I can feel the drumming barrage creeping nearer and nearer; there it is, deep in Shepherd's Bush by the Green, now sweeping around Shepherd's Bush roundabout, past the Kensington Hilton, stray booms and shrieks edging along St Ann's Villas, getting closer...not be long before it's level with my flat. Still in the near distance, but pushing along relentlessly... won't be long before the full-throated roar of one of the main feeder routes into the Notting Hill Carnival will finally sweep past my flat. The floats, the steel bands, the DJs invoking the crowds to dance, dance, dance. And an army of marching, dancing people behind these pied pipers. Terrific pulses of sound that'll shake the house to it's frame like a tuning fork, salvo upon ragged salvo of whistles and horns.

In N'awlins down on Bourbon Street, or on Beale Street in Memphis, the joint jumps, or so I've been told; at this time of the year, the whole neighbourhood jumps where I live. Two days of music, barbecue smoke, street food, straw hats and Rum. For those of you not in the know, Notting Hill Carnival is Europe's biggest street festivals. Originally a home grown event started by Trinidadians living in London, then it took in the other Caribbean communities, it's outgrown all of that completely. Exuberantly so; today and tomorrow, there'll be upwards of two million folks inching their way through the streets in this part of London. If I pop the door open I'll see a river, maybe even be caught up by it's force, of Steel bands, Samba dancers, flamboyantly costumed people, all types of drumming bands, gospel singers on the flatbeds of lorries welcoming everyone to Jesus, bagpipe bands, ensembles of dancers weaving their way, itinerant sound systems, Soca, High-life. A cosmopolitan madhouse. Needs to be seen, needs to be experienced, needs to be savoured.

It's here ! Barrage ain't creeping no longer, it's finally level with the house; we're shaking... we're vibrating...we're rocking... Earthquake ! Soundquake ! Amy Winehouse, Peter Tosh, Gangsta Rap, House buffeting my flat. Windows rattling in their frame. Was that "Hot, Hot, Hot!" from the Mighty Arrow? My ears are throbbing...