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C Quinn's Carnival Sweepings
Written by : Stephen Spark
Location : London
Posted : Sep 8, 2006 : 6:38:00 PM |
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Our man in the gutter puts his ear to the ground, picks up the word on the street and hands out some awards to the undeserving.
Kensal Road, don't you just love it? Masqueraders just can't seem to tear themselves away from those fume-filled, ear-battering surroundings for four or five hours. Is it police malevolence or incompetence that blocks them in? Or should we blame the samba bands leading the procession for taking 'two steps forward, one step backward and, pose'?
Alternatively, why not chip along Harrow Road? Fine, so long as you don't expect music, police orders, we hear. It kinda kills the vibe just when you should be heating up the band for the judging-point.
Tourist frowning at map: "Pliss" where is carnival?' SN hack: "You're in it right now." Puzzled foreigner: "Is Hyda Park?" SN (with sigh of resignation): "No, this is Notting Hill; the carnival takes place here." Tourist consults companion, who shrugs: "But why ees not in Hyda Park?". Tourist wanders off, still confused, part-way through SN's hour-long, deeply fascinating lecture on the history of relations between the GLA and the carnival organisers. This little scene proved so popular it had to be repeated a dozen times over the weekend, look out for it soon on the West End stage.
For the second time in three years, Arawak wins the Killing the Carnival Spirit prize (aka the Missing the Point of Being on the Road Award), in recognition of the way its bull-necked, steroid-enraged security thugs lumbered menacingly round the roped-off masqueraders, one had to be restrained by fellow gorillas from dismantling a guy harmlessly dancing away behind the metal barriers in Westbourne Park Road. It must be hard to have a private party on public streets, so why not just hire a hall next year?
No sign of that hoary old cliche in Tuesday's papers, the dancing policeman. Once as much a feature of Carnival as Mr Marvo the badge man, DPCs were given intensive training at Hendon Police College in awkward movements and sheepish grins. Now they have been outlawed by Met top brass, who threatened officers with dire penalties if they moved their feet in anything other than two-time plod-beat. A pretty WPC in Great Western Road said a little wine would have eased the tedium of spending an 11-hour shift with nothing to do but watch other people enjoy themselves. Some of her colleagues had no choice in the matter - the men in blue don't stand a chance when masqueraders attack en masse (we have the pictures to prove it!).
The Golborne Award for disservice to journalism goes to columnist Pete Clark for his article 'Skanking in the street - it must be Carnival' in the Evening Standard. "Where there are trucks bearing massive stacks of speakers, there will be skanking", he told us, and then went on about 'chi chi men', 'irie', 'raas clot' and other examples of JA patois in his 'carnival' glossary. Yet another journo who imagines anything Caribbean must automatically be Jamaican, it's clear Clark's in the dark about the origins of Carnival. Book the man a flight to Port-of-Spain and teach him about mas and wine and ting.
The Jamaican influence on Notting Hill Carnival has been controversial ever since static sound systems were introduced in the 1970s, when traditionalists complained that calypso, pan and soca were being drowned out by reggae, dub and ska. Now, as the Mighty Duke would say, 'everything change up'. If the number of black-green-and-gold flags in the bands is any indicator, plenty of youngsters from Jamaican backgrounds have adopted mas and soca in a way their parents never did. Is this another Jamaican takeover of Carnival, or is it the Trinification of JA youth?
The Pushing Your Luck Award for reckless behaviour goes to the reveller who, we hear, poured a tin of red paint over the Chief Inspector at Jouvert. We have it on good authority that the man at the Met did not see the funny side of the incident. Still, you can't go to Jouvert an 'fraid powder' To improve relations, and reduce the cleaning bill, we recommend the police wear white overalls and get chipping behind the truck.
The hotly contested Carnival Sabotage Prize goes this year to London Underground, for the communications and signal failures that brought critical parts of the Northern, Victoria and Hammersmith & City Lines to a halt just as the mass migration to Notting Hill got under way. Bits of the District and the whole of the Waterloo & City Line were shut down for engineering works too, a smart move on LU's busiest weekend.
Late-August weather can be as unreliable as the Northern Line, but once it got the rain out of its system on Monday morning, the sky stayed dry. But not calm, the flags on Trinidad Hill flapped frantically as helpers tried to keep the bigger costumes under control. Lightly made wings folded up, swallowing the masqueraders inside like Venus fly traps digesting tasty bluebottles. More substantial costumes threatened to launch their occupants over the rooftops. Mahogany probably came closest to achieving the first recorded flight by a masquerader.
Congrats to the hack pack for (yet again) reporting Carnival as nothing more than a party with a set of crime stats attached. Too lazy to get out to Notting Hill themselves on the one weekend when it's full of real people instead of celebs, the scribblers sat back and let the Met's press office spoon-feed them arrest figures to wrap round a shot of a 'carnival dancer' bought in from a picture agency. The photographers say there's no point noting who they're snapping because the editors are not interested, masqueraders don't matter, they are just pretty faces to fill the spaces on a quiet news day. Congratulations, then, to The Guardian for at least telling readers that Dan Chung's spectacular double-page photo showed French banda de percuss'o Batala, a pity they couldn't reproduce the band's amazing sound as well.
First to the judging-point on Sunday was Glissando Steel Orchestra, whose RAF-blue whistles proved a big hit with the crowd, followed by Flamingo playing some sweet, danceable African sounds. Last across the line were Poison UK, Visions and Homerton Palace. Monday started in spectacular style with Quilombo do Samba, followed by Glissando and Flamingo again. This time the tail-enders were Poison UK, Visions and Inspiration Arts, who turned the corner into Chepstow Road at about 9.45pm.
How do you judge a band you can't see? And how do you perform for judges when you don't know where they are? Judges and masqueraders had difficulty finding each other in Great Western Road, particularly after dark. Floodlighting would have made the judges' task a whole lot easier at night. During the day time the judges' tent and the performance area in front of it needed to be made more obvious (we heard that some masqueraders were giving their all to the refreshment tent!). Here's the perfect sponsorship opportunity for a canny company to provide lighting and to paint (and on Tuesday remove) some suitable markings on the road.
Stewards were told to watch out for possible suicide bombers. The instructions said they were likely to be sweating, holding something in their hands, mumbling incoherently and be carrying a backpack with wires sticking out of it, an accurate description of many masqueraders on Monday evening! |
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