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.

Juzzie Smith. Good Vibrations.

This has to be a contender for the best busker award.

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.

Requiem for a piano.

REQUIEM FOR A PIANO from frances shelley on Vimeo.

Grace and beauty on Portobello Road.

Now that carnival is over for another year peace returns.

There is something wonderfully organic about this image.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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'.

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.

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.