There is only one place to be on Saturday and only one way to get there.

The place is Portobello road and the tube is the only way to travel via Earls Court or any major connecting station where confusion runs high amongst the hordes of tourists making their way eagerly towards Notting Hill tube.

Any underground worker with any ounce of sanity knows to avoid the station platform like the plague unless he speaks at least eight languages , usually there is one very green member of staff available to answer questions and the different nationalities react as follows.

The Germans usually bowl straight up to the poor fellow and demand to know precisely when the next train is due, normally in better English than he can speak himself. The Italians and French usually push their youngest child forward, the only one to have learnt any English in four generations. However the English for rabbit and car doesn't really help so they end up becoming more and more animated, building up to a frenzy as the train approaches until someone sorts them out .

Special mention must go to the Japanese who arrive in such numbers that they can board any train on any platform going in any direction safe in the knowledge that some will make it through to the destination while the rest are scattered around various parts of London

Once they arrive at Notting Hill station the real fun begins, Kensington and Chelsea in their wisdom have neglected to put up one single sign post for directions to the market this is obviously a legacy from the Second World War designed to confuse the enemy, sorry tourists.

Once on the Portobello road they are passed from pillar to post falling into time old traps laid over the last fifty years to relieve them of their money.

The Italians suckers for anything shiny or expensive looking, Germans love brass car horns and squeeze them all the way up Portobello road as if they were the first ever to have the idea. The Japanese buy up anything that is cute.

This time special mention has to go to the Romanians who have not quite got the hang of the way things work and help themselves to anything not nailed down, usually peoples wallets.

Once the antique dealers have finished with them further down the road the food vans take over selling German brockwurst sausages or for the more adventurous one of the small café bars that litter the road.

At about three o'clock all the dealers pack up and head for one of the pubs lining the street where they swap stories and half truths about the day's events this is where most of the dealing takes place and goods swap hands amongst dealers. The reason I know all this is because I have been one for the last twenty years.

The End

The End

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