Notting Hill Carnival

Hurdling another expanse of horse poop, I land awkwardly, struggling to regather what I like to think of as my Caribbean cool. Horse poop and horns - the sensory signposts on the road to Notting Hill Carnival. As I approach the large sector of Notting Hill cordoned off every August bank holiday weekend for Europe’s largest festival, Rorschach patterns of manure left by towering police horses become denser and the bleating of countless plastic horns more insistent, blending with the echoes of hundreds of rhythm sections and sound systems until I hit a palpable Wall of Sound that would even impress incarcerated wig enthusiast and all-around bad date, Phil Spector.

Once I enter the Carnival area my senses are overwhelmed as my brain clambers to categorise everything. Music hits my ears from every side; a new aroma assails my nostrils every few steps - some good, some bad, some really bad and, of course, thousands of bodies, many in flamboyant outfits, from the daring to the downright brave jostle through my field of vision. A lot to process, especially when you’ve hit the age of No-Spring-Chicken and your Inner Couch Potato pointedly and tactlessly impugns your ability to do the street party thing for an entire summer day.

In 1959, Britain was still taking its first faltering steps towards multiculturalism and the previous summer’s Notting Hill riots proved there was still much to do. Carnival was conceived as a way to smooth the path by appeasing the immigrants and showing Britain, hey, foreigners can be fun! From a small affair in St Pancras town hall, it has become the second largest party in the world after Rio.

I’ve done Carnival several times since 1997, the year I migrated from Jamaica, but I always remember my first time. I’d lived in London for a month and was still rather dazzled. Homesickness hadn’t yet set in but I still felt quite alien. Not necessarily a bad thing, since my reason for moving was the claustrophobia and homogeneousness of the Kingston scene but it was a major adjustment and I craved a taste of home so I looked forward to this “Carnival” business with excitement.

It didn’t disappoint. Obviously, it’s much larger than Jamaica Carnival, itself smaller than, say, Trinidad Carnival but I marvelled at the blending of Caribbean culture with an unmistakably London vibe, to form something entirely unique. I swaggered about like a proud host, ate foods I hadn’t tasted since I left Jamaica and watched with undisguised satisfaction as throngs bigger than I’d ever seen bounced and soaked up the reggae music which remains one of my great passions.

Over a decade later, I’m still doing Carnival. I ford the rivers of humanity towards my preferred area between Powis Square and Portobello Road to seek out my favourite food stalls, identified through trial and error from previous visits, to partake of delicacies like sugar cane and guineps and breadfruit, nearly impossible to find otherwise even in the many excellent Caribbean shops and restaurants across Britain. Everyone makes a special effort for Carnival.

In earlier excursions, I made the rookie mistake of trying to do too much. A plan is fine but you need to be flexible. If you try to trek to a particular area or stage, there’s a real chance you’ll get sidetracked or the sheer mass of people will thwart your efforts. The worst thing you can do is spend your day doggedly trying to fulfill a predetermined plan and missing out on the delights that greet you at every step.

I realized I didn’t have to be everywhere. Anywhere you are, it’s Carnival and even in a small section, you get the full experience. I wander around my chosen patch and find a massive sound system booming the latest Jamaican dancehall music. Just a block over on a stage shaped like a pirate ship, a band in full costume blasts ska music to a heaving audience. Twenty meters further and my chest vibrates with the thunderous beats of classic hip-hop and I’m within sight of the road march where the seemingly endless stream of revelers on trucks and floats judder around the circuit to the frenetic rhythms of calypso.

I’m still fascinated by the human dynamic of Carnival. It really is just like the promotional photos. I watch two cartoonishly buxom ladies in spandex hugging grinning bobbies. Hairgelled preppies with sweaters tied around their waists sway for maybe the first time to bass-heavy music, sporting the same epiphanic expression Gauguin wore upon disembarking in Tahiti and happily realising he’d overpacked. It’s an atmosphere of unselfconscious grooviness that gives you a sense of the unity that Britain genuinely aspires to and in these moments, I am confident that it will get there.

Carnival still has many critics and opponents. There have been unfortunate incidents over the years and even some casualties but considering the numbers, the record is excellent and it’s run with surprising efficiency. Everything shuts down at the appointed hour with a minimum of fuss and police and sanitation workers immediately take charge, herding people towards exits and clearing the garbage mountains accumulated over the course of the day. Sure it’s tradition but it's still a gathering of a million predominantly young people in a residential area celebrating cultures that scare the bejesus out of a lot of folks. The organisers know if it doesn’t run like clockwork, they will be gleefully shut down. They're up to the task, though. By morning, you can barely tell anything special has happened. But something special has happened.


As I’ve become more creaky, jaded and partial to relieving myself alone and indoors, I’ve found myself less enthusiastic about the approach of Carnival and sometimes there’s a bit of an internal debate about whether I’ll take the plunge but I can honestly say, once that Inner Potato is mollified with promises of rum with coconut water, jerk pork, live Ska and surreptitious restorative naps in the office restroom on Tuesday and I cross the poop-strewn threshold into the heart of Carnival, I am once again that youngish, tanned, recently-arrived Kingstonian, so happy and relieved to find that maybe London wasn’t as far from home as it first seemed.