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º June 29th - July 4th 2001
Wednesday Prat
Tuesday Pangs of envy
Monday Party in the park
Sunday Mardi march
Saturday The odd small scream
Friday Shedding a second skin
º Wednesday 4th July 2001
I'm going away for a few days tomorrow - will try to blog, but no promises.
4th July? 4th July? Isn't that some kind of anniversary?
"My relationship with Sainsbury's is really honest... We have introduced five new herbs around the whole country, for crying out loud! Summer savory, golden marjoram, lemon thyme, lemon basil and purple basil. Right? Don't tell me that is not an amazing thing!"
Altogether now: "No, Jamie Oliver, that is not an amazing thing! And, yes, Jamie Oliver, you are a prat."
º Tuesday 3rd July 2001
Independent columnist Terence Blacker toys with the idea of twiddling some knobs, sexuality-wise: "There can have been few imaginative or adventurous heterosexuals who did not feel a pang of envy as Gay Pride Week unfolded"
Sic transit gloria mundane: The Big Brother house is to be pulled down and turned into a park. Presumably they'll get the contestants out first but, hey, we live in hope.
Meanwhile, the newly-evicted Bubble airs his credentials as a whiny prole in, where else, The Sun.
Ugh, time for some coffee.
º Monday 2nd July 2001
Mardi Gras coverage at on-line national news sites:
thisislondon.co.uk (Mail/Standard/Metro)
01/07/2001: Scary Spice is Mardi Gras queen
30/06/2001: 400 gay couples to be blessed at Mardi Gras festival
29/06/2001: Gay London prepares for Mardi Gras
29/06/2001: The Gras is always greener in N4
15/06/2001: Get your March-ing boots on...
independent.co.uk (The Independent)
30/06/2001: London's pride as Mardi Gras showcases its drive to become gay capital of the world
30/06/2001: Philip Hensher: Gay Pride may be just a party, but it's still political
30/06/2001: A lot done, a lot still to do when it comes to gay rights
guardianunlimited.co.uk (Guardian/Observer)
01/07/2001: Mardi Gras party drops the politics
01/07/2001: Sexual healing
30/06/2001: Now men in black are after the pink pound
news.bbc.co.uk (BBC)
None
thetimes.co.uk (The Times)
None
telegraph.co.uk (The Telegraph)
None
An article in the Sunday Independent about how the London Mardi Gras organisers plan to make it "the biggest fiesta in the world in the most tolerant city on the planet."
Nice to see that it's not only the punters who are on drugs, then.
As a corrective to that, try a dose of the predictably snippy Phillip Hensher in the same issue: The general intention to get pissed in public, messed up, and give your telephone number to as many 24-year-old Brazilians as you possibly can is, I suppose, in its own way a political gesture..."
(He also has a go at, yay, Cardinal Winning, "...who was being rather fantastically commended in this week's Spectator as a proponent of tolerance rather than, for instance, a horse's arse.")
Five things I liked about Mardi Gras in the park:
- Wandering round with David, Jonathan, and Andy: "four tour guides and no tour."
- The Fantasy Cottage (if you know what I mean, you'll know what I mean.)
- Seeing thirty or forty people that I knew, however briefly. (Hi Iain!, Hi Tom!, Hi Rob!, Hi Charles!, Hi Seth! Hi Sean!, Hi Leke! Hi Danny! Hi Craig! Hi Gilles! Hi Poppy! Hi, hell, everybody else!)
- Being the only one of the four of us who could blow up the free football.
- The excellent sex I had whilst waiting for the crowds at the station to die down a little.
And five things I didn't like about Mardi Gras in the park:
- The stoooopid beer-token system. Granted, the time you had to queue for tokens was probably less than the time you'd otherwise have fought to get served at a cash bar. But what are we supposed to do with our unused tokens? (If the organisers have any sense they will have arranged a refund system, if only a chance to use them to buy beer at Comptons. If not, I predict a huge cynical backlash.) Next time sell beads rather than tokens - then we can at least get some wear out of them after the event. Make them available beforehand, too; we did not appreciate having to queue for half an hour after we'd finally made it into the park.
- Paying fifteen quid to spend some time walking around with my mates, spending three quid for each beer. Does not compute. (Though I guess it kept out most of the push-chairs.) Next year, let's have a loyalty points system: one bead for every drink purchased in a gay bar, 50 beads equals a tenner off the entrance fee.
- The much-vaunted Strongbow lounging tent - a symptomatically plastic experience.
- The acts on stage. Crap, crap, crap. (Sadly, I missed Tatchell and Livingstone.) No memorial balloons? No fireworks!!? Feh.
- Running out of cash on my mobile just when I needed to find everyone again. (The coverage, by the way, worked fine for me.)
º Sunday 1st July 2001
Up early, after four hours sleep, to meet David, Scally, Jonathan, Mark, Andy and Guy at Green Park for the Mardi Gras march.
I've not seen it debated anywhere, but a moment's thought reveals a cultural problematic in that phrase: here in Britain, and in London especially, we have a long and honourable tradition of taking to the streets to demonstrate our opinions on various causes (Vietnam, Miners, Poll Tax.)
A Mardi Gras parade, on the other hand, is an alien concept for us (not least because of our fickle climate: even unilaterally declaring Mardi Gras moved from February to June can't mend that.)
In the past, given gay men's tendency to jump into costume at the drop of a diamante-encusted, feather-bedecked hat, that has resulted in some dissonance as newspapers illustrate their stories about 'x thousand gay men and women took to the streets yesterday in pursuit of their civil rights' with pictures of transvestite nuns, drag queens and condoms on roller skates.
Although there were plenty of whistles, and a sprinkling of placards (including Pride not Profit), there was precious little politics on show yesterday, despite the event's avowed theme of equal partnership rights.
Precious little carnival spirit either, though the dancers on the half a dozen or so floats did their best to look lively in the face of the odd light shower. (I'm ashamed to admit that the highlight of the march for me was a brief glimpse of Paul Keating dancing nearly-naked on the Closer to Heaven float. I want that man.)
So: not so much a Mardi Gras march as a mildly gay amble; we waved at some familiar faces as they passed (Hi Andy! Hi Alex! Hi Colin!) we joined in for the stroll down Picadilly and then swerved off (Hi Dorian! Hi Garry! Hi tall-skinhead-in-boots-with-a-piss-fetish!) for a drink in Old Compton Street.
Lots of familiar faces in Old Compton Street (Hi Craig! Hi Karl!) which was busy enough to make it impassable to cars - although several cars tried, and got roundly abused for their trouble ("Honey, the last time somebody tried to drive down here at Mardi Gras we trashed their car. For the sake of your windscreen wipers, I urge you to back up.")
Some discussion of why the only music in the street was supplied from a friendly first-floor window (they didn't have any Kylie, we asked); some discussion of why the huge rainbow flag was wrapped around itself the moment it was unfurled; much recognition of people from previous sexual escapades (Hi man-who-likes-to-drink-from-your-toilet!) And then we wanda'd down to Leicester Square to catch the tube to Finsbury Park.
The crowded journey to Pride Mardi Gras is often one of the highlights of the day, with much boa-waving and whistle-blowing. Our journey was enlivened by the driver's announcements: "This is a COCKfosters train. Finsbury Park station is closed due to over-crowding, please disembark at ARSEnal station."
And thence to the park. Of which...more later.
º Saturday 30th June 2001
Rob thinks that these kids book titles have done the rounds, but they're new to me, and I love them, especially:
2. The Boy Who Died From Eating All His Vegetables
5. Curious George and the High-Voltage Fence
6. All Cats Go To Hell
9. That's It, I'm Putting You Up For Adoption
10. The Magic World Inside the Abandoned Refrigerator
11. Strangers Have The Best Candy
12. You Were an Accident
14. Pop! Goes the Hamster... And Other Microwave Games
18. Daddy Drinks Because You Cry
19. Why Can't Mr. Fork and Mrs. Electrical Outlet Be Friends.
Further double-takes (including the odd small scream) from Derek, Anthony, Gill, Jamie, Eliott and John.
º Friday 29th June 2001
Our plan for tomorrow, should you care to join us, is to meet at Green Park at 1230, followed by a pint or three in the West End, and then (unless the weather is really crap) onto the park. (We don't have tickets yet but I don't anticipate that being a problem.) See you there?
Alright, I admit that a major motivation for finally getting a bloody mobile was the need to find umpteen needles in a gaystack at Finsbury Park tomorrow.
And now the discodamaged list comes up with the news that none of the mobile companies have any plans to add extra coverage for the 85,000 people expected in the park. Hmmmph.
As discodamaged words up:You stand a better chance texting and you'll also free up the networks for others who need them, like us.
Text only, people.
Given that gay pride events traditionally celebrate the riots outside New York's Stonewall Inn on June 27th 1969, I'd always assumed that they all happened on the same weekend.
Judging by this exhaustive list, however, it seems not only are we everywhere, we're all over the shop as well.
(Londoners, if it rains tomorrow, take a look at this edited version and consider where else you'd rather be than trapped in Finsbury Park with a bunch of straights.)
Akron, Ohio, USA - October 11-14
Amsterdam, Holland - August 2-5
Bangkok, Thailand - November 2-4
Belfast, Northern Ireland - July 24 - August 4
Berlin, Germany - June 16-23
Blackpool, England - September 1-30
Cologne, Germany - July 6-8
Dublin, Ireland - June 21-31
Istanbul, Turkey - June 30
Johannesburg, South Africa - September 24-29
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA - May 11-12
Los Angeles June 15-17
Madrid, Spain - June 25-July 1
Mexico City, Mexico - June 30
New York City, Ny, USA - June 17-24
Preston, England - September 1-30
Reykjavik, Iceland - August 11
St. Petersburg, Russia - July 21-August 1
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA - June 9-10
San Francisco, California USA - June 23-24
Sao Paulo, Brasil - June 14-17
Stockholm, Sweden - August 1-5
Tel Aviv, Israel - June 18-25
Tokyo, Japan - August 25-26
Toronto, Ontario, Canada - June 18-24
Toulouse, France - June 9
Washington, DC, USA - June 10
For more on early gay history, check this out.
MSG 2 MY M8S. ME NOW MOBI.
Yesterday, at 1630 hrs, I shed a second skin - an event that managed to be, at the same time, both head-spinningly transformative and mind-numbingly trivial.
Worth it for the double-takes though from (in chronological order): Steve, David, Rob, Brent, Dorian, Paul, Andy, Alex and Karl.
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