I like to think that I'm cutting edge, a little bit alternative and funky. That I get the underground, the "hood" and I do not live a sheltered life. However, I suspect those statements are true only in the same way one could say it is true that The Brady Bunch explored the complexities of modern family life. While most who know me will have come to this realisation some time ago, I only arrived at it yesterday, at the Notting Hill Carnival.
The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual event, which takes place over the Sunday and Monday of the Bank Holiday in August. It began in 1964, a year after the race riots. I understand that it started essentially in response to those riots, as a celebration of the Trinidad and Tobago Caribbean population, many of whom lived in and around Notting Hill. It is the largest street festival in Europe, attracting (on average ) 250,000 - 300,000 people on the Sunday and about double that on the Monday. It is a celebration of Caribbean food, music and culture and involves a large street parade full of colourful costumes and traditional dance. Or at least that's how it is advertised. In fact, as we discovered yesterday, the festival does have a colourful street parade, but that is overshadowed by the hoards of people on the streets (very few of whom appeared to be Caribbean) drinking, smoking weed and converting what is (at least during the rest of the year) a very nice and upper-middle class area into a warzone-meets-Woodstock. It was complete chaos. The "music" largely consisted of drunk people singing their own tunes. The ethnic food seemed to comprise a few grubby guys who had set up camp on the front verges of others' houses and were selling home-made jerk chicken for £8 a pop. As for the dancing… well, I saw a lot of drunk wobbling from side to side. And there was one girl who had propped against her a sign saying "will dance naked for drugs". I don't think that any of that falls into the definition of "traditional dance".
A group of us wandered around this chaos for a while. Initially, I rather innocently thought that this simply could not be the Carnival, and that at any second we would turn a corner and hit the "real" Carnival. I expected this to be more akin to those great Western Australian events: the Joondalup food festival; the Freo Sardine Festival and the East Perth food festival. All of these, of course, are very sedate middle-class affairs, involving people such as myself wandering from stall to stall, sampling the delicacies on offer and getting a bit tipsy from having one too many tasting glasses of wine.
Due to my conviction that the "real" Carnival was just around the corner, when a large group of 18 year-old men began bolting past us and down the street, I assumed they were simply heading to the "real" Carnival, and were just very eager not to miss the festivities there. I was therefore somewhat surprised when G pushed me against the wall, flattening me against it. I was somewhat outraged, too, as I had rather wanted either to follow the men or stop one of them, to find out where they were heading, so we could go there too. When I expressed my outrage at being prevented from this course of action, G (who has seen a few more episodes of The Wire than me, and who has also read some "crime genre" books in his lifetime) looked rather incredulously at me, pointing out that all of the men had been "brandishing" glass bottles above their heads and were clearly headed to a riot. I still refused to believe him, thinking it more likely the case that these men were wanting to recycle their bottles, and ensure they not get smashed as they headed to the "real festival". To my embarrassment, it shortly dawned on me that G was right on this one, as the police began to "kettle us" (at least I know some of the lingo!) and warned us there were riots happening around the coroner.
The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual event, which takes place over the Sunday and Monday of the Bank Holiday in August. It began in 1964, a year after the race riots. I understand that it started essentially in response to those riots, as a celebration of the Trinidad and Tobago Caribbean population, many of whom lived in and around Notting Hill. It is the largest street festival in Europe, attracting (on average ) 250,000 - 300,000 people on the Sunday and about double that on the Monday. It is a celebration of Caribbean food, music and culture and involves a large street parade full of colourful costumes and traditional dance. Or at least that's how it is advertised. In fact, as we discovered yesterday, the festival does have a colourful street parade, but that is overshadowed by the hoards of people on the streets (very few of whom appeared to be Caribbean) drinking, smoking weed and converting what is (at least during the rest of the year) a very nice and upper-middle class area into a warzone-meets-Woodstock. It was complete chaos. The "music" largely consisted of drunk people singing their own tunes. The ethnic food seemed to comprise a few grubby guys who had set up camp on the front verges of others' houses and were selling home-made jerk chicken for £8 a pop. As for the dancing… well, I saw a lot of drunk wobbling from side to side. And there was one girl who had propped against her a sign saying "will dance naked for drugs". I don't think that any of that falls into the definition of "traditional dance".
A group of us wandered around this chaos for a while. Initially, I rather innocently thought that this simply could not be the Carnival, and that at any second we would turn a corner and hit the "real" Carnival. I expected this to be more akin to those great Western Australian events: the Joondalup food festival; the Freo Sardine Festival and the East Perth food festival. All of these, of course, are very sedate middle-class affairs, involving people such as myself wandering from stall to stall, sampling the delicacies on offer and getting a bit tipsy from having one too many tasting glasses of wine.
Due to my conviction that the "real" Carnival was just around the corner, when a large group of 18 year-old men began bolting past us and down the street, I assumed they were simply heading to the "real" Carnival, and were just very eager not to miss the festivities there. I was therefore somewhat surprised when G pushed me against the wall, flattening me against it. I was somewhat outraged, too, as I had rather wanted either to follow the men or stop one of them, to find out where they were heading, so we could go there too. When I expressed my outrage at being prevented from this course of action, G (who has seen a few more episodes of The Wire than me, and who has also read some "crime genre" books in his lifetime) looked rather incredulously at me, pointing out that all of the men had been "brandishing" glass bottles above their heads and were clearly headed to a riot. I still refused to believe him, thinking it more likely the case that these men were wanting to recycle their bottles, and ensure they not get smashed as they headed to the "real festival". To my embarrassment, it shortly dawned on me that G was right on this one, as the police began to "kettle us" (at least I know some of the lingo!) and warned us there were riots happening around the coroner.
I gather the glass bottles were eventually used as weapons, as I later saw a number of people stumbling around with gashes to their heads and blood running down their faces.
Anyway, after discovering that the place was awash with riots, we decided that we had had enough of the Carnival. It took a good 1.5 - 2 hours for us to manage to escape the mayhem, due to many of the roads being shut because of the riots. It was therefore a good 1.5 - 2 hours of G saying "I told you so". By the time I got home, exhausted and longing for a cup of peppermint tea, I realised that my inability to recognise a riot is an indication that I'm just not as cutting edge as I like to think I am.
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