Notting Hill Date
| Monday 17 January, 2005 |
American tourists looking for Hugh Grant look-alikes at Notting Hill on Saturday morning were disappointed when I turned up in W11 in my slightly soiled trackies. Still, a twat's a twat I suppose, trackies or not.
Putting aside the West London stereotypes, I actually quite enjoy a stroll down Portobello Market. The market has more soul (and Reggae) as you venture deeper down in the direction of the Westway, past the antique stalls and towards the dub vendors.
The stretch from Notting Hill Gate all the way down to Westbourne Park has three distinct styles:
The quaint (and costly) antiques section, the gawblimeyguv fruit and veg market which then evolves into the retro clothing stalls with the Westway in sight. It is also characterised by the choice of smoking substance; cigars, weed and then B&H hang heavy in the air from one end of Portobello to the other. Welcome to multi-cultural Britain.
You need to arrive at Portobello early on a Saturday to really make the most of it. Nothing to do with grabbing a bargain, but the area becomes rammed by midday. There didn't seem to be a great deal of purchasing taking place. Lots of photography though, all done by 30-something balding blokes who probably all have bloody blogs as well.
 I was losing the Portobello plot |
I almost expected to find half the females that I work with in Retro Woman. That's retro as in the lovely old dears still eat spam sarnies, and definitely not retro in a West London silly tart style.
Despite being a cloudy morning, the brightly coloured house fronts were a definite feature of the area. I'm all for a bit of a splash in your daily mundane life (especially dull around West London), but I don't like the idea of advertising the fact. onionbagblog HQ may look like an Eastern European bunker from the outside. Viewed from the inside and it is wall to wall vomiting.
I pondered exploring further the 'Cute Hotel,' but it looked like the kind of establishment where you only book rooms by the half hour...
Certain streets in Kensington are currently experimenting with 'naked roads.' The idea is that pavement and curbs are ripped out and pedestrians and cyclists are encouraged to reclaim the road from cars. Back in the day we use to call this Reclaim the Streets (and it was FUCKING FUN), but being West London then it is all done prim and proper. Portobello Road would certainly benefit from such a scheme as a 4x4 knobber speeded down the pedestrian area, honking his horn to draw attention to his act of fuckspuddery.
I was operating on a limited budget for the day and resisted the temptation to blow the lot at Portobello Porcelain. Maybe next time fella. Instead I treated mrs onionbagblogger to an hour of browsing at Rough Trade Records, Talbot Street. The area has a postcode of W1 1JA, hence the naming of the affiliated wiija record label.
By now I was totally losing the Portobello plot. Just as a high class American bird fell for Hugh Grant in his Portobello book shop, I thought of making a reverse move on the US indie girl behind the counter at Rough Trade. mrs onionbagblogger didn't seem that engrossed as she flicked through the Fugazi section and I was in need of someone to hold my bag as I planned a few more snaps on the way back to the tube. The Hollywood ending was on hold and my trackies weren't to experience any further soiling.
(click on thumbs to see large image)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
