The Republic of Kilburn

A lot of Irishness about in Kilburn. I'm told that back in the oldendays (the 1970s?) it was notorious for its Fenian spirit: Mr Q maintains that the pubs on the high road were hotbeds for IRA plotters, and that the toilets in these places always have extra thick walls - so that the explosives could be hidden safely within (or something along those lines.) When I try to imagine what life must have been like then in Kilburn, I get two images, both from films. Fillums, sorry.

Withnail and I: the scene where they go to the pub and Marwood has oil of petunia on his boots. There's that terrifying guy with the bugger-grips sitting alone by the door to the lavatories (you see?), brooding over his pint and giving Paul McGann the willies. 'Ponce!' he declaims apropos nothing. And, when politely asked by Withnail to repeat the accusation, 'I called him a ponce and now I'm calling you one... '

Breakfast on Pluto: having only seen this once, my memory is sketchy. I was too dazzled by Cillian Murphy and his sequins to take in much History. [Interesting fact: Cillian Murphy the Actor lives round here; we saw him at Queen's Road Farmers' Market. Once.] But anyway, there's a scene in a London nightclub and a bomb goes off... okay, the connection to Kilburn is tenuous.

So that was 70's Kilburn. What's it like today? Still Irish, I tells ya. There's a newsagent's just next to Brondesbury station which sells all sorts of orange and green papers like the Kilkenny Times and the Daily Gael. There's a guy with a shop called 'We Recycle Furniture' and he's so Irish you wouldn't believe. There's an empire of builders' merchants/suppliers called M. P. Moran where the staff are disconcertingly Irish. And for those who like to leave no stone unturned, there's church on a Sunday at Quex Road.

Last time I was in church (a.k.a. in Mr Q's opinion, The IRA church), all the men at the back got up and left before the last hymn, like it was an unspoken rule. They just got up and headed off, muttering hasty goodbyes to each other. To a man they all have that hairstyle that says '1970s Ireland' - you just know forty years have gone by and they've never once parted their hair or combed their sideburns any differently. Dem fellers.