the earl of stokes / stokes hall

i had an appointment in notting hill this afternoon.

afterwards i dropped in at stokes hall to visit the earl of stokes.

stokes hall has a reputation in the world of interiors as being...

well... in a bit of a state.

fair enough, there are some nice pieces of art on the walls

there is a story about this poster, but i can never be bothered to listen.

apart from the earl's filing system, which involves him keeping most things on 

the floor, i noticed stuff piling up in other places...

his shrine to joe strummer for instance, a lot of clutter in front of it.

books piling up like dubai skyscrapers

i asked why he had two copies of jpod. quick as a flash the answer

came... " i bought the hardback, then i bought the paperback to read "
...so, one copy to keep for best, and one to read...

hmmm...

it's well documented that the earl has over 500,000 cds.

some of them are absolute shockers.

 personally, i prefer the vinyl version of this album and i have the 

remastered mono version.

well, i actually have two copies. one to play and one for display... what ?

as ever. the floor of stokes hall tells a story.

what the what ?!

a note from somebody offering davy jones's solo albums

and enquiring after a mike nesmith compilation...

and hey hey here's a ten dollar note !

i also noticed on the floor, near to a live recording of a buzzcocks gig ( on vhs )

the christmas card that i sent to him last year.

check out my trainers today by the way... nike air yeezys

zen grey editions. excellent choice.

i asked the earl what kind of operation he was running here.

how could he possibly know where anything was ?

he then challenged me to name an album and he would find it in seconds.

( for legal reasons the earl has asked that his features are disguised )

he'd lent me a cd maybe 10 years ago by a band called

the wondermints. as i remember there were two really cracking tracks 

on it and i fancied hearing it again.

so i said..." where's your wondermints cd ? "

in a flash he was on his knees, moving boxes out of the way,

he pulled out a drawer, thumbed through a few cd cases and boom !

in about 5 or 6 seconds...

he had it in his hands... magic !

so i guess what i'm saying is... although it looks untidy to me,

stokes hall, like the radiohead song, really does have...

'everything in it's right place'

outside the hall were parked two of the earl's fleet of vehicles

either that or a couple of notting hill mums picking their kids up from school.

top man earl... top man.