[A/N: This was a fun time. Originally published 4/7/2009. - AK, 18/7/10]
Hell of a title, don’t you think? So, I’m a man of my word (when it suits me) and when I said I’d go to the gay pride parade in London today, I meant it. I’ve been twittering about it the whole time, and now I’m back, trying to collect all of my thoughts.
The most important thing to say is that I had a fantastic time. Even if you’re one of those weird heterosexual people, I can’t recommend Pride enough; it’s an absolute spectacle. On a personal level, I’m really pleased that I managed to get up there and enjoy myself in spite of all the anxiety I was feeling beforehand, because it would have been really easy for me to talk myself out of it.
So I got to the start at Baker Street early, in time to watch the floats setting up. I had a couple of cigarettes and watched people arriving. This was what it was like ten minutes after I got there:
click to embiggenate these, by the wayBy way of comparison, this was it about an hour and three-quarters later:
I kept milling around in Baker Street until 1pm, and managed to take some interesting photos in the process.
Some bloke stopped me to moan about ‘the glorification of the gays’ in a thick northern accent, and then walked off when I asked exactly what was wrong with that. Apparently the National Front were around somewhere; I didn’t see them, but they must have seen me because at one point I heard a characteristic Neanderthal voice directed at me. We didn’t have any more meaningful conversation than ‘Oi, gayboy’. I’ve had worse invective directed at me than that, lads. Try harder next year.
Anyway, the parade was a little bit behind schedule so I walked amongst my brethren for a few minutes. In the process, I saw a drag queen with awesome boots, a mostly-naked DJ working out of the back of a milkfloat, and a large group of lesbians on rollerskates. I didn’t get any pictures of them, unfortunately. In addition, many, many very pretty Londoners. By the end of the day, I was starting to feel more than a little inadequate by comparison. I also got my picture taken by a gay Jedi and a photographer from the British Museum.
Which leads me to one of my resolutions; next time I go to Pride, I’m not going on my own. I mean, it was fine, but by the time we got to Trafalgar Square I was seeing couples everywhere, and it was beginning to get to me. So, I have a major boyfriend-want going on. I shall have to either badger the youth group people about the youth group, or just start getting out more on my own.
That’s not very relevant, though. The parade finally moved off, although it was start-stop for a while. I think the stewards were having to push people out of the way of the fire engine at the front. You’d think it’d be hard to miss a bright red truck covered in rainbow flags and balloons, with lights and sirens on. This was the front of the bit of the parade I was in:
It was looking a lot like rain at this point, which would have made for a) the world’s largest wet T-shirt contest and b) several cases of hypothermia. Luckily, the weather held, proving once and for all that God, who totally exists and takes an interest in weather, is on our side. It having quite literally not rained on our parade, things got going. Here are some police, policing:
Eagle-eyed viewers will be able to detect that by this point, I’m not actually in the parade. This is because I’m a fucking idiot, and in the course of wandering off to get photos found myself stuck behind the crowd, and the crowd-barriers, for most of the parade. Which brings me to resolution two: stay. in. the. fucking. road.
The parade moved on, and I managed to get a few photos over the tops of people’s heads and so on:
The parade’s not actually moving in that last one, as the police had stopped it for a second. The reason why the police had stopped it for a second were these lovely people:
You can’t see him all that clearly, but the bloke in the grey suit was the preacher. He looked (and sounded) like a mix of Ian Paisley and Dave Allen. Very disconcerting. Anyway, he was up on a pulpit with, I think, ‘Zion Tabernacle’ on it, shouting through a megaphone. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to what he was saying, but I recall him telling us to ‘be careful what you say, be careful what you think’ and mentioning that it all went down in God’s Permanent Record, The Great Big God-Damn Book Of Judgement (my words, not his).
I would have remonstrated with him, but there was an immobile line of police between us. They were visibly counting the minutes until their shift ended. Ultimately I settled for standing in front of the christianists for a while until the parade caught up, blowing kisses at them. This didn’t go down very well.
The best part was that once the parade finally got going, everyone turned round and crowded back to the barriers to cheer it, leaving the preacherman to keep on preaching to our backs. I kept moving, and as I got further away from the counter-protest they gradually got drowned out by whistles and sirens (the firemen in the big gay fire engine up front were having fun with them, clearly).
the big gay fire engine The time the parade had been stalled had put me right at the front, so I got some pictures of the fucking massive rainbow flag, and the political-types:
The placard-bearers were the Homintern. Best slogans: ‘Fuck “no politics”‘, ‘Homosexuality is a heterosexual concept anyway’, ‘fluff is not a lifestyle: gays must vote’, ‘I am not Graham Norton’. Worst slogan: ‘BBC: Being gay does not equal rubbish’. Sentiment’s right, but I feel it needs some work.
By this point we were nearing Trafalgar Square, a guy had just kissed me in the middle of the street to the point where I practically needed a crowbar to separate us, and I got a good look at the marchers who were actually marching:
They looked awesome, for the record. And kept their rhythm over the noise of a samba band. Alas, I didn’t manage to get photos of the Navy, Police or Ambulance Service. I have one, blurry, weirdly-angled photo of the MoD people, much like Loch Ness monster ‘proof’:
We got into Trafalgar Square, but I didn’t get any good photos at all. I did see them rolling up the über-pride flag:
The parade finished there, and I didn’t stick around for any of the after-events (Resolution #3: Afterparty), as it felt a bit like pushing my luck. The heat was nearly killing me, for one thing. This was the main stage, though:
Oh, and this made me smile:
All in all, I’m really glad I went to Pride. I think it’s important, not just to me but also politically. Plus, it was fun. I’m glad I made the effort, and I’m, well… proud that I managed it.
On the train home, I saw an old beer ad painted onto the wall of a house. Very faded, but still legible. In big white letters, ‘TAKE COURAGE‘. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.
