The most striking thing about The Fat Badger - a new gastropub at the wrong end of the Portobello Road - is the red and white wallpaper. At first glance, it looks as though it has a traditional toile de jouy pattern, with various rustics engaging in rural pastimes. But on closer inspection the figures turn out to be members of the urban underclass.
In one scene, for instance, a group of hoodies are drinking at a park bench, while in another a man is mugging a woman at gunpoint.
Choosing to decorate The Fat Badger with this wallpaper, which is designed by a Scottish firm called Timorous Beasties, is an act of almost reckless knowingness on the part of the pub's owners.
Given The Fat Badger's location - just down the street from Trellick Tower, one of the most notorious estates in West London - it's as if the proprietors are acknowledging the fact that their white, affluent customers are only visiting their pub because they think that being in such close proximity to urban squalor makes them 'hip'.
Surely, pointing out the ludicrous pretensions of Notting Hill's trustafarian community in this way is the kiss of death? After all, what Old Etonian who has chosen to live in the area for its 'street cred' would set foot in a place that is so transparently designed to take the piss out of him? (In case anyone misses the point, there's even a large, black and white print of Pete Doherty on the wall - another privately educated fool who thinks crack dens are 'cool'.
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