If you want to see just how thin the thin blue line can get – go to Notting Hill Carnival. I’ve personally never seen British streets in such a state of chaos. You might say that Glastonbury provides a similar experience – but the crucial diffference is that Glastonbury is for comfortably waged people – Notting Hill is totally free.

To begin with it just seemed like a few colourful floats surrounded by thousands of revellers – but as I wandered deeper into the strange zone of Notting Hill, the full extent of this, Europe’s biggest street party, became clear. From one particular hill I could see all the way down a street packed with partygoers, moving to the very loud music and wreathed in smoke – all set against majestic white Victorian town houses and a clear blue sky.

As the carnival lead me deeper into this area (I’d never explored this vast tract of west London before) the crowds split off into a myriad of streets and cul-de-sacs, all lined with an array of afro-caribbean food stalls, Red Stripe sellers and piled high with fast food refuse.

Some of the piles of rubbish were as tall as me – I’ve never seen so much in one place.

In a certain area each street had its own DJ – Dub in one, drum and bass in another, one more had dance  - whatever your taste, you just had to wander drunkenly round the corner to have another powerful sound system rattle through your body.

The feeling of chaos was demonstrated by the ineffectual police who simply couldn’t have stopped this party without several hundred riot coppers turning up. But there was no need for that – the atmosophere was generally very friendly. I only saw one incident of a man throwing a bottle into another man’s face. After a little crowd toing and froing (like a running battle without the battle), it all settled back into dancing and drinking.

For a country like Britain to allow this kind of event to take place is pretty amazing – where every corner of Notting Hill was turned over to the masses, every gutter was filled with take away boxes, the air was filled with the smell of jerk chicken and the decibel limit for the carnival was almost certainly breached.

It was like a warzone where no-one was getting killed. I highly recommend it.