Uxbridge Road Street Party

There’s some sort of celebration going on the Uxbridge Road, here in Shepherd’s Bush.

Perhaps 150 men, Middle-Eastern or Maghrebi are gathered, incongruously, outside Nando’s, singing, drumming
and waving flags. They’re spilling into the road, where they wave down cars as their friends or compatriots drive past.
Neither the man in al-Abbas supermarket nor the lad in the Co-op had any idea what was going on, so I’m going to do a little research….

Update at 19:57: it’s the Algerian flag. Which is puzzling, as there isn’t much of an Algerian community around here.

Update at 20:00: Algeria were playing Egypt at football today. Something tells me they may have won!

It has to be said that the atmosphere was rather more jovial then when on a QPR match day, and only police van I saw did a slow drive-by and then continued on its way.

Later update: the next day the pavement outside Nando’s was spotless: no broken bottles, KFC wrappers, or indeed horse-shit.