Grenfell Tower. MISSING.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?

This is Rock Fielding Mellen, Deputy leader of RBKC and head of housing. He has been conspicuously missing since the tragedy occurred. The community would very much like to find him.

Grenfell Tower. RBKC bullying Grenfell Action Group in 2013.

Grenfell Tower fire. Ghosts in the windows.

I will not be posting images of the fire, there are enough of those already.

This is the image I now live with constantly. The tower is perhaps 100 metre away, it looms over the area and will now be a constant reminder of the horrors that created it. The garden is still being showered with charred remnants of cladding and insulation; what many of us believe to be the fatal factor in the inferno. The air is corrupt.

I cannot help but relive Wednesdays events each time I look at the blackened tower. I see ghosts waving lights in the window openings, I hear the screams of those poor trapped souls. I sat  watching the fire, unable to do a thing as it ripped through the building. A nightmare made real.

For the families of the victims this must be an awful sight and there is no escaping it. My heart bleeds for them.

The fatality numbers, presently 17, will rise dramatically and only when that is known will the full horror of the disaster be realised.

The community is devastated but in that devastation is coming together to do whatever it can to help in the aftermath.

No one will forget this. Let us hope that the Government will act upon it.

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.