The police turned up to police a carnival that had been cancelled
People in yellow jackets patrolled the area to tell people there was no carnival happening.
The shops were boarded up to protect outlets from the revellers that never arrived.
All in all it was fucking weird as hell. Everyone expected somit to be happening but in the end nothing did. This vacuum of activity created a highly unusual and deeply eerie feeling in the hood. Turns out The Notting Hill Carnival is so big that even its absence has a presence.
I saw one man bashing a drum walked up Portobello whilst blowing his whistle and one man briefly stood on a car and that was about it.
I also went to an extremely sedate officially sanctioned tiny gathering on the Monday and at one point, as we were leaving, 3 riot vans containing around 40 cops turned up.
It was symptomatic of the police presence overkill as they spent 3 days looking for arrests to justify their existence. We heard of a few people we know being stop and searched for no reason, even one guy who was out for a walk with his 7 year old son. Sadly and painfully predictably, they were all black.
I have been to many Carnivals in my time (too many to count – everyone bar one since 1995 if you feel like doing the maths) but this is the first one I’ve been to when they only people who showed up were the Police. We truly live in strange times.
My highlight of the weekend was our neighbours who had a party on the street for 2 days and kept the carnival spirit going. I wasn’t really feeling it myself but was glad someone was. Roll on 2021 is all I can say…
p.s good to be back. hope ya didn’t miss me too much ;)