More or less all day today, three to six vehicles and a couple of uniformed platoons in Harrow Rd round the corner from my daughter's house in Kensal Rise where I am staying, clinging to the Smoke by my fingernails.
This evening saw the whole layout. They were pulling people quite near here, but 400 yards towards London, opposite one of my favourite pubs and outside the entrance to Kensal Green cemetery, there was an ANPR van parked facing the wrong way on the pavement with its lenses looking up the road towards Harrow. Quick radio, the car's pulled up near here. Four or five in the processing queue sometimes.
My old Trinidad friend met me for a drink in the pub there tonight. He said they'd been doing it all day long. My daughter thought there was a deeper layer, they were after terrorists. Damn well hope so, I said. No, she said, they were only pulling people of colour.
But earlier in the day, it didn't look like that to me at a cursory glance. Next time I'll look more carefully.
I so hate leaving London. Feel I'm geting out of touch already.
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. No she said they were only pulling people of colour.
>>
Can't say I've ever seen a switch in the back of an ANPR van that says 'people of colour only'!!!
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Its the switch marked PoC.
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> I so hate leaving London. Feel I'm geting out of touch already.
For crying out loud, Its a merde hole, specially that part. As soon as you have cleared the muck out your eyes you will see clearly.
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I was brought up in London, now when I visit I cant wait to get out of the dump and back to civilisation. If you have never lived anywhere else you must have a narrow outlook on life. Parking problems, wheel clamps, traffic congestion, rush hour, what are they?
Last edited by: Old Navy on Tue 20 Apr 10 at 10:56
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London is the Metropolis, we're in the Provinces, which makes us provincial;
having or showing the manners, viewpoints, etc., considered characteristic of unsophisticated inhabitants of a province; rustic; narrow or illiberal; parochial:
Yeah, right, let 'em think that, just so long as they stay in London :-)
JH
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I have lived in London many years ago and still have occasion to visit the city on a regular basis. It has its attractions undoubtedly but there is no way I would consider living there again. I always feel financially abused when I'm there. My favourite view of it is the the diminishing one in the rearview mirror.
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>> Yeah right let 'em think that just so long as they stay in London :-)
>>
Agreed, the more that stay in their center of the world, the less to clutter up our bit of it.
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>> opposite one of my favourite pubs and outside the entrance to Kensal
>> Green cemetery >>
William IV or the Masons?
I remember them well from before they were all ponsed up ...
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Isn't this part of the smoke where people OF colour predominate? Hence the high numbers that would be pulled in.
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Wm IV boxsterboy... it's on its second wave of poncing up now, but still all right.
There are plenty of people of colour round here, but I don't think they can be said to 'predominate'.
I am well aware of the many disadvantages of London life. I like the country too. But I am an urban creature at heart.
Zero, you may not like this part of the Smoke but you probably don't know it all that well.
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My knowledge of that area is about 30 years out of date, but I knew it well enough then (externsively in fact) as it was a good area for drinking ooh (and consuming other stuff)
I have no beef with the area, but living in London generally is merde. Its a rathole and that part of london joins others as the worse of the ratholes. Its been a rathole for the last 50 years and it will stay a rathole.
Urban creature at heart? I am born and bred cockney from a large family of cockneys. Would I live there? Not a chance.
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I'm sure you are not the only biological cockney to be a swede-basher at heart Zero. And no harm in that, takes all sorts. Is East Ham within the sound of the Bow bells one wonders? Might depend on the wind direction.
If you can still remember how to talk like one, how about giving a couple of lessons to Samantha Cameron? She's been getting common-touch lessons from the wrong person if you ask me. She'd sound a lot better if she spoke in her normal way.
And by the way, Notting Hill/North Ken were at least a decade past their best by the late seventies... already filling up with Johnny-come-lately city slickers...
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Tue 20 Apr 10 at 16:46
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I lived in London for about 15 years.
It seems to me there are two things you do not want to be in the capital.
The one is poor, the other is in a hurry.
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>> There are plenty of people of colour round here but I don't think they can
>> be said to 'predominate'.
>>
Fewer than there used to be, more's the pity. Too many have been priced out to places like Wembley by Notting Hill Trustafarians, or have flown home for some decent weather.
It's losing its character as it becomes more multi-national. Time was when it would be: Whites (English or Irish), Asians, or Afro-Caribeans. And that was (more or less) it.
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If you are coming this way this evening boxsterboy, I will be in the WmIV with an Iraqi friend from about 7.
When I came to the Gate at the end of the fifties it was a different kettle of fish altogether. I've been there off and on ever since, including the last 36 years in the same house. If I walk down the grove the chances are some neighbour at least will smile and nod, if not an actual friend. So despite the great expense and tiresome disadvantages of living in London, it is being a terrible wrench upping sticks and waddling off to the sticks.
I wanted to send Zero a text or two about the manor in its (to me) heyday. But he hasn't given me an email address yet.
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Mods - Send the old un my email addy.
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>> the old un my email addy.
They haven't yet Zero. But I am told that my email has been forwarded to you, so you should have mine. If you send some sort of message, I will have yours.
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>> They haven't yet Zero.
Sorry, I forgot. I was also trying to work out who "the old un" was.
Will do it now.
Vx
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>> If you are coming this way this evening boxsterboy I will be in the WmIV
>> with an Iraqi friend from about 7.
>>
Very kind but work prevents I'm afraid.
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Is the WmIV a tavern for the bona fide?:)
"Parish of enormous hayfields
Perivale stood all alone,
And from Greenford scent of mayfields
Most enticingly was blown
Over market gardens tidy,
Taverns for the bona fide,
Cockney anglers, cockney shooters,
Murray Poshes, Lupin Pooters
Long in Kensal Green and Highgate silent under soot and stone."
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Excellent NortonES2... never seen that one. I wonder how many know who Murray and Lupin are?
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Thanks. Well, I didn't for one! I'll let you expand on the theme should you wish... I spotted the Betjeman link when you mentioned Kensal Green.
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They are characters in George and Weedon Grossmith's late Victorian comic novel 'Diary of a Nobody'. Very amusing read actually... there's nothing new under the sun really.
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Greenford Eh! Lived not a million miles from there in 87
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BiB West London trawl - midlifecrisis
