Piers Thompson talks about the KPH on its closure.

Hacked.

It appears that this blog has been hacked. Emails are being sent maliciously by others purporting to be me.

Please ignore all emails from this site and unsubscribe. I had closed the email facility on the blog some days ago.

sorry about this.

The end of the local. Gentrification and social cleansing in West London and empty speech bubbles.

Further to my last post.

QED: On an evening stroll to the KPH for a well earned pint I notice that the gentrified boozers on the manor are all empty. The KPH, although not rammed, had  local customers and was welcoming. UKAI (once the Market Bar) and the Italian Job (once the Pelican/Red Lemon) were completely empty and soulless.

The photo is of the Italian Job on All Saint's Road, taken through the window at 9.30 pm on a Thursday night.. The white orbs in the photograph the empty speech bubbles of a non existent clientele. This neighbourhood was once vibrant, varied and multicultural. It is now being sedated into morbidity by the 'pills' pushing gentrification and social cleansing..

All Saint's Road is, to many, the heart of the community. RBKC seem determined to replace that heart with a wind up toy that the locals are financially excluded from and the wealthy incomers are bored with already.

I suspect that it is hoped that All Saint's Road will become another Kensington Park Road, appealing to and catering for the wealthy alone.

Theresa May and the last remnant of democracy.

Oh dear. 

The tories will not be defeated by posting slogans on Facebook to be read by the like minded. The people who could possibly make a difference are the ill informed self disenfranchised who have been bullied and cowed into believing that it is not worth voting; the delusional working class conned into aspirations that are pure fantasy fuelled by the snake oil purveyed by Tory tub thumpers and the press and those who simply cannot be arsed to register to vote let alone vote.

Sheep have no free will, they abide by the law of the dog. The mandarins of Weaith are the shepherds whistling to the dogs. Theresa May is the Alpha bitch among those dogs. At the end of the day you will find her lying at the feet of her Masters gnawing on the bone she has been thrown.

That bone is the last remnant of democracy.

Fencing off the 'Village pump'. 'DOG in the MANGER'. Why the KPH is important and Why I won't be reviewing the 'Italian Job'.

Years ago before the arrival mains water and domestic plumbing the village pump or well was a hub within the community. It is where ordinary people met on a daily basis; where the lonely found some company, where gossip or news was shared. It was where linen, both dirty and clean, was aired. It was where 'Care in the community' existed before the term was hijacked by politicians in order to justify a lack of care or concern or an unwillingness to spend taxpayers money on the needs of the taxpayers.

After the plumbing arrived the pump or well, although still symbolic, ceased to be that hub. What was left was the village pub which served the same purpose.

Not only was the pub a hub, the good pub landlord was a marriage counsellor, a referee, a psychotherapist, a keeper of the peace, a short term loan provider and a friend. Very little violence occurs within the walls of a well run pub. To be barred from the village pub was a fate to be feared, it was exclusion from the community, it was ostracism.

The wealthy landowners and gentry did not need the village pub save for occasional visits for purposes of condescension, a leer and a grope at a pretty barmaid or to buy a secret bottle.

In this part of West London these hubs are vanishing to be replaced by hipster gastro pubs, Vodka breweries, estate agents offices and expensive apartments. The local working class community is being deprived of one of its focal points and is being offered no alternative. All the 'gentrifiers' see is a need to make a profit and a need to, in order to make themselves feel comfortable with their consciences, remove hoi polo from sight.

By 'gentrifying' the last remaining pub, the working class local community is in essence being told that their needs are in no way to be considered... Fuck off!

The re-imagination of the 'Red Lemon' on All Saints Road as an expensive Italian, hipster, artisanal, craft beer 'pub'/restaurant is a perfect example of this.


Red Lemon before and after being turned into a hipster fish shop



RBKC do not help in any way by allowing this sort of thing to take place because RBKC decision makers aspire to the same elevated personal Utopia as the gentrifiers themselves. No consideration is given to the discrimination against and displacement of the local community.

The only place for a reasonably priced beer now is either at home or on the street. Gone is the only refuge for the working class man wanting a beer or two on his way home or an escape from a potential domestic crisis.  No one cares, just 'KEEP OFF MY LAND'.

Gentrification often wraps itself in terms such as: 'Exclusive'.... To exclude; 'Discriminating'..... To discriminate against,  'Artisan'..... Pretentiously expensive in order to exclude poor people.

The village pump has been fenced off by people who only drink bottled water and champagne.

All the Gastro pubs and hipster bars should be forced to call themselves: The DOG in the MANGER'.

All of the above is why the KPH on Ladbroke Grove should remain an honest local boozer.

 It is the last one. If RBKC had any sense, care or imagination they would tax the gentrifiers a bit more and spend the money on buying the KPH freehold and giving it to the community to ensure the continuing existence of our village pump.

Lowkey Silcherster Estate development protest.

Popped in to look at the Silchester Estate development proposal exhibition this morning. Residents were out to protest the proposals.

I'll be writing about the development plans at length at a later time.



Got to say hello to 'Lowkey', someone previously not on my radar, an interesting man. Check out the video below.

And then read this: http://www.mintpressnews.com/MyMPN/after-being-targeted-by-the-uk-govt-british-rapper-lowkey-returns/

Vinyl Cafe reopens on Portobello Road.

Like 'Coffee Plant' down the road Vinyl Cafe has as its origin a market stall.  This is the kind of thing we need to retain the identity of the road. Not Starbucks nor any of its ilk.

Westway Development Trust, yurts and RBKC.

From my mole in Portobello Green.

Many of us have wondered at the small yurts appearing in Portobello Green.

Perhaps this snippet of a conversation ( between a blonde woman in heels and a curly haired man of elfin grace ) overheard today in the spring sunshine will help explain:

Him; What's with the yurts?
Her: We are preparing accommodation for the refugees who will be arriving soon.
Him: Where from, Syria?
Her: No! The Silchester estate when you turf the residents out in order to gentrify it.
Him: Now now, no need to be sarky. we are simply improving the quality of opportunities for some local residents to make some real improvements to their bank balances.
Her. That is what I thought. To that end I felt that by assisting with the temporary re-housing of what you call scum before you renege on your promises (in order to facilitate the lining of crony pockets) I hoped you might turn a blind eye to our similar plans for the Portobello Green area when it comes to planning consent.
Him: I love it when you talk dirty.


Editors note: This is obviously fake news and should be treated as such. The use of 'fake news' in satire is as old as the hills. The use of satire to take a poke at abusers of position or wealth is even older.

There are plans afoot however to 'socially cleanse' and 'gentrify' the Silchester Estate area. More on that another day.

Sex education in the sixties. A red herring.

As a six year old my entire knowledge of things sexual was obtained from eight year old boys in the school playground, they having been informed at six years old themselves. In the same fashion this information had been passed down, year on year, since Edward first confessed in 1066. This information was of course to be believed because it came with the declaration: It's true. Cross my heart and hope to die in a cellar full of rats'.

At age 11 my mother tried to disabuse me of my illicitly gained knowledge by placing on my pillow  a booklet on the reproductive cycle of fruit flies ,which I assumed, was where she got her knowledge from.

How on earth, I wondered, could a grown woman with six children (there was nothing in the publication about contraception.) think that fruit flies were anything to do with sex stuff. And furthermore the booklet did not contain the declaration: Cross my heart and hope to die.....

It could only be a lie or a red herring at best.

NU(I)T by The Countess.

A wonderful film from Alex Zapak. It's either suicide or genius.
excert from NU(I)T by thecountess Alex zapak ..LIVE FROM GROUCHO SHOW ..I SPENT LABOUR DAY DRY from THE COUNTESS on Vimeo.

Arc of a diver

This is from the archives. first posted on the poetry blog in 2009.

I am aware that I am being most horribly punished for my actions and there is nothing I can do because I have already gone too far. This is unequivocal.

My assumption was; when my life flashed through my minds eye as I fell to my death, that it would contain itself to my past!

Such is the speed at which the human brain can work when pressed that I am allowed the luxury of this consideration as I watch both the wall of the multistory slip by and my future (or what future I would have had, had I not decided to take this final action) flash forward.

So now I know! For one nano-second I am enlightened and it has taken my own snuffing of the candle to illuminate me; what a paradox and surely one that only people such as me have ever been aware of… For if one dies a natural death at the moment specified in our timelines there would be no future life left to taunt us!

In this split second as I plummet headlong to the concrete below I am allowed the horror of seeing the Cancer misdiagnosed and good health regained. I witness the love and patience of my wife as she supports me through the trials of becoming successful as an artist, as she bears me a beautiful daughter who burgeons into an even more beautiful woman who brings two delightful grandchildren into my no longer possible life. I witness the retrospective at the Tate and the accolades that that itself would bring. I kneel before the King and humbly accept my Knighthood. I die peacefully at home, aged 92, surrounded by the people I would have loved!

It occurs to me that my punishment, though harsh, ends now.

A stolen kiss.

I stole my first kiss
I did not know but
a kiss given freely

A kiss signalled by a
clumsily assembled pout
from carelessly painted lips
in a country bus shelter

Sheltered from buses perhaps
but not from a determined girl

nor from

the public transportation
of that first stolen kiss.

A short poem about longevity.

The older I get
the farther I go back
into memory

I imagine that

with my last breath
I will reach back to my first

and set eyes upon my mother again.