No doubt every housewives' book club has read One Day, not to mention every couple on a Mark Warner holiday this summer and most Daily Mail readers will see the film. Save yourselves the trouble. Watch Same Time Next Year from 1978 starring Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn (who doesn't have to do a fake Yorkshire accent either.)
It's not totally dissimilar and, I suspect, much better.
---------------------------------------------------------------
The death of Horatio Chapple at the paws and jaws of a polar bear was a tragic event. Of course it was a gift for newspapers in the silly season, coming so soon after the mass murder of teenagers on a Scandinavian island. You wait for years for a decent story from Norway and then two come at once.
But it also highlights a very British trait, brought to life by young Horatio's funeral which was attended by his brothers Magnus and Titus.
And that is the way middle class parents with dull names give their kids stupid monikers in the hope it will make them posher when they grow up.
Needless to say the father is called David. They are not the only ones. I used to know a girl called Tiggy which, it turned out, was short for Antigone. And she had a brother called Ptolemy (with a silent pee). I believe their dad was called John. Obviously he wanted to see his kids grow up having the crap kicked out of them. Likewise the poor little brat I saw the other day called Caspian. His dad was wearing thin leg jeans and brown, pointed shoes. What hope is there?
This is different to kids called Ikea or D-Ream where you just know the mum's on benefits or Cheyenne and Moonbeam where it's the old hippy in them coming through.
This is the curse of the aspirant middle classes who have money but find it can't buy them culture so they hope to foist culture into their lives, vicarariously, by giving their child a name from literature or history.
I'm waiting for my first Voldemort but it can only be a matter of time.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I took the kids to the Notting Hill Carnival today, which is the first time I've been for around 20 years. I was there for the 1989 riots and a couple of other times. I remember watching the London news broadcast during one carnival in the 1980s and they showed footage of a girl getting a gold chain snatched from round her neck. I recognised the victim as my ex-girlfriend Sue who is now my wife.
So today Sue and I took the youngest two for a bit of multicultural awareness while trying to explain the difference between roots, dub and dancehall and making sure they didn't take their mobiles with them.
My kids have been to Portobello Road market but we had to show them that this isn't the Notting Hill of Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. Only Richard Curtis could make a film about Notting Hill without a single black man.
Some things haven't changed - there's a lot of flesh around (I believe they call it booty now). There are still people trying to sell Red Stripe for exorbitant prices though the sensible ones can buy four cans for five pounds at the Better Buy near the station.
It's still impossibly crowded, and they say this year has seen a decline in numbers because of the fears of rioting. The music is loud and the women are gorgeous and there are a lot of people having fun.
The smell of marijuana was nowhere near as prevalent as it used to be but in a reassuring nod to the past, lines of police were stopping people who just all happened to be black apart from two young white women but they were wearing black Adidas tracksuit tops with three gold stripes on the sleeve so they deserved it.
Goat curry is still there. Along with jerk chicken. And there's still little for vegetarians though someone mentioned vegetarian goat curry on the basis all goats are vegetarian.
But some things have changed in the last 20 years as they are bound to. For a start, you don't hear as many Caribbean accents.
I guess it's a generation removed but it would have put David Starkey into a tailspin. Most black people have London accents. In London. Fancy that. It seems that only those over a certain age retain the rich West Indian accents I remember hearing a lot more often when younger. There was little sign of the rap culture lingo that is supposed to be bringing this country to its knees. This is not a celebration of black culture but West Indian and Caribbean roots in this part of the world.
The Rastafarians have been replaced by Trustafarians. The area has a combination of council flats and glorious stucco mansions, most of which have been divided into high ceilinged apartments.
They appear to be occupied by the Ruperts and Cassies of this world (certainly not the Caspians and Hermiones). On the high back walls of these mansions, young well-bred and expensively educated blonde girls danced to roots reggae (or was it dub?) while quaffing cans of Red Stripe overlooking Westbourne Grove.
Two young Henrys were even selling cans from the front garden of one of these properties.
I felt there were a lot more white people around than I could remember from previous carnivals and many more of them were middle class and higher - though many were tourists too.
It's like Notting Hill is now part of the summer circuit. Wimbledon, Ascot, Henley, Notting Hill and perhaps we can take in some of the scenes of the recent riots too.
Of course there were the usual kooky white folk trying to be black - middle aged women from the shires who have a tie-dye shawl and a t-shirt of Haile Selassie and speckly white men with ginger dreadlocks dancing badly.
The fears of a violent sub-culture were never too far away. There were gangs of youths coming into the area as we were leaving who didn't seem to be there to marvel at the community spirit shown by Tottenham's Northumberland Park Community School choir for instance.
A lot of the shops were boarded up in preparation but a lot were not. Whether or not anything happens, we'll see. From what I remember, 1989 seemed a lot more menacing before it all kicked off.
Good night. Irie?....Solly
No comments:
Post a Comment