourist tat mecca.

Intoxica (a wonderful little record store) and its like made Portobello road long before that fucking film attracted bucket shop loads of tourists in search of the 'blue door' and the rest of the disneyesque bilge that is now seen as 'Notting Hill' (this end of Portobello is 'Ladbroke Grove' anyway).  Very soon all that will be left is shops and stalls selling plastic routemasters and black cabs, I love London fridge magnets, policemens helmets, dodgy food, 'pop-up galleries' selling naff artwork and the rest of the tourist crap alongside rubbish high street clothing and shoe stores.... Oh and wood fired cheese on toast restaurants.

Portobello Road is being systematically eviscerated and 'insanitised'.

There are theories abounding regarding RBKC and their seeming desire to destroy one of Londons iconic roads. Some say backhanders from the developers, others say that the council is in fear of some kind of mafia thing. Others are inclined to believe that the jobsworths of RBKC couldn't give a flying fuck about anything other than their salaries and a quiet life! 

Of course corruption exists, always has done, always will. 

Portobello road is doomed to become as risible as Carnaby Street and its like!

sad!

I'm going to the Cock and Bottle to drown my sorrows.

Tableware

Mr Pounce, crop circles and soft cheese.

A few days ago I had the good fortune to be invited to dinner by Mr Pounce the esteemed barrister at his grand Gothic pile. It was a small informal gathering nourished by birds that Mr Pounce had blasted from the moorland skies himself. 

The delightful and vivacious strawberry blonde Wilhemina was of course in attendance.

One of the attendees formed a perfect crop circle... The crop in this instance being tobacco.

Or was it a smoke ring?

I thought the cheese rather photogenic.

Harps eye view of the Opera House Guangzhou, China.

Loco at Retro, old rockers, Cloud and THE HIP POCKET.

A guest blog by Jan Nieupjur. As usual his views are not necessarily my own (they are not necessarily his either since the illness kicked in).


The muse being in Hong Kong on a Chinese tour, I decided to have another look at 'Loco', drink a beer or two and say hello to some old friends.

It was packed already at 9.15. One of the bands had brought their fan club which can be a double edged sword; fan clubs tend to talk through the other acts then depart en mass when the band they follow leave. I guess this is why they are called followers.  Tonight the followers left before the meat and gravy. Maybe they were all vegetarians anyway!

I cannot remember the name of the bunch of old rockers reliving their youth that brought the followers; my Alzheimer's is such that if I don't write it down it's gone, by the time I'd found the will to find a pen the desire to write down the band's name had gone. To misquote Saki; as old rockers go they were good and as good old rockers go they went... With their followers. they probably needed to get back to something on the telly.

Not a very good photograph of Cloud. Photo Jan Nieupjur

The old rockers reliving their youth were followed by a local band called CLOUD, see I wrote that down and in capitals. Cloud are young, creative, interesting and well worth catching. There is the potential for a successful band there. I would much rather watch and listen to young men or women exploring their youth rather than old men revisiting it. Cloud made me think of this:



Listen to Cloud here: http://www.myspace.com/cloudlondonbasedband/radio

Interestingly for muso geeks; in the audience were Joseph Dean Osgood, Roger Pomphrey, Tristan the weird poet, Marty from Asian Dub Foundation, two thirds of Taurus Traaker, Steve Dior, Jono the king of 'chub love' and (not Jono) a very gay man, author Charlie Caselton (read his book: 'Meanwhile Gardens'), loads of supermodels etc etc. James Simmins looked very suave in a suave hippy kind of way, you just know that Johnny Depp is going to play him in the movie.

The real highlight for me today was however elsewhere when I caught a glimpse of a new band called THE HIP POCKET in rehearsal (at a secret venue. Kate Moss was there) prior to their launch. Unbelievably good and going stratospheric soon. I have not had goosebumps like it since Hendrix came round and played at my birthday back in the 70's.

I'm told that the band are to release a CD titled 'Studded seams for strength' prior to any live performances. I'll keep you informed!

And then I got home. Cameron, crack, ganja, porn and booze.

I got home after the horrors of the Castle Portobello Road, its cockroaches, juvenile management and gastronomic delusions to find a bunch of drunken kids wreaking havoc under the westway.  Of course these poor kids have nothing better to do in the evening other than wreak havoc. Mummy and daddy, skanked out on crack, booze and ganja have no idea how to bring up their kids and the last place they want their kids is at home interfering with their booze, crack and ganja so they kick them out into the streets to grow up and perhaps get a life.

It did however require the attention of rather a lot of police officers, cars etc. Just the job think mummy and daddy.... Less police to bust us for ganja, crack, prostitution, booze and porn and mismanagement of the country.

Less reason to vote for the conservatives I think.... Cameron! Keep your kids at home.

The Castle on Portobello Road, cockroaches and mismanagement.

I called in at the 'newly refurbished' Castle on Portobello; you know, the troubled pub without a hope in hell save a place to buy drugs and steal handbags. A friend was playing there, you know the Castle is pretending to be a music pub. Jesus wept!

I bought myself a beer, listened to some extraordinary Bill Withers cover while I watched cockroaches cross the floor. Big cockroaches. Massive fuckers.

I asked the barmaid (probable age 15) where was the landlord, she said dunno. I asked who was the manager, she pointed me at a boy who had been sitting the customer side of the bar all night chatting up plain girls and playing with his hair. I approached him, pointed out the cockroach situation whereupon he informed me that, and I quote: 'This is Portobello Road mate'.

He was absolutely right. It is Portobello road and we expect better than that from a scuzzy pub masquerading as a gastro pub charging a fortune for overpriced average food cooked and served in a place riddled with vermin and managed by a kid more interested in anything other than his job.

I will talk to the principals involved in the Castle and ask why they think that what they are providing is anything other than shoddy. Portobello Road is screaming out for some good quality, reasonably priced food.

We do not need cockroach infested, badly managed shitholes.... If we wanted that we would have kept the old Castle as it was;

The Welsh beat the Irish on St Patricks day. And the Cow, westbourne Park Road, shows its true colours.

I spent Saturday having the best of days with people I love, watching Wales win the 6 nations and eating a butter bean. Mr Pounce was in red as befitting his Welsh roots and the muse knew all the words to the songs.

Wales won. We had a drink and watched small boys with light sabers duelling as the sun set.

Then to the Cow... Of course it was St Patricks day and the Cow is an Irish pub... Is it fuck.

Since the diaspora following the potato famine the Irish got everywhere and imbued where-ever they went with the 'craic' and where-ever they went with the craic everyone wanted to be Irish. They never got to the Cow!

The cow is as Irish as Tokyo and it pisses me off to see people who have booked a table to eat being charged £5 on the door to go in because it is St Patricks night.... why weren't the customers warned that they would be charged on the door. The food is good at the Cow but already way over priced and it's not as if they have a celebrity chef.

It is a pub.

The landlord is rarely there.

I have never know an Irish staff member there, unless Albania is suddenly Irish, not to knock Albanians but they ain't Irish.

Diners were charged at the door to eat at a table they had booked.

The owner wasn't there to explain why this was the case.

Gaz Mayall was there with his band which made the whole thing magical. Without him, Roger Pomphrey and a couple of others it would have been SHIT.

The Cow suffers now from the malaise frequent in other 'destination' pubs/bars in that they don't give a shit if you don't like it because thousands of others are there to be suckered.

If not suckered then happy to pay a premium in order to feel that they are part of the Notting Hill trustafarian, coke driven 'better than you' never really worked in my life mentality.

Oh. And what did the door charge pay for? It payed for the bouncers!

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One way of looking at the danger of gum.

Jan called round today for a glass or two. there was a pack of gum on the desk, not my gum I hasten to add but gum left by a visiting Legionella tester (don't ask, long story).

Jan said: 'I bullied my kids, and in order to bamboozle them about drugs n stuff. I told them they could do anything but chew gum, gum was out of bounds, beyond the pale, gum was, let's face it, infra dig. do smack I said, do booze, smoke 80 Kapstan full strength a day I said. But do not do gum I said.  My theory was that they would eschew the drugs of my choice and go for the one I abhorred. I believed that they would chew gum above any other vice to poo poo me.'

Did it work I asked Jan.

'No'. He said. 'One of my sons is an alcoholic, another a junkie and the third is dying of emphysemia.'

'At least'. I said. 'none of them died choking on chewing gum'.

'No'. He said, and then went on: 'But if a child is going to predecease a parent the child should have the good sense to get it over and done with quick. Parents spend most of their lives worrying about their children's ability to live unparented instead of enjoying drugs and stuff like that:.