Location: Notting Hill, Chepstow Rd, Westbourne Grove, Ladbroke Grove, W11 1HTIn the pleasant streets surrounding Notting Hill, the sound of the bass calls to you. You follow the crowd and stumble across the beginning of a parade. Extravagant costumes, clever use of body paint and dancers who've got all the moves. Yes, the Carribean party has come to town.
A celebration of culture and diversity, the Notting Hill Carnival is held during the August bank holiday weekend. The parade's route sections off an area containing 38 soundsystems scattered within its boundaries.
Walking around it's hard not to stumble upon a funky sound stage as well as some finger lickin' jerk chicken! Hot hot stuff!
But the fancy stores, with their windows boarded up for the weekend, provide a quick reminder that this is London. And these precautions by the shop owners don't go to waste.
The BBC today reports two stand offs and 330 arrests in total for the event. From it's historical aim of calming race riots in the 60's and 70's, how disappointing to see how little things change.
Item 31: Notting Hill Carnival? CHECK!
1 comment:
Yes, but the main reason for the rise in arrests was that the Police invoked extra powers to enable them to search people. This is according to the Police themselves.
That said, I did get caught up in the rioting later on and I'll be blogging about it here shortly.
None of this will stop me from going to Carnival every ear until the day I die though!
A/
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