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

Middle aged men on kids scooters

Walking up Kensington Park Road the other day, pushing a buggy, enjoying the spring I was suddenly confronted by a fat middle aged guy hurtling downhill towards us on a scooter. As he passed I said: 'Aren't you too old for that'. He ground to a halt, turned around and came back. He said: 'You said something'.

I said: 'Yes. I said aren't you too old for that'.

He said: 'Why'.

I explained that while I understood the need for small children to be allowed to scoot on the pavement because the roads were dangerous I felt it was rather dangerous for adults to belt about the place without any care for other pedestrians.

He said: 'I don't agree. It is fun and it is good exercise'.

Having said his piece he then turned tail and scooted on down the hill.

The guy was FAT, he was exercising one leg on a part time basis. Had he been walking he would have been getting 4 times the exercise, had he been on a bicycle he would have been getting 8 times the exercise. He was fat and lazy and in denial.

What was most interesting was that by the fact that he came back to discuss the matter he let me know that he knew that he was fat and lazy. Aggressive defence being the refuge of the obese.


As the population grows we need to be more aware of the space we occupy and the space other people occupy. Just because we are fat and guilty does not give us the right to bully the people we envy.

Envy is nasty. Envious fat people should just eat less and leave the scooter at home.

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.

St Patrick, patron saint of English binge drinkers.

The Welsh don't do it. The Scots don't do it. The Irish do it, but he is their Saint. So why do the English wrap themselves in this faux Oirishness and proceed to get bladdered on St Patricks day?

I suspect it has something to do with national self esteem or the lack of it.