I was at the Notting Hill Carnival over the Bank Holiday weekend. I took a few photos and uploaded them to Flickr.
While I was there I posted a tweet complaining about the boarded up shops. I attributed the boards to the fact that there have been disturbances and vandalism in previous years. However, one source who grew up in the area tells me that there have always been boarded up shops, mainly to stop people relieving themselves in shop doorways, rather than for fear of broken windows.