Blog
The guys and dolls all want to be big rock-stars But for different reasons, in a changing world of fluid identity Mr Dylan would not have imagined what became of his words The streets are now the rivers of Babylon and the walls the citadel of Jericho The marching bands parade around the Hill in […]
As the day grows eager to leave, so does this woman waiting for a cab Niamey communal taxis are five-seat minibuses following whimsical routes Living-dead contraptions escaped from a scrapyard driven on a licence from Hell For a penny or less you get the once in a lifetime experience of the African Luna Park rides […]
Music and joy are highly contagious in Notting Hill The sidelines catch the fever and become the centre of attraction Let the music play every one will find the beat and his own rhythm And all the colors spilled in the streets, they broke away like Humpty-Dumpty And all the Queens’ men and all the […]
The unchanging times at the place where I live Time is like the wind, it sweeps across the majestic landscape and over the horizon It leaves the creases in the rocks the waves in the sand and shapes the trees to its whims The cows walk home, almost flying in a cloud of dust, they […]
In the wake of a Columbus quest looking for East in the West An Asian beauty appears from at the junction of Westbourne Grove More than just a sign, an apparition, a Caribbean island called West Indies Misnomers and approximate geography are helpless in front of beautiful wanderers Photo Hugh Ardoin The Notting Hil 2018 […]
From the far edge of reality starts another reality We sit watching sunset and replay our sugar-coated dreams Along Sunset Boulevards in some faraway place Pink stars lie on the floor calling strange names In the desert the stars still hang from the sky above in their own name And the magic moment of eerie […]
Hail Mary, the black Madonna has just landed on the Hill Setting foot on this worldly place she steps out of her spaceship A crown of light set over her pink mane and rich silk robe Surrounded by an escort of muscular men and thin ladies I had a dream, and it came true for […]
In Susan Sontag’s world of words and images Photographs are the past of present and more specifically “Found objects and unpremeditated slices of life” Now that the sun has set over Niamey is already past But it is a surreal future for the viewers to come Beauty is the object as well as the essence […]
The mile long smile with a cheese, the trendy shades, the red lipstick But this is not Hollywood, this is the Notting Hill Carnival It was created by Claudia Jones as a bridge to African-Caribbean culture Sometimes we wonder what there is at the other end of the bridge Is it the future of the […]
As the end of the day grows near, a young lady walks by proudly ignoring the butcher Until someone gets hungry the butchers are generally shunned This comes from an old West African tradition, before the Egyptian dynasties Where Butchers, blacksmiths and minstrels altogether Form part of a special “lower caste” of free people Photo […]