Loving Notting Hill Carnival!

I go to carnival every year and still love it just as much - the music, the parade with mad costumes, the food, the noise, the people watching, the colours, did I say the noise?  Some residents of Notting Hill head for the country while others, like myself, make the most of one of the world's best street carnivals coming to their doorstep. 

Firstly the history bit:  the roots of the Notting Hill carnival are way back in the Caribbean in the 19th century, particularly in Trinidad, when freed slaves wanted to celebrate the end of of slavery and these traditions are carried forward into what we see now. Our carnival dates from the late 1950s/early 1960s when it started as a celebration of Afro-Caribbean cultures and traditions at a particularly difficult time for race relations. We have 2 women to thank for this amazing event - Claudia Jones and Rhaune Laslett. These days over 1.5 million people come to have a great time, watch the parade, enjoy the sound systems, eat the Caribbean food (mostly jerk chicken, goat curry, rice and peas and my favourite - ackee and salt fish), have a few drinks and dance!

The weather was great for both days and day one, which is the kids day was full of fun and families trying to navigate the crowds with double buggies - rather them than me!  I've picked a selection of day one photos for you to enjoy:

Waiting for the parade to start

Anyone can join it!

Great viewing spot

These kids were having such fun

Colours and feathers - and a head in the background

How heavy do you think this is?

Classic London routemaster bus getting in on the act

Cooking up a smokey BBQ

Even Dr Who dropped in with some famous enemies

This group weren't even in the parade, just turned up anyway

I said it gets busy....

There really is only one beer at carnival

Unusual window display in this butchers shop on Portobello

Beautifully made statue of The Pan Man

It can get very tiring

Great costume

A mime troop decide to  join in

Thumbs up from one of the parade floats

The happy face of carnival

 I was hoping to bring you some brilliant photos from day two of carnival and had a whole set in the camera but unfortunately I was the victim of a very sly pick pocket so the camera has gone! It's the first time in 11 years of going to carnival that this has happened to me so however careful you think you are it can still happen and you need to be on your look out. Thankfully I have a spare camera so I'll still be out and about taking photos of London for you.

Bye for now
Sue 
www.itsyourlondon.co.uk
@itsyourlondon  

World's longest toilet queue!

This week started in a big toilet queue - the world's longest queue in fact! No, there's not a sudden horrific shortage of toilets in London but an event for WaterAid to highlight the appalling number of people in this world who do not have access to a safe toilet. We queued outside Parliament in Gordon Brown masks to make this point and queues formed all across the world to lobby their own governments - altogether we were making a Guiness Record attempt on the length of the queue. A very important cause so have a look at their website http://www.wateraid.org/.org and there's a photo here from the queue.

The National Portrait Gallery has a couple of special exhibitions on at the moment. One is the glorious portraits of Irving Penn who had access to an amazing range of famous faces, from Wallis Simpson to Greta Garbo and Rudolf Nureyev. The exhibition follows the development of his work over the decades and you can see some people photographed twice. His early device of photographing people in the corner of rooms moved on to photos of subject somewhat hidden - by clothing or by the closing one or both eyes. Also there is a small show of photos by Jane Brown who worked in black and white and only using available light which I really admire. Here's the poster shot of Irving Penn and a sneaky shot of Jane Brown's Mick Jagger I took some while ago at a foyer exhibition at the Guardian. A second Jane Brown was the irresistible shot of Henri Cartier Bresson taking a photo of Jane taking a photo....

We had a bit of rain this week but there was a warm welcome at St Martins-in-the-Field church who had a Vivaldi concert including his 'Summer' concerto. Wonderful music in a fabulous setting. 2 photos to give you the idea - one inside the church and one exterior view on a sunny day to show it at its best.

We were looking forward to seeing 'Little Dog Laughed' but it was not all we'd hoped although Tamsin Grieg was brilliant and worth the trip. The play just didn't add up to enough, perhaps it was the anticipation? Looking to go next week to see a matinee so am on the look out for some bargain tickets.

Not so much eating out this week but if you find yourself looking for a coffee on Portobello Road I can recommend Gails but only if you are strong enough to resist all the cakes! Good coffee and a jolly atmosphere. Then if you are near Notting Hill Gate tube station, head for Pain Quotidien for coffee and snacks and you'll not be disappointed. Today I'm off to a soft launch of a new Raymond Blanc restaurant so watch this space next week for reviews...

Bye for now,

Sue

www.itsyourlondon.co.uk

Here comes the sun!

It's March 1st, St David's Day (patron saint of Wales) and the sun has finally burst through after a seemingly endless winter of snow and rain. Optimism returns!

I'm still recovering from the big Africa trip and one annoying follow on from a great holiday can be the post return bug and I got a humdinger! So I've been stuck in a lot of the week so this blog will be a little thinner than usual but next week's looking good already.

I sneaked out to one of my favourite shops in London, the Travel Bookshop in Notting Hill - yes the travel bookshop from the film 'Notting Hill'. Well, the one it was based on - for real film buffs, the interior to exterior shots were filmed around the corner on Portobello Road itself and the interior shots were done in a studio but when you go into the shop it certainly has the feel of the real thing. As a travel bookshop it's lovely and I rarely get out without a purchase as they have wonderful guide books and broader travel literature and even great CDs. They've just started a series of evening talks so we went to see Hugh Thomson reading from his book 'Tequila Oil Getting Lost in Mexico' and telling us a bit about how the book came about. Really interesting and entertaining and the title refers to a rather evil sounding drink which I will be avoiding for sure... And of course, here's a snapshot of the exterior of this famous shop much photographed by visitors.

A local gallery, The Muse, were having a preview evening for Justin Piperger's new works including cartoons, bold colours and some more functional pieces with household objects in his paintings such as clocks and tea towel holders. It brightened up a rainy evening of which there have been rather too many of late so we are all looking forward to the start of March. Apparently Justin will be painting in the gallery a couple of days a week, so I might just pop in and see how he works.

The Noisettes played at the Roundhouse this weekend and it was a show of huge energy and fun. This fabulous venue has great sound and the Noisettes' lead singer Shingai Shoniwa is an amazingly stylish, eccentric, talented and friendly performer (see slightly blurred photo) and the show was a burst of sunshine on a Sunday evening. The show was sold out and the floor was jumping!

Bye for now,

Sue

http://www.itsyourlondon.co.uk/