Blurred (Yellow)
Lines
I sometimes
wonder what the purpose of single yellow lines is. In Westminster it seems to be largely advisory,
giving a message along the lines of, “It would be better if you didn’t park
here, but if you really need to, then go ahead.” You regularly see “civil
enforcement officers” as traffic wardens seem to be called now, walking past
vans and commercial vehicles parked on yellow lines, and that seems to be
Council policy, not to enforce parking regulations against businesses. One of
the prime examples is a business on the Harrow Road which keeps a fleet of vans
parked on a yellow line, which they would no doubt claim to be loading, but
which observation suggests are merely parked. In fact they are gaining
commercial advantage from this favourable treatment by the Council.
There’s also
a general feeling that yellow lines don’t really apply later in the day. 6.30pm
is the time round here when they are supposed to become free, but on the Harrow Road you’ll
find people parking from 3 o’clock onwards, and in the backstreets some people
seem to think they can park from lunchtime. So why does this annoy me? Simply
because these vehicles cause congestion and are often dangerous as well. It’s
particularly an issue of visibility for cyclists.
The latest
offenders are the delivery riders, Deliveroo and the like, who park their
motorbikes on double yellow lines with apparent impunity. There is a particular
spot on Porchester Road
where this happens constantly, where the road is narrowed by a traffic island,
just before the bus stop, and a parked bike makes a real hazard.
Still, it’s
better than Harlesden, which always seems particularly lawless when you drive
through. I was told that traffic wardens there don’t dare to challenge illegal
parking.
Va Pensiero Revisited
My regular
readers will remember a previous post bemoaning the way that chain restaurants
trading under an Italian label have ceased to cook Italian (or in truth any)
food. Today I have cause to celebrate, because a really top class Italian restaurant
has appeared almost on my doorstep. It’s called Guste Remo, and it sits on the
corner opposite the Porchester Baths, in Porchester Road. It’s a rather ill-omened
site, as a previous restaurant (Spanish) suffered a fire. The most recent
occupant was a very well-intentioned organic, vegetarian pizza place, which
just didn’t do much business. Guste Remo, on the other hand, seems busy
already, and frankly is very good indeed. It’s not the cheapest around, but
that wasn’t what I was looking for; I had an exquisite veal chop and we had a
very leisurely evening.
Carnival
Again
As I’ve said
before here, street processions are significant in symbolic terms. They are
expressing important meanings, as any social anthropologist will tell you,
meanings around identity and ownership. I suspect that Lady Borwick MP
understands that, which is why she is so keen to expel Carnival from the
streets of Notting Hill. It is offensive to her and her supporters that poor
black people should express any ownership of these streets. Now in fact there
are still a good number of Caribbean families living in Ladbroke Grove, North
Kensington and Notting Dale, though clearly there isn’t the concentration that
there was in the 1960s and 70s, when most of Notting Hill was pretty run-down,
and most houses were let in multiple occupancy. Many of those houses have now
been converted back into single dwellings, and the remaining flats are sold
these days, and if let are not let to social tenants, so the change in housing
has made for a change in population, wealthier and whiter. But the fact remains
that Carnival is still the cultural expression of a sizable chunk of Notting
Hill’s population, who have quite as much right to be there as Lady Borwick.
But that’s the point, isn’t it?
I was at a
meeting recently when a policeman said of Carnival that “They’ve had fifty
years of it, so it’s time to finish it.” I think I now understand what is meant
by institutional racism.