Fired up at Mode. The Lipstick Melodies and others.

UPDATE.  26th April 2015.  Saddened to hear today of the untimely death of Alan Wass of the Lipstick Melodies.  Another one gone.                                            

There is nowhere for kids to go in Notting Hill, by kids I mean the youth and by Notting Hill I mean West London.

I went to Fired Up at Mode tonight. Mode is the recent reincarnation of what was Supper Club and before that Subterrania.

Fired Up is the inspiration of Mickey P!

At first sight it looks interesting, there is a half size spitfire hanging from the ceiling above a stage backed by a steam-punk organ. Sadly the balcony above appears to have been designed by someone thinking it is a 3 star hotel in Swindon complete with William Morris wallpaper and badly framed art.

There were very few young people there apart from the bands and their followers, there were too many middle aged folk, me included, who should have been elsewhere, but in W10 where else is there.

Where were the youth?

I know a lot of the local kids prefer to stab and shoot each other rather than hang out and listen to music but there must be a few who want to hear and see some old fashioned rock n roll.

Because old fashioned rock n roll is what it was.

The first band, the Lipstick Melodies were great, as if the Stones and Led Zep had met as kids and decided to go a different way. I like the Lipstick Melodies, I'm 60 years old, the Lipstick Melodies should be worried about the age of their fan base.

Pink Cigar followed.


I left.

Good luck Mickey with future events but I suggest you get some kids into the audience.

Orphans under the Westway.

Over 50 years ago, in the dark but more enlightened times the powers that be decided that a Motorway link should be pushed into West London in order to better serve the twin gods of Mammon and Motorcar. A whole community was disrupted and displaced by the event without any real care or consideration for that community.

The residents (mostly impoverished and a great number of them immigrants living in slum streets that were unceremoniously bulldozed to make way for the road that didn't even have the courtesy to run at ground level but arrogantly flying overhead) were rehoused without any real thought for community bonds or spirit. Post War planners and Architects were still fooling around with Brutalism, balcony high rise building and the social experiments of Bauhaus and Le Corbusier which have all proved to occupy a rather shabby cul-de-sac in the history of social housing.

The unlucky ones got to be rehoused in poorly considered estates, the even unluckier got to be herded into the abominable Trellick Tower and therefore able to look down on the Westway worm that had eviscerated their community.

But under the belly of that worm something stirred.

'Orphans' documents some of that stirring.

Under the Westway back then kids started occupying the spaces, building their utopian fantasies within the dystopian environment: discarded building materials became the wherewithal for adventure. Times were freer then, sure some kids got hurt but not as many as now where kids carry knives and will stab one another at the mention of a wrong post-code within nanny England's sterile but 'safe' environment.

Once the powers that be saw that there was potential use for the spaces they were taken away from the community under the premise that they would be developed for the benefit of said community. This is of course nonsense.

Apart from a few bays the entire area has been developed for commercial reasons with little thought for what the community really wants or needs.

'Orphans' occupies one of those few remaining bays, alongside the pop-up cinema and a splendidly tatty bar and music venue.

'Orphans' is an Art Installation by Steve Mepsted that plasters the innards of the Westway with enlarged images of how it used to be before the powers that be saw it as a means to profit.

Irony abounds at  'Orphans'.  Next to a enormous photograph of 60's children playing in a self built construct under the west way a bunch of 21st century kids have to make do with a vacant stage in front of images of 60's kids because nanny Britain deems nothing safe for our children and therefore our children have nothing safe to play with except the guns and knives of deprivation that we now give them.

Westway Trust is somehow sponsoring this. Westway Trust should be thinking long and hard about how it can ensure that the spaces under the flyover can remain of use to the community and benefit the people who need it most.

Westway Trust is one of those quasi-charitable organisations who like to be seen to be doing the right thing while they sell the birthright of the people they claim to represent to the highest bidder.

I spoke to Steve today. I said: I'm not going to review your show, I'll leave that to the professionals but I surely will moan about Westway Trust and RBKC and their desire to eradicate the indigenous population in favour of wealthy incomers.

'Orphans' is under the Westway for the foreseeable future, go and have a look.

And while you are there, grab someone from Westway Trust and ask:

Ask why the pop up cinema doesn't have proper funding, ask why all three bays will probably go to a supermarket, ask why Those 3 bays should not remain in perpetuity the domain of the community that the Westway Trust is supposed to serve.

Oops. I forgot. The Westway Trust only serves itself.

Let mummy sing in the garden.

Mummy is crying in the garden

because

I am growing up too quickly she says
and as she weeps
she lets me watch the stuff she thinks I want to watch

you know
the gratuitous sex
the violence
that she thinks I think I want to watch.

I am seven for fucks sake
and I shouldn't know the meaning of innuendo
let alone learn that
women are tools
to be fucked and then killed horribly
by James Bond (my hero).

What I really want
is a parent who allows me to watch
what I really enjoy watching
not the things that peer pressure (my 11 year old brother)
makes me think I want to watch.

Let me cry over the death of Bambi's mum
before I lose the ability to cry over anything.


I want mummy to say NO!

And sing in the garden.

Mayor of Sorrento sues Vesuvius for vandalism of early Banksy.

The mayor of Sorrento has started legal proceedings against the volcano for what he considers to be wilful criminal damage to valuable graffiti.

The graffiti, considered to be the earliest known example of Banksy's work, had been obliterated by ash and pumice for nearly 2 centuries, depriving the community of a priceless work of art valued at lots of money.

The mayor is quoted to have said: 'We are talking lots of money we have lost over two centuries, fuck whether it is art, it is money that could have been lining our pockets".

Neither Banksy, his ancestors nor the thousands of 'Banksy' pretenders would step from behind their mask to comment.

Le Peuple de L'herbe - Soya Green.

We like this.

The gargling Harpist.

            Harp and spittoon: Horngacher Empire Meisterharfe. Ikea Socker bucket.


She was an harpist of little promise until one day in rehearsals the composer heard her gargling in the wings.

He was mesmerised by the fact that she was gargling Mahler 5.

He sat down there and then to write his masterwork: 'Composition for harp and gargle'.

She became an overnight sensation along with the composer and the piece.

She suffered from stage-fright and in order to cope with the fame, started gargling with gin during her warm up.

Soon she was gargling with vodka during performances.

Sadly the Orchesra did not provide a spittoon… She swallowed.

Her playing suffered as a result and very soon she was replaced by a more reliable musician (there were suddenly many aspiring harp garblers up for it) and soon forgotten.

She now spends her days gargling for the residents of a run down hotel  and her nights drinking herself senseless whilst blaming everybody.

And her harp?     She sold that long ago to pay for her booze.

Mooning.

The Earth is a disco ball

The Earth is a glitter ball suspended within a spherical table 500 thousand miles in diameter

The Earth is a disco ball upon which the continents and oceans are projected
all life is part of that projection

Upon that table sits a glass of beer 240,000 miles away.

Or thereabouts

We all sit on our disco ball looking down upon a beer

Our disco ball rotates at a speed according to the nature of the engine
the table (along with it the beer) rotates at its own speed
the beer moves in and out of our line of sight

Wains and waxes

Reminding us that a glass is filled with optimism and hopelessly empty.

We all sit on our disco ball looking down on a beer.

Mooning.

We are too busy.

We are too busy
fighting other peoples wars
solving others problems
carrying their weight
curing their ills
salving their bruises
taking their pain
filling their voids

We are too busy to notice

each other

anymore.

The Golden Cross reappears on Portobello Road.

Like some primeval petrified forest exposed by an exceptionally low tide the Golden cross has re-emerged on Portobello Road.

Immortalised by Martin Amis in his novel 'London Fields' This will for the time being surely become a shrine for literary tourists.

It is good to see it again and be reminded of a very good book.

Is Keith Talent going to perform the opening dart throwing?

Olive Ants of Umbria. How olive oil is really made.

A guest blog by our foodie/travel writer Rusty McGlint. He ain't got a camera so there ain't no pictures.



Foodie vegetarians or Vegetarian foodies (if that is not an oxymoron) look away.

I have just spent three weeks high in the sun burnt Umbrian hills following the most noble of oils from its source on the branch to the drizzle on an artichokes heart.

My hosts, Pietro and Enid (her father was a Blyton fan) manage 15,000 olive trees on a hillside which runs down to hillside lower down the hill but not as steep and eventually to a level bit where Top Gear presenters race each other in flash cars and then it goes up again to another hill. Pietro's family has owned the land for generations and milked its trees for oil for longer still. 'Oil is in our blood'. He says. 'And our blood is in the oil'.

I spent my days on the hillside witnessing the virgin birth of oil and my evenings getting ratarsed on the Bulgarian 'Chianti' that the family buy in bulk and then re-label for the British market.

The food, provided by Pizza Hut, down in the village, was classical Umbrian fare.

But the oil. The oil.

As I mentioned before, Pietro has 15,000 olive trees. Each tree is the 'factory' for the ants nest which lies below.  The Umbrian olive tree is the life giving umbrella to the Olive ants of Italy and indeed gives its name to the region.

Olive ants (not to be confused with the Eleph ants of ancient Israel which have slightly larger bodies, thicker skins and trunks) build vast nests containing up to one million insects, each nest grows an olive tree from which oil, the life blood of the ants, can be harvested.  They say there are a Million olive trees in Umbria which means there are a million million olive ants. An old Umbrian saying has it that there are more olive ants in Umbria than there are stars in the heavens.

Anyway.

The ants build a nest and plant an olive tree. The ants then nurture the tree until it reaches fruition whereupon they, during the olive season, collect the oil from the fruit and take it down into their nest to provide succour for the embryonic olive ants through to maturity. They do say that over the millennia enough oil was spilled during this process to create reservoirs big enough to embarrass Saudi Arabia.

What Pietro, his forebears and his countrymen do is to catch the ants on their way down the tree- belly full of oil- throw them into a press whereby the oil is squeezed out of them. Using modern day techniques most of the ants die in this process which is causing disquiet among conservationists. Pietro insists that the ants reproduce at such a rate that this is not an issue.

In days past the ants were gently squeezed by pre-pubescent girls to extract the oil, allowing the ants to return to the trees. This oil was traditionally known as Virgin olive oil. The later, gentle but resented squeeze by a raddled old hag forced into going back to work in old age was known as the second pressing.

I'm geting bored with this. Can I just say you might not have ants in your pants but you certainly have ants in your pantry.

Bonkers Bankers Bunker in Ladbroke Grove.

This hole is being dug out on Ladbroke Grove on the corner with Elgin Crescent.

It is on a tiny site which once contained a small single storey building. The developer could not get planning permission to build up, so has gone down, and down and down. 3 floors down to be precise.

The refusal of planning permission for anything taller is laudable, the spaces between and adjacent to the large victorian houses of the area are necessary for a number of reasons and must remain.

But to burrow into the ground like this is ridiculous. whoever buys this place (no doubt for Millions of pounds) will become the owner of nothing more than a dungeon, lit naturally only through light-wells and no doubt requiring sumps and pumps to keep it dry. If the new owner is not already depressed by the price of this thing, he and his family will need psychotherapy shortly after moving in.

It is not in Notting Hill, Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts will not be strolling past hand in hand, snow will rarely shroud the road in pristine white and Junkies and drunks WILL most certainly piss through the letterbox.

Mad. Mad. Mad.

Saucepan Bark.

A guest blog form Rusty McGlint in Lizard Bend. Idaho.

I don't hold with this gender-steroetypical dressing of children so we are letting young Morgan go his own way.

I kinda like this cross dressing/Dolly Parton look he has chosen and a pink ukelele sure beats a gun.

He wrote his first song today. It goes like this:

Gonna get me a doggie
gonna walk him in the park
Gonna call my doggie Saucepan
just to hear that saucepan bark.

saucepan bark
walking in the park
a pissing on the trees
soaking all the bark

saucepan Bark
laying down his mark
and chasing off the muggers
that are hiding in the dark

Saucepan bark
Saucepan bark
gonna call my doggie Saucepan
just hear that saucepan bark.

Carnivorous Marrow found in Notting Hill.

A Serious Pest Control team was called in to a garden in West London today to deal with a rare carnivorous marrow.

The owner of the beast, Jan Nieupjur, told me:

"When the plant first started growing by the compost heap I thought it was a self seeded courgette but over the weeks the bugger just kept growing but never producing any fruit. A couple of weeks ago, having taken over the garden it suddenly produced something. In the space of 10 days it became rather larger than a courgette. I thought: OK it has aspirations of marrowhood, but it didn't stop there, it started to resemble a green pumpkin.

A few days ago the garden became empty of birds, even the wood pigeons disappeared, and then the neighbours started to lose their cats (no bad thing to my mind) and small dogs so I knew something was up.

I sat up last night with a torch and a bottle of schnapps to keep an eye on things and was amazed to see the vegetable pounce upon a nocturnal squirrel and eat it. Bugger me I thought: This thing could eat one of the kids so I called in the pest control people who confirmed (by inspecting its mouth parts) that it was in fact carnivorous".

                                Mouth of the carnivorous Marrow



A spokesperson informed me this evening that the Marrow has been taken to a secret location in Kensington where it will be propagated in order to grow more of the monsters in the local parks in order to eradicate the rough drinkers congregating therein.

Why Rimbaud gave up poetry.

From our Arts correspondent Jan Nieupjur.

A lot of people ask me why Arthur Rimbaud gave up poetry.

Actually thats a lie. No one has asked me, it is just a lazy, cheap bit of journalism.

But now I know. I recently came across a bundle of documents handed down over the years from a Kipper seller in Camden. Among the papers was a poem written by Rimbaud apparently in payment for some kippers he purchased. At the time he was living in Kentish Town with Verlaine and on the run from his mum and Verlaine liked a kipper.

Anyway, the document I have reads as follows:

At the price of just one florin je
suis désolée
down the market place to
see the value of an orange
The sun of fruits
at its apogee
yet cheaper than a door hinge.

(I feel I can do no more).   A.R.

Previously unseen Rothko found in West London.

Arts Correspondent Jan Nieupjur writes:

Walk through Notting Hills streets these days and the chances are you will stumble upon a Banksy screaming to be noticed and then scraped from its wall in order to be sold to save a youth club or some such worthy institution.  However if you open your mind to the unexpected far more worthy works of art are to be found.

The image above is one of a series of panels commissioned from Mark Rothko by the Four Seasons burger bar in the 60's. Prior to delivering the works Rothko visited the restaurant and was horrified by the quality of the images of plastic looking food on the walls and promptly withdrew from the contract, selling the panels to a firm of hoarding contractors in Shepherds Bush. The panels have remained hidden in their warehouse until recently when they were used at the Sarm West Studios site in Basing Street W11.

The works are important in that they show clearly how Rothko was moving away from Abstract depressionism towards the light of 'Nieupjurism' to which I had introduced him in the late 50's.

These paintings should be preserved for the nation but sadly one must assume that they will be overpainted by some Banksy wannabe in the near future.

The works in situ along with 'Bags of Rubbish' by Sala Murat and 'Postbox' by Tracey Emin.



Jan Nieupjur is Emeritus Professor of daubing at the University of Life. He is the founder of both the Abstract Depressionist movement and the Nieupjurist school of painting. His Autobiography, 'A figment of my imagination' is unlikely to ever see the light of day.

Harp in the Royal Albert Hall. no:2

Getting ready for Prom No: 72.

Gourmet baked beans… The planet is doomed.

We've gone mad, completely mad. fortnum and Mason are selling baked beans for nearly £5 a pot.

Half the world is starving whilst trying to live on less than that a week.

Anyone considering buying a pot of these fuckers should buy a tin of Heinz beans and give the balance to charity.

And listen up Mr and Mrs posh. The fuckers will make your farts no sweeter nor more melodious.

If Nero were around today he would be, without doubt, fiddling with a can opener and some of these as Rome burnt.

The twins.

When my parents were alive they lived outside a village in suffolk. Across the field in front of the house was an oak tree, it looked like a single tree from a distance but a closer inspection revealed that it was in fact two trees growing side by side. so close were they to each other that one had to surmise that they had grown from a squirrels buried stash of acorns.

Over the years these two trees individually grew apart as they grew up; each in search of its own light and space but such was the proximity of their origin neither of them had a say in which way it could grow, but grow apart they must.

One of the trees has light green foliage. The other dark. Other than that, as I have written, they could be one tree with a double trunk.

In the late 50's my twin sisters were born on Christmas day. It is one of my earliest memories; A christmas day (or perhaps a day later) spent in the hospital, unwrapping our presents and from what I can glean from said memory, the presents were more important that the arrival of sisters. I got a yellow bulldozer. I cannot tell you anything about the twins except that they were suddenly there.

The younger of the twins was sickly and fighting for life, she spent weeks in an oxygen tent and probably developing a completely different approach to life than her healthy sister.

From that day onwards the twins were simply 'The Twins', they were dressed alike, had the same haircuts and were referred to as a single entity even though they were not identical, came from separate eggs and had separate life support systems in the womb; two little acorns planted very close together.

From then onwards they started to grow apart, each craving her own light and space.

Thinking about it now, 55 years later I wonder if perhaps they had entered in to some unspoken pact that would allow each a degree of individuality in  their shared existence. 

One became more thoughtful and quiet while the other extrovert and capricious. Now it is as if one suffers life's hardships while the other revels in its possibilities; one tree watered from a glass half empty, the other from a glass half full. It is of course the sister who struggled for life in the beginning who makes the most of it later on. I could identify each of them simply from statements about their behaviour, If one was expelled from school, of course it was 'X', if one excelled in exams, of course it was 'Y'. One had dark emotional foliage the other light. Was this in some way considered (albeit subconsciously) and intentional or was it purely instinctive?

I used to, rather cruelly, think of them as two halves of the whole person but that of course is not the case. They are two individuals who have struggled to find their own light and air from very stifling beginnings.

I have come to the conclusion that treating twins as one entity, especially dressing them identically and never referring to them individually, considering them as accessories, is nothing short of child cruelty. 

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.

Kitten found safe and well in Gaza.

The Russians may be shooting down airliners and the US backed Israeli's bombing women and children but the world can sit back and relax in the knowledge that a kitten has been found alive in the debris of a bombed out Gaza house.

The owner of the cat, who would not give his name, said: 'My entire family was wiped out in the blast but this little fellows safety makes it somehow worthwhile'.

An emergency UN meeting has been called in order to celebrate the safety of the kitten who has been name Jesus by the regimental rabbi of the 3rd Bethlehem Butchers who found the animal stating that the little fellow seems to be able to perform miracles.


Editors note: Sadly little jesus was killed in the stampede of journalists rushing to cover the story.

Israel targeting the Kingdom of Heaven ?

I am getting reports that Israeli rockets are targeting areas of the kingdom of heaven in order to eradicate the Palestinian women and children it has sent there. Are they mad?

David, who sells falafels down the road and therefore knows as much about the situation as anyone tells me that Jesus promised them the kingdom of heaven but for reasons of disbelief they turned it down, however they now want it and will do what they like with it and there is certainly no space for Palestinians in the Kingdom of Heaven.

According to other sources American pro Zionists are funding a stairway to heaven as a means of moving the heavy artillery up there.

Jimmy Page declined to comment.

Jesus's 'Book of Miracles' found.

A well preserved fragment of parchment unearthed in Palestine appears to be the journal of Jesus of Nazareth. From the parts that have now been deciphered it appears that Jesus kept a record of his daily activities including details of his 'miracles'.

One excerpt reads: Sermon on the mount.  good turnout at the rally today, 50 thousand at a guess, not too many hecklers. Got a bit hairy at lunch time though… Mary came to me and said there was going to be a riot if we didn't feed them all and all we have is a few fish and some bread. I said don't fret Mary, I know these people, they are all sitting on picnic baskets but don't want to bring them out in case they are asked to share with others. Once they see food going round they will all suddenly discover their own stashes and tuck in. I bet we have loads left over at the end.  I was proved right as usual and another 'miracle' was born.

Another: Turned water into wine today… Visited a local merchant who was expecting us,  I asked for wine for myself and the crew, the guy said: 'Sorry. Times is hard, all I have is water.'  I know my merchants well and suspected that he had filled his wine jar with water in anticipation of our request for refreshments and put the wine in the water jar.  So I says, quick as a flash, I'll turn your water into wine and before he could stop me I poured a glass from the water jar… Sure enough it was wine. Another 'miracle' done and dusted…

The curious incident of the bread in the park.

This is a pile of 'designer' bread dumped today in the corner of the little park on Tavistock Road. It raises a number of questions:-

Boo's reviews No.2. The Red Lemon.

An occasional guest review type thing. Written by a child who knows about stuff.

It is hard to find a pub to review within walking distance, I'm only one and can't walk that far and the elements seem to be conspiring against pubs these days, especially around here.

If the poet pushes me the first 200 Metres I can consider the Red Lemon to be within walking distance. I'll review that then.

I've been drinking in the Red Lemon all my life, I've been drinking in the Red Lemon since it opened. I like a drink… My tipple used to be milk but I've moved on to water now but I invariably take my own to the pub. The poet and the muse drink pub drinks and they say that the Lemon sells draught beers and stuff at very reasonable prices unlike other pretentious places in the neighbourhood.

The staff a friendly and invariably wave back when I wave, they sometimes pick me up which is comforting when you fall over in the pub. I fall over a lot right now but I'm getting steadier.

There are sometimes parrots in the Red Lemon.

I didn't know what a parrot was until I went there so I can honestly say that the place is educational.

The decor is stripped down Victorian, painted grey throughout but not austere. There is sufficient soft material in the place (banquettes and blinds) to stop the place being the echo chamber that so many trendy pubs become.It is my opinion that high ceilinged Victorian rooms demand big blowsy velvet drapes and stuff to absorb all the echoes from the punters therein. Pubs and breasts are very similar, they should be soft and warm and inviting. Ask any man or baby.

The food is good and sensibly priced according to the poet and the muse, they take me there for lunch sometimes. I invariably get a piece of bread which is both good to eat and good to throw. I have yet to be scolded for throwing bread so must surmise that bread throwing infants are welcome.

On saturday mornings when I drag the poet to the pub there are often other children there with their dads in tow. The place has newspapers for the grown ups to read while us kids are people watching, beguiling grumpy people into smiling, gummily pulping inappropriate stuff and things like that.

All in all the Red Lemon is a good, family friendly local pub with far better than average food and sensible prices. It is rarer than hens teeth in this part of London.

The Red Lemon is on the corner of All Saints Road and Tavistock road. W11.

Racism in the UK today.

Jan Nieupjur writes:

I read today that 25% of the population is openly racist. Add to that the 50% of the other 75% who weren't being honest that gives you a figure of 62.5% of the population as racist in some shape or form. Full marks to UKIP for tapping into this. My prognosis is that the Tories will move to the right to capture this voting mass, Labour will move back to the left in an an attempt to regain some honour, the Lib Dems will go back to buggery and shooting dogs (apologies to anyone who does not remember the glory days of the Liberals), UKIP will vanish and the Green party will remain a single issue party without a hope in hell. Shoot my dog If I'm wrong Jeremy Thorpe.

Terry Gilliam's Cellini at the ENO and stage door security.

This is a bit of a coup. It is a photograph of the set for Gilliam's production of Berlioz's opera 'Benvenuto Cellini'  for the ENO at the Coliseum which opens next week.

Stage door security was crap!

Details HERE 

UKIP openly pissing in the swimming pool.

The United Kingdom is riddled with intolerance, bigotry, racism and prejudice. No one is without guilt and no one is more guilty than our political parties.

Let us consider the UK as a public swimming pool… Everyone is quietly pissing in it as they swim, we all know this and we all accept this. It just is!

Along come these UKIP chaps and instead of doing the normal thing of getting into the water to disguise the pissing they are openly standing on the edge pissing in on everyone else.

Everyone else is screaming 'foul play' while they continue to piss themselves.

But the truth is that the pool is full of piss and a little bit of honesty will actually cause discussion and hopefully, action.

Death of yet another Portobello pub and bad news for dolphins.

The Market bar (latterly Shannons) was once reason enough to come to Portobello Road, it was quirky and original until the health and safety jobsworths interfered. Now it is closed!

The basement is being dug out in readiness for a sushi restaurant and bar.

Sushi, to my mind, is the emperors new clothes of the food world. Over priced, pretentious and as useful as origami or feng shui. I cannot see it doing much business on that site, the tourists only want a slab of street food and the locals will not be able to afford it. The Bankers do not stray that far down Portobello, they get nose bleeds passing All Saints!

A new sushi place means more tuna being caught, more tuna fishing means more dolphins getting killed in the process… An origami butterfly flaps its wings in Portobello Road and a million dolphins die on the other side of the planet.

Boo's reviews No: 1. The Electric Diner, Portobello Road.

An occasional guest blog by Morgana, the Sultana of Boo. Her views are not necessarily my own.


One of the first truth's I have learnt in my short life is that it is far better to have just enough money rather than shedloads of the stuff. If you have too much money you forget what a treat is and ones life flattens out into a salt pan of excess. Just enough money means that one can have a real treat that doesn't involve flying to the Seychelles in a private jet.

It is the Muse's birthday today so I took her and the poet out for lunch, a late lunch, at the Electric diner which is attached to the cinema (which in my opinion should show more films like Bambi) which is part of the Soho house chain.

Inside it is nice, because it is a long tunnel of a space it feels like a tunnel but with light at the end of it but without any trains. There is a long bar on one side and booths on the other. We had a booth and I got a clamp-on baby seat which meant I could stand up in it yet still be strapped in. This is important as I spend most of my time practising standing at the moment with a view to walking soon.

The staff were lovely and the service great, I made a point of smiling at all of them, my fur coat was much admired.

The Muse had chicken in a honey glaze thing and the poet had a burger and fries. I browsed from their plates.  It is Diner food but very up-market diner food and very good.

No one complained about the mess I made and when I threw in a scream (of joy) or two no one raised an eyebrow.

With two glasses of wine and a pint of beer the bill was very reasonable and no more expensive than a number of local 'gastro pubs'. They also do a good kids menu and if you have a cinema ticket the bill is halved which makes me think it would be a cool place for a birthday film/dinner type treat for a young lady… Especially if they were showing Bambi.

When we left the poet left his phone behind but the waitress came after us with it. that saved a lot of swearing I should think.

In all a treat for not much money in an interesting place with friendly staff and, unlike the Seychelles, no danger of being bitten by a crab.

Anyway. If you live in Portobello Road you don't need to be rich because your life already is.

NB. Only nylon animals were harmed in the making of my fur coat.

The influence of Brautigan on my poetry.

When people ask me
who influenced you
in your poetry
was it Brautigan?

I say
no it wasn't.

Chez Lize, Bringing it on home.

This video came my way accidentally. I was curious about what the film maker did.

What the film maker did was to bring something home to me.

I'm lucky, I've got a home.

On top of that it started me thinking how in our wonderful society the mentally ill are the ONLY people blamed for their illness…. They are blamed for their illness because we don't know how to handle it.

The junkies, the alcoholics, the obese, they are allowed to blame an age, a society, a culture but the mentally ill must blame themselves because of course our age, our society, our culture is above imperfection.

The people in this film are beyond blame and beyond responsibility and something bankers should note before they dive out of the 34th floor is that they are (and should be) happy knowing they are cared for.

In the old days we looked after the needy. In this modern day we don't because they don't earn a buck.

The KPH Ladbroke Grove: The worst pub in London and nothing more than a clip joint!

I'm fucking furious!

Vince Power took over the KPH a few months ago, spent a few quid giving it a lick of paint and now manages it himself. So far so good.

A very old friend has his birthday today, he chose to celebrate the day with a drink in the KPH; his local. I turn up, Chris (a teetotaller) offers to buy me a drink, of course I refuse and buy him one.

NOW GET THIS… One pint of Heineken and one soda water with a splash of blackcurrant cost me £9.00. That's right, NINE FUCKING POUNDS! The soda water cost four pounds.

You bet I'm fucking furious.

I told the barman that that was the last drink I will ever buy in that pub.

A crowded KPH, customers 3 deep clamouring for the most expensive drink in London.




Vince Power has painted the inside of the pub green. No doubt to match the colour Vince Power thinks his customers are.

If you are in the neighbourhood of Ladbroke Grove please don't think the KPH is a local boozer, it is not. It is a clip joint pure and simple and Vince Power should be ashamed.

Now Vince Power is a man who should understand that the 'pub' is a working man's institution, posh people with posh pockets go to flash places with accordingly flash prices. By doing what he is doing Vince Power is insulting his own kind. He is taking the piss and then selling it on at four pounds a pint!

Avoid it like the plague.

What Easter is really about: Destruction of the rain forests.

Now, I think I have got this right:

A rabbit was crucified for impregnating the Roman Emperors pet chicken.

When taken off the cross the rabbit was thrown into a briar patch. Unbeknown to everyone, the rabbit was not dead and scuttled down a hole into his warren to re-appear some days later and be heralded as the Messiah.

The hen laid a dark brown egg. The hen was equally revered.

We now buy 5 million tons of chocolate eggs in order to celebrate the union of the rabbit and the hen each Easter. To meet the demands for chocolate eggs the rain forests of the planet are being destroyed in order to make room for vast Palm oil farms  (hence Palm Sunday) to supply the oil which is now the main ingredient of cheap chocolate. The deforestation and the planting of non-sustainable plantations is having a major negative effect on the planet.

If we really cared about the planet and the cycle of life that Easter originally celebrated before the Christians got hold of it we would be planting a native deciduous tree each spring and boycotting the chocolate industry.

Happy Easter!

Over milked Dylan

I doubt if any of the people at the BBC planning to make money out of the Dylan Thomas Centenary have even read or listened to Under Milk Wood.

Gideons bible red,
red as the Portobello sunset;
the eyes of the coke snotted producers schmoozing the Electric.

As

they plan

an




Over Milked Dylan.

Pink moon sighted in Portobello Road.

Tesco, rotten fruit and best before bollocks.

Tesco sold us these yesterday. the label says 'best before the 17th April'. I'd say they were best a long time before that.

And it now seems that Tescos was better a long time before that orange overestimated its value by 25 percent.

Caged by harp.

Bristol Banksy is not a Banksy. And why should we complain about graffiti in Cheltenham being defaced.

This isn't a Banksy but a forgery perpetrated by that old scoundrel Jan Nieupjur who would do anything for a bit of publicity. I also know that Banksy was playing bingo in Pinner at the time it was put there.

Loves a bit of bingo does Banksy.

I read with interest that a lot of folks are complaining about Banksy's Cheltenham graffiti being defaced by, wait for it, graffiti.

For fucks sake graffiti is graffiti, it is all illegal, there is no hierarchy in graffiti. Graffiti exists because it is mildly anarchic. You cannot seriously expect to take this seriously when what it is really about is property owners wanting to capitalise on the defacement of their property and then getting pissed off when someone else comes along and defaces it.

Banksy is obviously sniggering over this one.