Midge Ure gets a custard pie.

Or was it a Viennese whirl?

Jeremy Forrest and Megan. Why the French are not treating it seriously.

French correspondent Gaspard Disdain writes:

The raison zat ze French is not taking zis serious is zat it is a matter of love and we French know all about love. Not like you English Island stealers.

They are a young couple in love and deserve to be together, how does it matter zat he is a married teacher with moral responsibilities and she is a child (I know that makes him a paedophile but so what) it is obvious zat she is in love with ze ansome brute. You only ave to look at the way e dresses to see he is a babe magnet. And on top of zat, being a maths teacher, he can help her count ze ways she loves him.

Come on England, do the mathematique, put deux at deux togezeur and come up wiz two happy lovers.

We French may run from a fight but we run to ze hanky panky faster than your Widow Twanky.

Give zem a break.... Call it half term!   Zut alors!


Editors note: Gaspards views are his own and being a Frenchie are invariably wrong.

On a slightly disgusted note I gather the tabloids are offering loads of cash for topless photos of Megan! I'd like to see some saggy dugged photos of  themselves for a change. Tell you what, send me your photo's and I'll publish them!

UPDATE. 27th September.

As a direct result of this blog French police have pulled out their collective finger and found the couple in Bordeaux. He is is in police custody while she is probably in 'le Price Unique'.

Sussex police issued a statement saying the pair were "safe and well".

"The information which led to them being located came as a direct result of media coverage in France," the statement said. "At this stage we are not confirming the specific location where they were found. Their families have been informed and arrangements will now be made for Megan and Jeremy's safe return."

Ryan O'Reilly has the last word on Portobello Road and RBKC.

Portobello drinkers 'harassed' by children

From our sports correspondent Dave 'the Mexican' Wave. As usual his view are his own and of a 'tabloid' nature.

Things are coming to a head in Portobello Green, Notting Hill. Members of the Portobello serious drinking team are claiming that they are being harassed by a pingpongist terrorist group who's members include children as young as five years old. According to a spokesperson from the drinking team; " We are fucking being fucking chased off our fucking drinking table in the fucking park by a bunch of fucking antisocial table fucking tennis fanatics".

Portobello 'drinking' team on the disputed table.






From the other side of the fence a local pingponger stated: "It is ridiculous! this is a table tennis table not a drinks table. There are drinking places all over the place but only this one table tennis table".

'Terrorists' at play! 











The drinkers went on to complain that sport is an elitist activity which should be discouraged now the olympics are over. One stated: "Sporting activities in this neighbourhood give a false picture of what is essentially a shithole  left to accommodate us drinkers, crack heads, junkies and such by RBKC while they gentrify the rest of the borough for coke snorting tax avoiders and the like.

Rumours however of royal personages getting their kit off in the park are unfounded.

The artificial hip. For all you Hoxton Hipsters out there!

I was really pleased that I managed to get 8 Z's into one line. Cool or what!

He's the prosthetic aesthetic
the artificial hip
the coolest thing to hit the town
since granny took a trip.
He is the London Fields creative
the Hoxton neo-native
the ultimate self-oblative
hip hip hip hip hip.

He is ironically moustachio'd
wearing comical pistachio
drainpipe trousers  and a pork pie hat
He knows full well
 that he's not where it is 
if he's not where it's at
He is the pastiche fantastiche
is cooldom uber alles
likes erzatz Piazzolla pizza jazz
and avant garde French ballets.

He is he is he is he is
he is he is
he is

Hip hip hip hip hip hooray.

He is he is he is.

Portobello postcards # 176. Tony the key man.

Drug dealer starter kit and the jeweller to the stars

I found this on the interweb, the perfect Christmas gift for the children of our times.

The jeweller to the stars.

They are waiting in the cafes
the restaurants and bars
or parked on unlit corners
in expensive cars
they are waiting for the snowman, the blow man, the let's go man
they are waiting, waiting, waiting
for the jeweller to the stars.

He is the closest thing to royalty
their business is all his
with his bags of herbert sherbert
(the silly rich mans whizz)
he makes them feel quite special
and just a
little
bit
show biz
they are guaranteed to talk the talk
walk the walk as well
he is the pied piper
the piper at the gates of hell.

White christmas is his ringtone
on his prepay mobile phone
his sole visible means of support
the long suffering wife at home
he is the king of the powder rooms
his shit it smells of roses
to the vacuous trustafarians
born
with
silver spoons up their noses.

He is known to each and every one
the jeweller to the stars
he hasn't got a friend on earth
and there ain't no life on mars.

That clown Shapps, Cameron and drugs.

There is Grant Shapps: Tory party chairman, snake oil salesman, conman, manipulator of the truth. And then there is Andre Shapps: Guitarist with the Rotten Hill Gang, frequently seen in the neighbourhood sporting an extravagant moustache, striped blazer and bowler hat riding a unicycle.

Andre Shapps, musician and unicyclist.


The clown is of course the former and perfectly fitting to the circus that the government has become.

Grant Shapps, clown!


Is Cameron on drugs or just mad?

RBKC's half million pound piss hole on Portobello Road

A guest blog from Jan Nieupjur. As usual his views are his own


I've talked about what RBKC call portobello square before; http://jannieupjur.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/half-million-pound-loo-seat-on.html  they have built a half million pound lavatory (in Tavistock Road) from wildly expensive Chinese granite and stupid granite balls and put a seat round the tree by the lavatory. It has all become clear... The aim of RBKC is to contain the borough's drunks and junkies in the square in order to keep them from the posh bits rich gits live in; rich gits like RBKC councillors who have lined their pockets creaming off tax payers money.

The great little corner shop at the end of Tavistock Road is now a down market alcohol shop intending to capitalise on the drinking scum on the bench. The great little corner shop is run by Muslims (I thought they didn't do alcopops or diamond white ( I'm not being racist...Just curious)); nice people but driven by greed, who will no longer get my business because I can no longer buy stationery or a ball of string there and I am abused by the pissed up customers! They also advertise whores in the window (curious (http://jannieupjur.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/love-blossoms-on-portobello-road.html))

Come on RBKC, you are turning the place into a shit hole!

Drunks drinking drinks in order to get drunk. When drunk or drinking they drunkenly bully the community. Camorons 'big society' in action!  Photo: Jan Nieupjur.

A much better idea is to walk up Portobello 100 yards to the Continental Stores just re-opened on the corner.... A proper corner shop!

FEAR AND LOATHING IN PORTOBELLO GREEN and the 2012 Team GB drinking squad.

PORTOBELLO GREEN. Sounds idyllic doesn't it. sadly it is far from that at present!

Portobello Green is a small park area adjacent to Portobello road where it passes under the Westway, it is managed by Westway  Development trust. So far so good. WDT have very thoughtfully put a table tennis table in the park to be used by anyone with a mind to, it is also an ideal place to take children to play. The park is designated as alcohol and dog free with the threat of fines for transgressors. Great!

Sadly the park is the chosen meeting point for the areas collection of street drinkers (and worse) making it a no go zone for children or families, basically WDT is obliged to maintain this lovely little spot as an enclave for piss heads, pot heads and crack heads along with their dogs and threatening attitude to anyone who has the temerity to move them on!

Team GB drinking squad.


This is not Westways fault. Westways role is not that of a branch of Social Services nor the Police, nor are they supposed to be managing a pisshead creche for RBKC who seem to be happy to pass on the resposibility for their lack of responsibility regarding their socially marginalised residents! How the Council can believe that it is socially acceptable to have this situation continue is beyond me!

Perhaps RBKC could build a 'Cannery Row' themed area somewhere else, infusing it with Steinbeck's characters in order to create a comfortable environment for the drink/drug/dog on string element who currently cause the park to be a no go area for ordinary folk and their children. I'm sure that tourists would happily pay to gawk at a real piece of London 2012 and the GB serious drinking team now that the Olympics have gone. It would also be an opportunity for RBKC to generate income from the sale of Special Brew, crack and ganja within the area.

Come on 'Royal Borough' sort your shit out!

Gill bradley. Portraits of Portobello.

Coming to the Tabernacle in October.

Muse with harp.

Postcards from Portobello Road #1918: Gassed on All Saints Road.

My grandfathers generation were obliged to join the army and travel to the Somme in order to 'do a little gas', these days one can get that 'in the trenches' vibe on All Saints Road!

Evolution by Edgar Muller in Tavistock Road. NOT Portobello Square!

We are being bullied, by RBKC, into calling the Portobello end of Tavistock Road Portobello Square! What touristic bollocks... It is Tavistock Road.

Below is the rendering of what Edgar Mullers thing is going to look like... They don't tell you that you will have to look through a lens to get it but that would spoil the notion that it is an interactive street art thingy in which visitors may place themselves strategically within.

It is part of the 'INTRANSIT'  Festival running in the borough from the 13th to 27th of July. More HERE

I am photographing the creation of this thing over the next few days.

 Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4. hope it ain't water based paint!

Eventually it looks like this.



















But if you look through the little lens it looks like this!

Hmmmm. Waste of time and money really.

The Guardian, racism and negative stereotyping. Flooding in Wales!

I'm not posting a photo for this item for obvious reasons. But then I found this from SKY news:

There has been some flooding in Wales recently. A very good friend of mine has family in the worst hit area. I checked out the guardian online site for news and I was offered a collection of pictures to view.

I was offered 10 recent photographs of the flooding... I was show 8 photographs of flooded caravan sites and two of flooded roads. No devastated villages, no houses, no bruised communities, just caravan sites!

What does that tell us? It tells us that the gooood people at the guardian consider wales to be a land of caravan parks and nothing else. Obviously in Guardian land Wales is infra dig and without any true culture other than caravans.

The Guardian even made up captions for anonymous caravan parks, placing them in villages that do not have such things.

Perhaps the guardian editors and hacks are celebrating the rains as a means of dousing the fires in their holiday homes.

While we are on the subject it might be a good idea to return the Hay festival to the Welsh people and send the brit/pseudobrit literary wankers back to their tin foil barbecues at their poncy self indulgent literary onanist do's at bankrupt (financial and moral) country estates.

The Guardian used to be better than this.

Historical note: the guardian used to be the Manchester guardian. The majority of middle class Mancunians (and Liverpudlians) spend their holidays blighting Wales with their caravans (a caravan is the height of chic up there I'm told) and it is a known fact that most posh Mancunians are conceived in a caravan in Rhyll... Conception of course follows seven pints of llagwr and a cwrry! Really really posh Mancunians buy a holiday cottage near their caravan which they then burn down themselves for the insurance

Grace Jones, Jubilee and hula hoop!

Whatever you think of the royal familee, monarchy, the jubilee or Fergie's versus Pippa's bum the whole thing was worth it for this:


God bless you maam!

Post Abstract Vorticism and the way forward.

A guest blog by Jan Nieupjur.


Editors note: As usual Jan and I don't see eye to eye and I don't really go along with this.

Thank god! We can wave a hearty good bye to hirstian 'Brit Art' posturing and Banksy 'psuedo street' commercialism. I have seen the future of Art and it is Post Abstract Vorticism. A style most perfectly demonstrated in the work of the young Lithuanian 'Smith'!

Caligula at the Coliseum. Madness, bonking madness but brilliant!

To the Coleseum this morning with Mr Pounce the barrister to see the dress rehearsal of the ENO production of Caligula.

Bloody hell!

Fantastic set, minimalist if you didn't count the 301 seats on the terrace facing the audience... But brilliant in that the action back stage happened up high and with equal importance (if you are up in the gods). An almost vertical stage in fact.

Mad music and mad libretto skittered around madness illustrated by multiple pinoccios, panda bears, dancing girls, gun toting yes men, the naked rendition of Caligulas dead sister, men in suits and bonkers, bonkers... well bonking or the product of bonkers bonking.

The music out of context would be impossible. Modern I suppose in that it wasn't waltzes and the like. You knew from the moment it started that no fat woman was going to be singing this one out.... It weren't going to be over until the dead woman sang and sang beautifully as Caligula strangled her.

Throughout the performance the ghost of the sister wanders naked around the place, Wagnarians would be disappointed; she is a slip of a lass. As far as naked wandering goes the girl has it all, she is a star, you could ditch the singers and the band completely and still have a show. In the second half she wandered naked whilst painted gold. Who said opera was boring... Loyd Webber could make a whole show out of the poor girl doomed to walk the stage of the Coliseum naked, night after night, without the offer of even a cardigan to keep the chill at bay.

Caligula died at the hands of a mob of hoodied thugs on the terraces after having dragged both Mr Pounce and myself through his madness.

It was interesting to note that, at the end, the non-singing, non talking, naked lass got the loudest applause...

I for one enjoyed the thing immensely.

Bianca Jagger 'assaulted' at the opera.

What a farce!

I nicked this photo from the guardian, if you squint hard you can make out the photo-credit in the text at the bottom.



Bianca Jagger was at the Barbican for a performance of Phillip Glass's bonkers five hour, abstract opera Einstein on the Beach. She took a couple of photographs during the curtain call which apparently pissed off some bloke called Mark Shenton (Sunday Express theatre critic) who then proceeded to cause a scene during which, according to Bianca, he assaulted her. Shame on him.

In the first place Ms Jagger (who not only had to put up with being married to the pop crooner Mick but also has worked tirelessly for human rights) should be allowed to do as she pleases, especially at the opera. Secondly, this Shenton character would probably have applauded her had she been photographing him for her scrap book of theatre 'greats'. He obviously was affected by the roar of the grease paint, the smell of the crowd and the heady  essence of modern opera, which to my way of thinking is probably a bit too rich for the likes of him and his down market rag.

Shenton is quoted in the guardian as saying: "There are clearly no rules anymore. There is clearly civil breakdown in the theatre."... For fuck's sake man! Lighten up. It's modern innit!

To my mind there is clearly a mental breakdown in that particular theatre.

Cheltenham Jazz Festival, Paloma Faith, Torrents of spring and John Gordons.

What are Bank holiday Mondays for if not for driving through torrential rain for two hours in order to trudge about a rain sodden field drinking expensive beer, eyeing up dodgy merchandise and fast food, listening to  seriously un-jazz, in the free music tent while waiting for a Paloma Faith gig in the circus big top!                                                                             

A hardy festival goer in the packed beer tent!


The Paloma Faith thing was sold out but I sat through the sound check which was interesting. I spent the rest of the evening drenched, looking around the town before stumbling into the high point of my day: a Cafe/bar/wine & spirit merchants called John Gordons... What a lovely little place it is too, just a few tables set in a fairly compact shop in Montpellier Arcade (utterly refreshing to find in a town now seemingly dedicated to the mediocre and in obvious thrall to the lowest common denominator) run by very friendly and helpful people. If you ever visit Cheltenham make sure you visit this place.

www.johngordons.co.uk

While enjoying a beer and buying a bottle of red for the muse I got chatting to a number of 'walk-outs' from the Paloma Faith thing. The general feeling was: 'What the hell did that have to do with Jazz?'

The answer to that of course is: 'Nothing'!

Love blossoms on Portobello Road.

The following cards were spotted in a corner shop window on Portobello Road. I am particularly taken by the honesty of the second one although it strikes me as being a little on the risky side!

Sam Birch at the Tabernacle, CODE FC everywhere else and arguing with Nicholas Serota!

To the Tabernacle ( I haven't been there for a while) to have a look at Sam Birch's maps: THE HEART OF THE CITY | RECENT WORKS BY SAM BIRCH | PRIVATE VIEW. I like maps, Sams work is not great Art but it is good and thought provoking.  Great to see some old friends and great to receive such a warm welcome from the Tabernacle staff.

On the way home I met a guy putting up stickers here and there, turns out he is 'CODE FC'; a graffiti artist who's work I have seen over the years in the neighbourhood' I have some of his stuff at home. We had a brief chat about streeet art and stuff. He wasn't a vandal or a hoodied thug. Nice guy. Invited me to his private view in June. Go and have a look.

'But is it art' I hear you say. 'Fucking right if the artist says so'. Says Nicholas Serota! Who can argue with that! I have heard that Mrs Serota occasionally argues with Nicholas but not about art.

Naked Italian painters hit London!

Hourly rates upon application.

Portobello Road ball saga update.

It didn't take very long at all. Within days of the installation of the spherical granite shin barkers on Tavistock Square/Portobello Road vandals had managed to break one off. We found it like this late on Saturday night and with the help of a local restaurateur managed to pop it back in its socket. What on earth went through the mind of the planner who allowed these things to be placed here.

Madness.

The pelican on All Saints Road is reopening.

After quite a while closed the often troubled Pelican is being refurbished. Builders are gutting the place (not a cheap makeover) in preparation for opening in a couple of months time. Let's hope it will becomee a decent pub/bar rather than yet another pizza joint!

Balls on Portobello Road, crack, curling and boredom.

The latest addition to the Tavistock Square refurbishment is a collection of balls. Granite balls to be precise. Quite why they are there I do not know, not high enough to sit on yet low enough to bark a shin on on dark nights. Perhaps they are humorous representations of the crack rocks popular among some elements of the local community. They are balls anyway.

On close inspection I suspect that the balls are of  a granite found only on Ailsa Craig; an island in the Forth of Clyde on the West coast of Scotland. A granite of such fine quality that it is used in the manufacture of curling stones; curling being the 'sport' which imaginatively combines ice, granite, RAF roundels and brooms. It is called 'curling' as a result of its toe curlingly boring nature. Balls!

Portobello Man: The Bevis Frond.

The half million pound loo seat on Portobello Road.

OK. they have nearly finished tarting up Tavistock Square on Portobello. Half a million has been spent on it; granite from China being a fairly hefty chunk of the cost! Who on earth specified chinese rock? what kind of bung was involved? We should be told.

What's the big difference?

The difference is a fancy circular seat next to the Auto piss machine; just the place to sit and eat your newly purchased, wood-fired cheese on toast, serenaded by the farts and splashes of thousands of tourists.

What on earth went through the planners heads here. There is more than one meaning to 'Public Waste'.

Another nail in the Portobello Road coffin, Intoxica is closing.

Yet another of the stores that make the road is going.... another victim of escalating rents, greedy landlords and the local authorities apparent desire to turn this once unique street into some kind of tourist tat mecca.

Intoxica (a wonderful little record store) and its like made Portobello road long before that fucking film attracted bucket shop loads of tourists in search of the 'blue door' and the rest of the disneyesque bilge that is now seen as 'Notting Hill' (this end of Portobello is 'Ladbroke Grove' anyway).  Very soon all that will be left is shops and stalls selling plastic routemasters and black cabs, I love London fridge magnets, policemens helmets, dodgy food, 'pop-up galleries' selling naff artwork and the rest of the tourist crap alongside rubbish high street clothing and shoe stores.... Oh and wood fired cheese on toast restaurants.

Portobello Road is being systematically eviscerated and 'insanitised'.

There are theories abounding regarding RBKC and their seeming desire to destroy one of Londons iconic roads. Some say backhanders from the developers, others say that the council is in fear of some kind of mafia thing. Others are inclined to believe that the jobsworths of RBKC couldn't give a flying fuck about anything other than their salaries and a quiet life! 

Of course corruption exists, always has done, always will. 

Portobello road is doomed to become as risible as Carnaby Street and its like!

sad!

I'm going to the Cock and Bottle to drown my sorrows.

Tableware

Mr Pounce, crop circles and soft cheese.

A few days ago I had the good fortune to be invited to dinner by Mr Pounce the esteemed barrister at his grand Gothic pile. It was a small informal gathering nourished by birds that Mr Pounce had blasted from the moorland skies himself. 

The delightful and vivacious strawberry blonde Wilhemina was of course in attendance.

One of the attendees formed a perfect crop circle... The crop in this instance being tobacco.

Or was it a smoke ring?

I thought the cheese rather photogenic.

Harps eye view of the Opera House Guangzhou, China.

Loco at Retro, old rockers, Cloud and THE HIP POCKET.

A guest blog by Jan Nieupjur. As usual his views are not necessarily my own (they are not necessarily his either since the illness kicked in).


The muse being in Hong Kong on a Chinese tour, I decided to have another look at 'Loco', drink a beer or two and say hello to some old friends.

It was packed already at 9.15. One of the bands had brought their fan club which can be a double edged sword; fan clubs tend to talk through the other acts then depart en mass when the band they follow leave. I guess this is why they are called followers.  Tonight the followers left before the meat and gravy. Maybe they were all vegetarians anyway!

I cannot remember the name of the bunch of old rockers reliving their youth that brought the followers; my Alzheimer's is such that if I don't write it down it's gone, by the time I'd found the will to find a pen the desire to write down the band's name had gone. To misquote Saki; as old rockers go they were good and as good old rockers go they went... With their followers. they probably needed to get back to something on the telly.

Not a very good photograph of Cloud. Photo Jan Nieupjur

The old rockers reliving their youth were followed by a local band called CLOUD, see I wrote that down and in capitals. Cloud are young, creative, interesting and well worth catching. There is the potential for a successful band there. I would much rather watch and listen to young men or women exploring their youth rather than old men revisiting it. Cloud made me think of this:



Listen to Cloud here: http://www.myspace.com/cloudlondonbasedband/radio

Interestingly for muso geeks; in the audience were Joseph Dean Osgood, Roger Pomphrey, Tristan the weird poet, Marty from Asian Dub Foundation, two thirds of Taurus Traaker, Steve Dior, Jono the king of 'chub love' and (not Jono) a very gay man, author Charlie Caselton (read his book: 'Meanwhile Gardens'), loads of supermodels etc etc. James Simmins looked very suave in a suave hippy kind of way, you just know that Johnny Depp is going to play him in the movie.

The real highlight for me today was however elsewhere when I caught a glimpse of a new band called THE HIP POCKET in rehearsal (at a secret venue. Kate Moss was there) prior to their launch. Unbelievably good and going stratospheric soon. I have not had goosebumps like it since Hendrix came round and played at my birthday back in the 70's.

I'm told that the band are to release a CD titled 'Studded seams for strength' prior to any live performances. I'll keep you informed!

And then I got home. Cameron, crack, ganja, porn and booze.

I got home after the horrors of the Castle Portobello Road, its cockroaches, juvenile management and gastronomic delusions to find a bunch of drunken kids wreaking havoc under the westway.  Of course these poor kids have nothing better to do in the evening other than wreak havoc. Mummy and daddy, skanked out on crack, booze and ganja have no idea how to bring up their kids and the last place they want their kids is at home interfering with their booze, crack and ganja so they kick them out into the streets to grow up and perhaps get a life.

It did however require the attention of rather a lot of police officers, cars etc. Just the job think mummy and daddy.... Less police to bust us for ganja, crack, prostitution, booze and porn and mismanagement of the country.

Less reason to vote for the conservatives I think.... Cameron! Keep your kids at home.

The Castle on Portobello Road, cockroaches and mismanagement.

I called in at the 'newly refurbished' Castle on Portobello; you know, the troubled pub without a hope in hell save a place to buy drugs and steal handbags. A friend was playing there, you know the Castle is pretending to be a music pub. Jesus wept!

I bought myself a beer, listened to some extraordinary Bill Withers cover while I watched cockroaches cross the floor. Big cockroaches. Massive fuckers.

I asked the barmaid (probable age 15) where was the landlord, she said dunno. I asked who was the manager, she pointed me at a boy who had been sitting the customer side of the bar all night chatting up plain girls and playing with his hair. I approached him, pointed out the cockroach situation whereupon he informed me that, and I quote: 'This is Portobello Road mate'.

He was absolutely right. It is Portobello road and we expect better than that from a scuzzy pub masquerading as a gastro pub charging a fortune for overpriced average food cooked and served in a place riddled with vermin and managed by a kid more interested in anything other than his job.

I will talk to the principals involved in the Castle and ask why they think that what they are providing is anything other than shoddy. Portobello Road is screaming out for some good quality, reasonably priced food.

We do not need cockroach infested, badly managed shitholes.... If we wanted that we would have kept the old Castle as it was;

The Welsh beat the Irish on St Patricks day. And the Cow, westbourne Park Road, shows its true colours.

I spent Saturday having the best of days with people I love, watching Wales win the 6 nations and eating a butter bean. Mr Pounce was in red as befitting his Welsh roots and the muse knew all the words to the songs.

Wales won. We had a drink and watched small boys with light sabers duelling as the sun set.

Then to the Cow... Of course it was St Patricks day and the Cow is an Irish pub... Is it fuck.

Since the diaspora following the potato famine the Irish got everywhere and imbued where-ever they went with the 'craic' and where-ever they went with the craic everyone wanted to be Irish. They never got to the Cow!

The cow is as Irish as Tokyo and it pisses me off to see people who have booked a table to eat being charged £5 on the door to go in because it is St Patricks night.... why weren't the customers warned that they would be charged on the door. The food is good at the Cow but already way over priced and it's not as if they have a celebrity chef.

It is a pub.

The landlord is rarely there.

I have never know an Irish staff member there, unless Albania is suddenly Irish, not to knock Albanians but they ain't Irish.

Diners were charged at the door to eat at a table they had booked.

The owner wasn't there to explain why this was the case.

Gaz Mayall was there with his band which made the whole thing magical. Without him, Roger Pomphrey and a couple of others it would have been SHIT.

The Cow suffers now from the malaise frequent in other 'destination' pubs/bars in that they don't give a shit if you don't like it because thousands of others are there to be suckered.

If not suckered then happy to pay a premium in order to feel that they are part of the Notting Hill trustafarian, coke driven 'better than you' never really worked in my life mentality.

Oh. And what did the door charge pay for? It payed for the bouncers!

Highcreditscore.co.uk & rewardsnow.co.uk SCAM.

High Street Credit.co.uk & Rewards.co.uk are a bunch of lowlife scammers.

One way of looking at the danger of gum.

Jan called round today for a glass or two. there was a pack of gum on the desk, not my gum I hasten to add but gum left by a visiting Legionella tester (don't ask, long story).

Jan said: 'I bullied my kids, and in order to bamboozle them about drugs n stuff. I told them they could do anything but chew gum, gum was out of bounds, beyond the pale, gum was, let's face it, infra dig. do smack I said, do booze, smoke 80 Kapstan full strength a day I said. But do not do gum I said.  My theory was that they would eschew the drugs of my choice and go for the one I abhorred. I believed that they would chew gum above any other vice to poo poo me.'

Did it work I asked Jan.

'No'. He said. 'One of my sons is an alcoholic, another a junkie and the third is dying of emphysemia.'

'At least'. I said. 'none of them died choking on chewing gum'.

'No'. He said, and then went on: 'But if a child is going to predecease a parent the child should have the good sense to get it over and done with quick. Parents spend most of their lives worrying about their children's ability to live unparented instead of enjoying drugs and stuff like that:.

Architectural eyesore and everything that is wrong with modernism on Westbourne Park Road.

A guest blog by Jan Nieupjur.


As usual Jan's views are not necessarily mine




It has been there for a while. you must have seen it; the piece of 'modern' architecture on the corner of Basing Street and Westbourne Park Road.

Cripes!

If this is modern god help us. If this is 'Purist' god help us. If this is good architecture god help us.

As the founding father of 'Nieupurism' I am horrified by this upended shoebox with applied faux Puginesque perpendicular wooden bits; a cross between a Morris Traveller and a 40's mock tudor semi in Harrow without an original idea or a spark of excitement.


The build quality too is risible; We have no contractors in this country that can handle modernism due to our ridiculous planning bullies and our collective refusal to embrace anything other than period pastiche. There is already damage to the flimsy, thin set lower walls and it can only deteriorate.

As I started to photograph the building a crow perched on the CCTV camera on the corner cawed loudly, crapped then flew off; a sure indication of Le Corbusiers feelings about this carbuncle. Ed's note: This is a pretentious in joke and play on corb's (the crow) nickname.


In terms of fitting in with the environment, physical, social and economical, the beautifully graffiti adorned wasteland corner was always going to be impossible to beat.

On a final, sad note I see that the occupiers of the building have decided to eschew the minimalist ideals and fill the windows with  swags and tails and clutter. It is an eyesore at best. It looks like a derelict charity shop.