There are gaps appearing in a skyline I used to be familiar with.
The day to day errand running would take me through some of central London’s
back streets as I would go about business chores. Old boarded up pubs once
proudly boasting an establishment date of 1865 now gone and currently a
building site wrapped in plastic.
The replacement building will be tall, and made of glass and
will sell characterless anaemic coffee on the ground floor. All over the city
the price of its own success is fighting against the local communities who have
have moved on, moved out and sold up. There are still hives of local flavour
and colour though that flummoxes the new. I went to a book launch at an
independently run small bookshop in Notting Hill the other night. I met up with
an old Island Records work colleague who had recently moved back to the area
and we went for a drink in a bar recently opened which looked all 80’s gleam
and yuppie sheen. The staff wore designer threads and had impeccable taste in
clothes and facial hair while attending to the customer seated by the window.
He was waiting for his date and was looking at his smart phone, an unopened
bottle of Bollinger on the table in front of him. I bought a bottle of Chinese
beer. The accents were more eastern European than they were Ladbroke Grove.
This is the story across the city. It’s not a bad thing but you can see how the
new is changing the old. The old is still there though. It’s still kicking back
and showing the new a bit of dirty character and has a spark of life. A car
pulled up and parked outside, the name of a local band spray painted across the
sides. This was the manager and he’s local as well. The newbie bar staff
stopped what they were doing and gazed out the window in amazement. “Why would
anyone do that to their car,” they seemed to be saying, “and what’s a ‘Pink
Cigar’”. The locals have seen it all before though. Hardly merits a raised
eyebrow. So after our Chinese beer we wander over the road to the bookshop
where there’s a reading by the author of a just published book about dead rock
stars. These dead rock stars will have known The Portobello Road during their
short lives. The Streets in W11 have always been a hive and a hub of bohemia
full of new arrivals to the city. Eager beaver youngsters keen to make their
mark. The book store was full of some of the old school. Many of the characters
are now old timers more than likely now not living in the area but all
re-meeting each other and chit chatting about times gone past. There was a
relaxed atmosphere and a flamboyant sense of fun and there was a vibe. “Off to
the pub!” the author shouted after the talk was finished. There was more going
on there than in the stale low light bar across the road. Earlier in the
evening as I climbed the stairs up to street level from Notting Hill Gate tube
I almost ran into The Clash’s Mick Jones. He was wearing a suit and touting a
tatty looking plastic bag, obviously off to the shops looking for a pint of
milk. I guess he still lives in the area. Glen Matlock from The Sex Pistols
turned up as well as did a photographer or 2 and everybody was scanning your
face in the cramped bookshop just checking to see if you should be recognised.
