Fun and Frolics in Notting Hill

Reader! How nice of you to join me again. I thought I'd start by sharing a poem with you:

The carnival is underway - the city, fully loaded;
The streets that need a hoover are perpetually eroded
By sin and sweat and nuisance on these roads that are deroaded
And the idiots that play their hand when they know they should have folded.

In Notting Hill, there's thick black smoke; I daren't open up to cough;
It really makes one want to leave this dingy little trough.
And to all those noisy bastards with their brain cells all a-doff,
"I'm just a girl standing in front of a boy", asking him to bugger off.


Maybe I'm just growing old; the world's still young and sweet
And I cannot help but wonder if my mind is obsolete,
But as we Scousers know, for its not easy to secrete,
This anarchic pointless piss-fest's not a patch on Mathew Street!

Okay, so it needs work. It was rushed and I don't like to rush things that I write; it's why I always finished last in exams... Anyway, you get the idea. Notting Hill carnival has been held each bank holiday since 1966, so obviously somebody loves it. I, as I'm sure you can probably tell, was not one of those people. Walking through is like having a front-row seat to the place where degenerates go to just de-generate a little bit further.

Indeed, the premise of the carnival as an anti-racial statement is enlightening and even somewhat beautiful in a way, but that has clearly been put by the wayside in favour of drunken carnage and incipient boorishness. It is a shame that an event with such a rich and powerful history should be reduced to such ultra-Capitalist absurdity.


Or, as I say, maybe I'm just getting old...