Monday 31 August 2015

Notting Hill Carnival 2015.

Apres Ska.
























The real stars of Carnival, after the bands and dancers, are of course the street cleaners who work through the night to remove the tons of debris. They do a brilliant job. Oh and they are mostly immigrants who are happy to do the jobs that we turn our noses up at.

Sunday 30 August 2015

Notting Hill Carnival 2015.

There is always one idiot.



















As the hoarding go up in Notting Hill the graffiti guys arrive like a swarm of wasps at a jam pot. Sadly there is always one moron who tarnishes the whole thing.

Carnival. What Carnival?




















St Luke's Mews in the heart of Carnival is a surreal place today. A totally dead street yet the air reeks of sound systems and everything vibrates to the abundant frequency of jerk chicken.

Observation. 


























All Saints Road. Riot police at the ready.

 

Sunday 23 August 2015

Compulsory smoking for the obese and other government wheezes.

A guest blog from Jan Nieupjur. As usual Jan's views do not necessarily reflect my own. He is completely senile now but that do say that  insanity often spawns the truth.


MY mole in Whitehall recently disclosed to me (over a pink gin or two in the Wheeltappers Arms) a number of proposals being considered by David Cameron to deal with the growing problem of obesity in Great Britain. They include:

1. Compulsory smoking for the obese. This works on many levels; one of the benefits of smoking is loss of appetite so a pre-prandial gasper whenever hunger sets in should reduce food consumption, the tax on their cigarettes could offset the current vast drain on NHS resources caused by obesity, the Government endorsement of smoking would be an enormous fillip to the often criticised 'healthy smokers' and finally an outlet would be created for the millions of packets of Capstan Full Strength currently stockpiled in Kineton Warwickshire.



















2. All branches of Greggs and other purveyors of donuts should be forced to reduce the width of their door openings in order to exclude those with an unhealthy BMI.

3. Supermarkets should be instructed to Narrow the width of ailses in which buns, cakes, sweets, sugar and other fattening stuff is sold to a width that would only allow access to the healthy. Obviously parents with buggies would be inconvenienced but in view of the child obesity situation this would be no bad thing..

4. supermarkets should introduce scales at checkouts whereby customers could be weighed and those found to be obese and buying unsuitable products would be charged an extra tax on those items which would go directly to the NHS. This would both encourage the purchase of healthy items as well as bolster up the beleagured health service.


Friday 21 August 2015

Immigrants. An analogy.

Talking with the kids the other day we got onto the subject of immigrants and their positive effects. I found a perfect analogy in the garden:

We have a blackberry 'bramble' that leans into our garden through the ivy and over the wall from a neighbouring garden. We did not plant the thing, we did not invite it in but we have come to welcome its presence. Each year we enjoy blackberry and apple pies, blackberry jam (2 1/2 Lbs this year and counting) and blackberry ice cream. It costs us nothing but adds to our lives. all we have to do is keep the ivy at bay and ensure it has room to thrive.



It got me thinking about the other plants in the garden... Yes. A lot of them immigrants and some of them sneaking in via the digestive tracts of birds (tunnels of sorts) visiting from elsewhere, appearing to shit on us from a great height yet bringing forth bounty.


Banksy speaks about his drab 'Dismaland'.


















Banksy, the Entrepreneur, chancer and snake oil salesman formerly known as a vandal has finally decided to crawl up his own aerosol and talk out of it regarding his latest con trick.

'Yes it is not very good'. He told me. 'But if thousands of gullible fools are prepared to part with good money for a chance to walk round a dump I'm the man to pocket the dosh.'

He then ran out of gas.