SECOND WHICH EMOTION?
A week after the fact, the capital's 17th Notting Hill Carnival seems like a shimmering heat mirage—a hot long weekend wherein the maas, steel pans and jump-up of the east Caribbean blended with the heaviest dread of reggae (and the earnest good intentions of all Ladbroke Grovebound liberals).
SECOND WHICH EMOTION?
LETTER FROM BRITAIN
by Cynthia Rose
A week after the fact, the capital's 17th Notting Hill Carnival seems like a shimmering heat mirage—a hot long weekend wherein the maas, steel pans and jump-up of the east Caribbean blended with the heaviest dread of reggae (and the earnest good intentions of all Ladbroke Grovebound liberals). It remained a defiant celebration of black Britain, too, despite a pan-UK attempt to co-opt the occasion. This often verged on the risible: everybody rushing to review the two Marley biogs (and everybody illustrating them with caricatures!); the Sunday Times printing an "A-Z: Definitive Guide To Reggae"; British telecom outfitting the entire Glissando Steel Band in company T-shirts with the slogan "Hands Off British Telecom."