June 25th - July 1st 2007
Sunday Regent Street
Saturday Pride
Friday A HINDU WEDDING
Thursday Heroic
Wednesday Welwyn
Tuesday Cleansed
Monday Columbia Road
Sunday 1st July
Regent Street, Summer 2007
Saturday 30th June
Rain fails to dampen gay pride
You can imagine the headlines, can't you? If, that is, any newspapers had stirred themselves to cover what's hardly a hot issue these days - in London at least.
A London beset by terrorists, and by torrential rain: hardly the most inspiring milieu - but those of us who turned up, myself included, put on a largely brave, not to say proud face, and attitudinised their way from Baker Street to Trafalgar Square in what must surely be one of the best-organised cavalcades in the long history of Pride.
Tucked into a damp niche opposite the Apple store, I managed to see (and photograph) the entire parade - a personal best. And then I went and sat inside Comptons and got slowly very drunk, looking out at a sea of umbrellas.
Quite a gay day, all things considered.
Friday 29th June
A HINDU WEDDING
[click for 54 pix]
Thursday 28th June
Heroes, NBC's popular epic drama series, airs here on BBC2 in August - so I've been busy grabbing episodes via the usual unusual channels in order to have an opinion prior to the event.
And I like it.
For one thing, it's not the usual comic-book pap: one of the superheroes earns her living doing raunchy videos on the internet, another comes back to life on the autopsy table, with her skin peeled back to reveal her liver and lights.
It also has a very distinct look to it: more than the usual number of head-shots, it seems to me, all shot from slightly below. Plus, to be sure, some stunning special effects - as you'd expect.
Not as gripping as West Wing (what could be?), nor as witty as The Sopranos, and so far lacking in any kind of philosophic overview (which you might think obligatory in a drama about witlessly extraordinary people) but good stuff nonetheless - with a massive cliff-hanger at the end of each 45 minute episode.
Plus: Christopher Eccleston suddenly turns up in the closing minutes of episode 12.
Watch out for it, is my advice.
Wednesday 27th June
Welwyn, Summer 2007
Tuesday 26th June
Last week, the Telegraph unilaterally closed down Latin Cleaner's myTelegraph blog, following a handful of complaints from some of their more spittle-flecked readers.
I guess that's their right, especially given that Latin Cleaner has a parallel blog out there in unmediated-media-land (here), complete with a chance to see all of the content that the Telegraph finally decided to take exception to.
A few days ago, as is his right, Latin Cleaner started up a new myTelegraph blog (with marginally less inflammatory tags and pics).
It will be (mildly) interesting to see how this one develops.
One thing that's been notably absent so far is any kind of comment from Telegraph management: Latin Cleaner says they didn't even send him any kind of closure notice - slightly shoddy, you might think, in a newspaper that's generally uber-keen to toe the party line on free speech and democratic values.
Ironically, there's a good article waiting to be written here, investigating the whole issue of information wanting to be free - but I don't imagine any of the Telegraph's columnists eager to dive into it.
(One thing I really don't understand: how come nobody in authority has pointed out the most basic point in all this - that, if you don't like what somebody writes, don't read it?)
Monday 25th June
Columbia Road, Summer 2007
......previous week
