A stabbing on Portobello road.

We have had a killing on Portobello Road. A 17 year old was mercilessly stabbed to death by another teenager in broad daylight. The killer killed his victim, killed his own future in the process and killed all hope for the victims family for whom my heart bleeds. The killer killed all hope for his family...How can you live with that. The killer killed any justification for allowing children to discipline themselves.
The killer should be handed a copy of 'Lord of the flies' to read in his cell as should his parents as well as the rest of us.

The reason for the killing, from what I can surmise from talking to kids and locals, is that the poor boy was in the wrong place at the wrong time while the undisciplined children of the neighbourhood went out looking for someone to blame for their miserable lives armed with knives. They picked on him rather than picking on their parents.

I am a step parent of sorts to a 13 year old boy. He hates me because he sees my desire to protect him as a desire to control. If he listened to me he would realise that all I want to do is help him survive this mad world. Survive this mad world in order to do all of the shit he wants to do without getting stabbed.

Stabbed by the kid sitting at the desk next to him.

I do not know the victim or his family to whom I can only offer tears, tears I openly shed on Portobello Road this afternoon surrounded by schoolchildren standing at a loss at the makeshift shrine.

Do not blame the children. This is bad parenting.

Why immigrants matter.

As a 10 year old in the 1960's we lived on a fruit and hop farm in Kent. The house was surrounded by hop gardens ( even now I can remember my awe at first standing in a hop garden among the serried majesty of it all), cherry orchards, strawberry and blackcurrant fields. In the farmyard were barns and working Oast houses.

In late summer working class London families would descend upon the farm for the hop picking. They stayed in a row of small brick and corrugated iron huts alongside the lane that led to the village. Often 3 generations of a family would be there to work in the fields and in the sorting sheds. It was their summer holiday and it was a tradition that went back years. The kids were obviously taken out of school because I remember them, armed with pen knives, ambushing us on our way to school with offers of 'You want a knife fight'.

A number of factors put paid to that tradition. Cheap air travel allowing for 'Spanish holidays' and child labour laws being two of them.

It was in a time before the influx of much needed European migrant workers to facilitate the harvest. It seems that it had become 'Infra Dig' to the English.

Now, having looked on Google Earth I see that the hop gardens have gone, the cherry trees have gone, the blackcurrant fields have gone, and with them no doubt the ubiquitous red birdshit that peppered everything. The farmyard has gone save two of the Oast houses which have been converted into a substantial home, The pickers huts have gone. My part of the 'Garden of England' has become arable farmland and grazing. Bland.

Two years later, on the edge of the fens in the shadow of Ely Cathedral, farmers arrived at  school prior to harvest (here it was sugar beet and other root vegetable country) to drum up a workforce for the fields. I have mixed feelings about those days spent in a beet field armed with a 12 inch machete, decapitating the earthy beasts before lobbing them into a slow moving trailer. I was 12. Later in the season, during the winter holiday, the task would be to cover winter carrots with straw to protect them from the frost. My testicles have never recovered.

At that time we lived on a pig farm where I learned to castrate piglets and shoot rats in the feed bins. Both skills will now serve me well in dealing with Farage and his mob.

Child labour laws ensure that all of that is a thing of the past.

It was in a time before the influx of much needed European migrant workers to facilitate the harvest.  which had become 'Infra Dig' to the English who continue to list 'Cider with Rosie' as a favourite book.

Much of our 'homegrown' food  is now brought in from the fields by these migrants, they are essential because no-one else will do it. Every-one demands cheap produce in the shops, even the racists clamouring for  said immigrants departure whilst they book their retirements in Benidorm.

A message in a bottle from Britain.

I am 61 years of age

In the last few months of my life I have watched

Cameron lie his way to becoming the worst prime minister we have ever had

The ruination of my country at Cameron's hands.

Watched Boris Johnson buffoon his way into the hearts of no-one but into a shitty pit of his own making

The labour party tear itself apart for a lack of faith in Corbyn's integrity

All Corbyn has been saying is "This is what we could be".

Everyone else is saying: ' As a nation we have low self esteem, for fuck's sake please help please help please help someone with some integrity'.

EU to fund Brexit and Cameron's move to World Statesmanship.

According to my man in Paris eating croissants and flirting with waitresses the EU has had a whip round and come up with the necessary funds to give Britain the heave-ho pretty damn quick.

£150.00 is the figure being bandied about as the amount that David Cameron is demanding for a speedy exit from his embarrassment.

Cameron of course wants to move on to World Statesmanship PDQ.  Following the snail trail laid down by Tony Blair.

Rumour has it that Cameron and Blair will soon be found hiding in moist ground under the same rock. Cameron has ensured that that rock will not be Gibraltar.

Senile British geriatrics say NO to continence.

114 year old Jan Nieupjur tells me that, when that Farage bloke called in at his care home in Frinton, all he asked him was: 'Do you want to be incontinent'?

Jan told him no he did not whilst dreaming of running naked through a  summer meadow with a beautiful young flaxen haired girl without the inconvenience of his colostomy bag slapping against his belly.

I thought I was voting to get my youth back says Jan. I thought I was voting to get Mandy O'Morford to give me that long ago promised peep at her front bottom.

I now realise that all I was ever going to see was a cunt called Nationalism.

Fools gold.

I know I am a fool
but I do not like you thinking it

I know I am a fool
but I am not the fool you are

I know I am a fool
but the only person I am fooling is myself.

Russel Brand has nothing to say about Brexit.

Russel Brand, you know, the gobshite from the last election. Here he is:




Well he has nothing to say about the forthcoming referendum because he is not promoting a book or tour and has no interest therefore in what is going on in Britain, nor quite frankly, British youth. Until he does have a book or show to promote when he will miraculously have something to say.

Russel Brand is currently snuggled up in a threesome in Los angeles with himself, his penis and his hand.

Erectile disfunction. William Shakespeare manuscript discovered.

Jan Nieupjur writes: I found this written upon sheets of c16th Izal loo paper. It was tucked into a gap in the wall of the crapper behind Anne Hathaway's cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon.


 i hath lost mine own libido out by the gazebo
the lady hath left me
with william d'isfunction.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

anon willy's good now
if 't be true thee liketh a square
lard'd with
macho rumbunction.

mine own libido hast gone
the lady hast hath followed the travelling lamp
gone west
from the f'rmal did rise garden.

i am hath left limp. . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I have translated this into modern English:


I lost my Libido out by the gazebo
she left me
with William D'Isfunction.
..................................................................................

Now Willy's alright
if you like a fight
larded with
macho rumbunction.

My Libido has gone
she has followed the sun
gone west
from the formal rose garden.

I am left limp...
....................................................................................

Notes on the Festival season.

Tipi or not tipi. That is the question.

We went gingerly to Glastonbury in a Zimmer frame of mind.

Now is the wigwam of my disco tent made glorious by donna Summer.

Festival on a budget: Camping without a Sioux.

Daddy. That man is pissing in the Tardis.

The EU Referendum in Swiftian terms.

The more I see and hear of this Referendum shit being bandied about on the interweb the more I realise that it is just national masturbation. Jonathan Swift (were he alive) would probably define us as a nation devided by our preference to be pleasured by our own left or right hand.

Beauty demands nothing.

The beauty of the interweb
is that
ordinary men like me
in dying
may watch videos of
brilliance taken early
by the genius
it harbours
demanding everything destructive

to prove a point.

The beauty of the interweb
is that
ordinary men like me
in dying
may pass comment on
brilliance taken early
by the genius
it harbours
demanding everything destructive

to prove a point

The beauty of mankind
is that
to prove a point
brilliance is quantified by
brightness
not by longevity
nor by hits on youtube
beauty demands nothing.

English Hooligans outperforming the national team at Euro 16.

It is with a great sense of national irony that I can tell you that the English hooligan ensemble have performed way above expectations in France and have completely outshone the National football team.





The English squad management informed me this evening that: 'We are wasting our time trying to compete with the hooligan team, they are more disciplined and better managed all round. We might as well go home. '

A Fifa executive who refused to give his name without a £50 K bung told me that: ' Ingerlands going home, going home.'

A spokesdrunk for the hooligans muttered: 'Drink'.

It will be the first time in the competitions history that England will have finished the tournament without losing a game.

England won the world cup in 1966. Since then the world has refused to give us our ball back.

Why I will not be screaming 'Save Ladbroke Grove Library' quite yet.

As a result of the 'Demo' in April and further posts on social media regarding the demise of our local library I've done some homework : 

Firstly I am told that the library will remain in its current location until the new building is ready. The new library building, around the corner on Lancaster Road will be eminently more user friendly. 

Secondly, while I understand that the idea of a fee paying school occupying the building is noxious to many (especially those who cannot see beyond what they consider social injustice) to my mind it is preferable to the building being demolished to make way for 'luxury' apartments. 

The building does not lend itself to conversion to residential use as it stands. At least with the school leasing the building the building remains and by remaining retains the architectural and historical dignity of the site. The school, fee paying or not, employs many teachers and other staff, who are not overprivileged toffs, and therefore, on that level, is more valuable a tenant than say an estate agents. 

I have been unable to see any plans for the new library proposal so must take RBKC ai its word for the time being. 

Lastly. A library, to my mind, is a collection of books not a specific building. The British Library still exists even though the location changed. 

Ladbroke Grove will not lose its library and for that reason I do not need to beseech anyone to save it.