Carnival helicopter.

Perhaps the most annoying aspect of Notting Hill carnival is the constant buzz of the police helicopters overhead.

Mangrove Steel Band in All Saints Road. Carnival 2013.

The Friday night before carnival was always the high point for many locals. Recently the powers that be had stopped Mangrove Steel Band from playing in the street; it was traditionally the last pre-carnival rehearsal and an opportunity to play for the community but thankfully this year they were back. Wonderful!

Brilliant director Andre White is back behind the baton, Matthew is there behind the drum kit and so many familiar locals are making life good.

I find carnival itself far too crowded and intimidating so to be able to see these very dedicated people perform in the street on this night is magical. It is also magical to bump into so many friends and neighbours sharing the joy.

thank you.

Strangefruit - Sea of Fog.

This came my way via Orlando Seal (check out his band Orlando Seal and the Swell) it is dramatic in more way than one.

Gareth Cooper. Dead with You.

This cropped up on Facebook, I love it!

Six harps in the Albert Hall. Bantock prom review.

Not something you will see every day.

Hear them HERE

Jan Nieupjur writes:

While the Bantock piece was all very nice what a shame the BBC or the Proms powers that be did not take advantage of having six harps on the platform and more importantly six of the best harpists in the land in the house and put on a decent programme that could have been memorable and in my memory certainly a first.

Had there been six first violins from various orchestras on stage together we would never hear the end of it and imagine the kerfuffle had there been six tenors!

Editors note: Jan nieupjur knows nothing about classical music and even less about reviewing it but I owe him money and am obliged to publish his views.

Six harps.

The Obsidian eye.

There’s a guy who drinks in my local, Old guy, in his 80’s I guess, small and wiry, looks honest and hard working and always dapper in his black suit, white shirt and black tie, as if always waiting for a funeral or just come back from one.

The only odd thing about him is his eyes; he has one piercing blue eye and one dark brown, almost black. The dark eye is glass and ill fitting.

Last week I plucked up some courage and bought him a pint, sat down at his table, looked into 
the good eye and asked about the other one.

He started to talk without hesitation and with great passion.

In 1947 he said In 1947 I was demobbed and me and 3 mates went to Butlins for a week down Southend, we shared a chalet, all them chalets look alike and on the second night I got so 
pissed I went back to the wrong one didn’t I. I crept in in the dark so as not to wake the others, undressed and climbed into the bottom bunk and fell asleep. I woke meself up with a coughing 
fit and in doing so startled the girl who was sleeping in the upper bunk.

She mumbled something like she had a mouth full of pebbles and a moment later demanded “who’s that?’

I didn’t know then but I know now that she had a glass eye and she kept it in her mouth at night when she slept so as not to lose it and to keep it moist. She had popped it back into the socket, wet with spit, before demanding who I was.

I was pretty surprised to hear a girls voice from the bunk where me mate was supposed to be so 
I leaned out and looked up, as I looked up she looked down and her glass eye fell from its socket.

Our eyes met!

Fuck I said you’ve poked me fucking eye out, well you should have caught mine she said and what the bleeding hell are you doing in my chalet?

She sat with me in the doctor’s office as he scooped out my busted eye with a spoon and replaced it with a marble as a temporary measure. Six weeks later I had a brand new glass eye and a beautiful new wife. We were together for 60 years Trish and me. I buried her six weeks ago.

Before the funeral. He went on. Before the funeral I went to see her one last time.


In her box she looked as beautiful as when I first set eyes on her. A mad idea came into me head and I gently eased her glass eye out with me thumb and replaced it with me own. I put her eye into me head before closing her eyelids. I wanted part of me to go with her you see and I wanted part of her to stay with me.

This brown un was hers, beautiful colour ain’t it. Obsidian the poets call it.

The funny thing is, he said with a chuckle, the funny thing is she was such a beautiful woman people used to say to me. Stan, ugly little runt like you, how the fuck did you catch her eye in the first place and I’d say back with a twinkle in me good un, it’s more of a case of how I didn’t catch her eye what did the trick.

Barrington for MTV

Isn't this great... Barrington de la Roche.

An ormolu stool for the new Royal baby.

A nation rejoices
a nation is happy
for Morgana of Wales
has filled up her nappy

no signs of austerity
in her posterior dexterity
yet for her no diamond
or other rare jewel

no silver
no pearls
but the perfectly formed whirls
of a
golden hued,
curlicued
ormolu stool.

We wrapped it in tissue
sent it off to the issue
of the issue
of our dear Queen's eldest son
With a brief covering word
to authenticate the turd
as a born and bred, dressed in red,
Welsh number one.

Suggesting that
when they unwrap it
they have Gilbert and George snap it
for in turd matters they
are certainly no fool
And will quickly identify
reasons aplenty why
(in the words of the hip)
it is undeniably cool...

To be blissfully happy
with the contents of a nappy:

A golden hued, curlicued, ormolu stool.

Granny had a heart attack.

Granny's had a heart attack
in the outside loo
she wouldn't use the inside one
it simply wouldn't do.

She went and had a heart attack
in the outside crapper
built by grandpa Charlie
who used to be a sapper;
he built them in the Army
built them for the Royal Marines
standard M O D design
(other ranks) latrines.

The walls were rough cut timber
the roof, corrugated tin
and like all Army crappers
the doorway opened in.

Granny had her heart attack
door wedged against her knees
in the khasi in the garden
amid the courgettes and the peas.

We couldn't get in through the door
not even skinny Hilda
we had to take the roof off
so called in Pete the builder
who climbed upon the dunny roof
and peeled off all the tin

but

By the time he got to Granny
rigor mortis had set in.

He couldn't get her out of there
without cutting off her legs
and how Pete cussed that afternoon
about Army Khazi building regs.

You'll have to hoist her out of there
a local wag observed
not an elegant way to go...
And less than Gran deserved

for

Granny was a Christian soul
worshipped every Sunday
but granny had her heart attack
upon a secular monday.

So Mummy called the Fire Brigade
they came round with a crane
not an easy thing to do within
the confines of Pottery Lane.

They hoisted granny up and out
and over number seven...
It was not god but the Fire Brigade
who took Granny up to heaven.

Dark Night of the Soul ●▬๑۩۩๑▬● Featuring marycigarettes

Baby's first tattoo.

Rusty McGlint writes from Lizard Bend, Idaho:

Hey tristan.  Babs got liquored up last week with Fangio the pool guy and ended up in the tattoo parlour. she decided to get little Morgan his first tattoo!

I reckin that by the time he is done growing up that sucker will be the size of an eagle.

Cool huh!

By the way the changing mat is from the Damian Hirst babycare range in the Sears catalogue.

Tracey Bovington - Croisette. The unsung heroine of the royal birth.

From our Royal birth correspondent Rusty McGlint. As usual his views are his own and I certainly do not endorse all of them.

There is one name that will not be mentioned during all this royal baby hullaballoo and that is 'Tracey Bovington - Croisette'.

Tracey is the 'Queens screamer '; present at all royal births in order to give voice to the proceedings when things come to the shove. Obviously royal personages are above cussing and screaming, indeed, they have neither the temperament nor the vocabulary.

When I spoke to Tracey she informed me that it had been a fairly easy delivery requiring no more than a dozen or so F words and a rudimentary grunt or two. "A piece of piss". Tracey said. "Not like some I could mention had I not signed an NDA, but not the easiest neither - that was Fergie, who insisted on doing her own screaming and bloody good she was too!

When asked to describe the royal fruit of the womb Tracey said: "They all look like monkeys don't they".