Notting Hill Carnival provided a convenient excuse to make my way over to where one of my favourite movies was set. So not only did I take in one of the biggest street carnivals in England, I also spied the famous Notting Hill Bookstore and the blue door which is Hugh Grant’s apartment in the movie. Although I loved the movie, the atmosphere at the street carnival soon distracted me from any thoughts of the romantic comedy. The streets were packed with people, lots in costumes or just advanced states of undress as they made their way to the party. House front courtyards and sidewalks were transformed into bars and street food vendors (I sampled jerk chicken and Caribbean empanadas), houses were opened, selling the use of their toilet for £2 or £3 per person, with line-ups out the door and hawkers walking the street selling all sorts of cheap flashy things to wear or noise-making items like whistles and horns.
As the afternoon progressed, thousands more people arrived, and the floats of the parade crept along the streets in stops and starts, blaring their music so loud that the vibrations shuddered through your body in way that made you feel like there was a rumbling engine trapped inside your chest, growling, waiting to let out its energy. And everyone did let it out, in the form of drug and alcohol fuelled dancing. I quickly learned what the style of dancing called a whine is, as the women bent over and gyrated their hips on the guys around them and the party got sweaty with a taste of the sensual debauchery that was sure to come as the sun descended later that evening.
I got caught up in the revelry as it crawled its way along the congested streets. Making my way slowly past numerous floats with costumed dancers streaming behind, feathers, sequins, makeup and lots of skin creating alluring scenes, some in choreographed synchronisation, most in their own form of disordered dance floor, the beats and shouts of each new set of songs and dj’s yelling into the crowd from a top their floats, all melting into one extended celebration. The crowd continued to swell and the rum to flow, people being hemmed in by police and barricading, containing the parade and spectators to the one pathway on its sweaty route through the boroughs. It slowly turned into a multicoloured bloated python, lethargically making its way forward in a snakes’ swelling, bunching movements. This was the signal for me to get off the ride and I started looking for an exit from the route and a way to the nearest tube station to make my way home. This took over an hour but once I was out of the main crowd and into the fresh cool air of the side streets, I didn’t mind so much.
