DURING THE NOTTING Hill Carnival, always held during the last weekend of August, some homes, shops, and other businesses in the area where it is held or along the routes leading to it, take precautions to prevent their properties being damaged by over exuberant (i.e., drunk, drugged, or violent) revellers. Usually, the preventative measure taken is the erection of wooden boarding, which is usually soon covered with colourful graffiti.

The recently opened Amazon Fresh supermarket in Notting Hill Gate has taken things much further. Not only have they put up wooden boarding (upmarket quality compared with what other businesses use), but behind it they have placed huge concrete blocks such as are usually used to make temporary barriers to protect workers from being hit by fast moving traffic while they are doing repairs on busy motorways. Furthermore, these heavy blocks have been encased in sturdy metal cages. And to prevent things from being lobbed over the top of this recreation of the Berlin Wall, netting has been placed. The weak points in this anti-insurrection barrier are gaps in it for the entrance and exit. No doubt, tough security guards will be stationed at these vulnerable positions, but would they be prepared to risk injury and the wrath of a mob simply to save the paltry selection (compared with other nearby shops) of wares sold in the shop? Finally, I wonder whether the cost of the precautions taken will be outweighed by the profits that this now unwelcoming-looking, fortress of a shop might hope to make.