Notting Hill Carnival

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Trip Start Jul 22, 2007 Trip End Ongoing

  London, United Kingdom
Sunday, August 26, 2007

Huddled together on concrete steps beneath a railway bridge on London's Portobello Road bearing a huge banner declaring the Notting Hill Carnival 2007, we charged our plastic cups of bucks fizz and clutched our streaky bacon, sun dried tomato and mozzarella baps.
 
Already the steadily rising thrum of base vibrations rolled out from the piles of speakers that were anchored to walls at regular intervals along the side streets like musical fortifications, and the shrill reports of whistles filled the air. We figured if you can't beat 'em join 'em and before the high pitched noise became too annoying we bought one each from a guy who bounced by clutching hundreds, and with that simple gesture we became die hard carnival revellers for the day!
 
A colourful crowd was beginning to emerge onto the streets of Notting Hill as they have in increasing numbers every year since the carnival took to the streets in 1965. Heavily dreadlocked Rastas brandishing fog horns and cans of Red Stripe strutted by. Groups of ladies with very pronounced rears sashayed along, and a crusty young gent with a mangy looking dog and gaffer taped army boots, kindly presented us with the option of five cans of special brew for a tenner. We demurred, feeling that 11 o'clock on a Sunday morning wasn't quite the time for that kind of action. If he'd waited an hour then maybe! In response to the million people expected and the previous years sporadic violence there was also a large police presence.
 
Here we had a street party in the purest sense of the term. Almost all the Victorian houses had their doors thrown open to offer Caribbean food, a toilet for rent, or just contributed by belting out some serious dub from boxes sited on the front lawn or balcony. We stepped past barbeques being laden with row upon row of jerk chicken, and green, yellow and red emblazoned merchandise stalls selling trumpets, Jamaican flags, Rizlas and Hailie Selassie posters.
We began to feel our minds and hips giving in to the inexorable pulsing beat that pervaded the area, and as if they knew something we didn't our feet began to adopt the slower, shallower rhythmic step that our eyes quickly realised was the order of the day. Letting off the occasional experimental toot we broke out onto Ladbroke Road and joined the eager throng who awaited the first floats of the procession that would herald the true start of the carnival.
 
The Notting Hill carnival began in St Pancras town hall in 1959 as a response to the poor state of race relations in London at that time and as a backlash to the Notting Hill race riots of the previous year. It was such a huge success that it took to the streets and became a carnival in the tradition of Rio and other Latin American countries. By 1976 the number of party goers had reached 150,000 but the event became marred by small scale riots, with Caribbean youths railing against the police who they believed were systematically harassing them. The media coverage of the carnival became very one-sided and there were widespread calls for a ban. Surprisingly Prince Charles was among the few establishment figures who remained in support, and the carnival weathered the storm, last year seeing attendance figures of 2,000,000 along with an overall much more peaceful record. 
 
Standing on the edge of the pavement enjoying the warm sunshine we clocked the parade's technicoloured vanguard from half a mile away as it inched along. The maelstrom that it provoked in the huge crowd was clearly visible and filled the whole road. The combined noise from the sound systems, the whistles and the klaxons was immense. We and the crowd in our vicinity started to reach fever pitch in anticipation. We were now giving the whistles a little more hammer and random whoops began escaping spontaneously from our gullets. Suddenly the wait was over and the trucks and flamboyance overcame us. Fast paced music blared from the side of vehicles as armies of dancers in vivid costumes swayed past. There were phalanxes of 6ft human sunflowers, giant silver fairies and a gaggle of little red devils, all dazzling bright in the sunshine. And everyone was going mental, moving as one, in time with the dance hall music. There was a feeling of inclusion and total participation and a collective smile that beamed on the faces of everyone, from the costumed dancers on the tarmac to the people watching from balconies and rooftops.
 
Before we knew it there was a break in the action and a corresponding fun vacuum that had to be filled. So, mindful of the oft quoted biblical phrase 'Seek and ye shall find' we all grabbed a can of Red Stripe from one of the handy vendors and went mobile, following in the wake of the procession and hoping it was the preliminary wave. As we worked our way deeper into the crowds we noticed a strange phenomenon. All around us people were wearing yellow t-shirts covered in brown stains. We exchanged worried looks as we thought we had infiltrated a gang of shit-lovers, but quickly realised that the stickiness was melted chocolate. People had big buckets of the stuff and were eagerly daubing it on each other with brushes! Some had their whole bodies painted in it. This random craziness seems to be a tradition, as explained by a white, brown smeared van, that was doling out the melted goo and had a slogan declaring '10 years of chocolate!' written, in chocolate, on the side.
We danced on up the road, really sinking into the great atmosphere, heading towards the slow moving trucks, dodging the wet people as much as possible, and found a nice spot on the fringes of a council estate where we took stock for a few minutes away from the mania, and refilled our beers. Then Kerry's ears pricked up as she detected the strains of a steel pan ensemble approaching. We stuck our necks around the corner and sure enough more fun was in the post! A truck with the side cut out that contained a wall of steel pans and their operators inched closer and Kerry lost it, running up to the lorry, blasting her whistle vigorously and gyrating madly to the music.
 
Special mention needs to be made about the days dance movements. Let me tell you Caribbean ladies can do marvellous things with their bums. They get some serious movement from those hips, with an action that appears to be effortless and is facilitated and complemented by the luxurious size of their fabulous backsides. This expert wiggle in tandem with the measured footsteps produces a fantastic shape which we all found quite contagious, and it only increased as the day wore on. The general mania was facilitated by an affable chap sporting a tweed suit and wheeling an elderly persons trolley along that contained single servings of jellied tequila. 
 
But sadly our fun was to be curtailed, and just as the party was reaching full intensity we had to leave our gracious host Alison and her friends, and begin to make our way to Victoria coach station. This would normally have been merely a case of hopping on the tube, except that today there happened to be an extra 600,000 people marauding through the streets like wild animals, us included! As we waded past each truck and sound system we found it impossible not to heed the clarion call and join in the fun. This hampered our progress somewhat, and when we eventually found the tube station and it had a line of coppers blocking the entrance, we began to fear that we may have to stay (not a bad thing!). We both felt the call of nature as the Red Stripe made its way through our bodies and started queuing for the portaloos, and as yet another speaker and dancer laden lorry passed and the beat hit, EVERYONE in the queues started busting shapes!! What a great day!
 
 
 

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chocolate reveller	lads	the first wave	Whistle posse