There is nowhere in London like Notting Hill, the stuccoed district that only 50 years ago was a byword for squats and squalor—now more readily associated with Hugh Grant’s foppish charm and pastel-colored, Instagram-friendly, multi-million-dollar houses. And there’s nothing like Notting Hill Carnival either, when more than two million people jam themselves into the narrow streets and squares of W10 and W11 in the biggest celebration of Caribbean culture outside of the actual Caribbean.
While the carnival shares the same bacchanalian energy as New Orleans’s Mardi Gras festival, it has a vital role in the wider inquiry as to what, exactly, constitutes British cultural life. To its detractors, it’s a long weekend of taxpayer-funded anarchy in one of the country’s swishest postcodes. To its many participants and fans, it’s a model of joyful inclusion and an exemplar of Britain’s postwar diversity. For some of my friends, it’s the highlight of their year.
