Pride 2012
Dear London
Thank you for letting us walk through your streets the other day. It was pretty awesome.
Lots of love, me
So yesterday was Pride. I'd never gone before and I had no idea what it would be like. Apparently it's been very different this year, because Pride ran out of money to stage its usual event, so instead of having a parade, there was a march which started earlier. I got to hold aloft the TransLondon banner, which was a three person affair, for parts of the route from Baker Street to Trafalgar Square.
I'm completely intimidated by crowds, so I organised some of us to meet together before the march at a pub I've come across near Baker Street while I've been visiting the tall women's shops on Chiltern Street. The pub, called the Globe, sits in between Baker Street and Chiltern Street, and it's actually quite nice.
We then walked down Chiltern Street to Portman Square, where the march was supposed to start. However my cleverness undid us, since I'd been hoping to avoid the crowds. Instead, the whole march was being staged in sections from Portman Square to Baker Street, and TransLondon was right at the back. So, having walked passed them, we walked all the way to the front looking for them, not knowing we had done so. Then, with time running out, we started to walk all the way back, which was no mean feat considering the crowds. Fortunately, the march kept getting later and later in its start.
Eventually, we found the FTM London and Press for Change in the yellow section and we decided that they were the best plan in the event of failing to find anyone. One helpful person told us where TransLondon was. So one person went out to look for them and telephoned that they found them. So on we went to find them again. Having found them, we got the banner set up and took our place, while I chatted to some of the people around me, which included the LGBT group for those involved in politics and some BDSM gay men's group, who were really flamboyantly dressed, having a guy in spiky fetish gear on stilts among lots of other very scantily clad men. Before the political people were lawyers for equality, who were in legal robes and the like.
Having stressed myself out completely in nearly not finding the TransLondon banner, everyone decided to move down to join up with FTM and PFC in the yellow section, so this is what we did. Fortunately, the march was so utterly and totally late by this point that we could get away with it.
One of the guys holding the PFC banner had a pikatchu costume on, which was fun. But it was the leather guys behind us who got lots of cheers. We also had a brass band in front of us who were pretty awesome, launching into Lady Gaga, YMCA and one other song I can't remember on a rotating basis. This made marching a lot of fun and it gave a decent metre to march to.
The march eventually started, but because the roads weren't totally closed off, there was a lot of stop-start to the whole thing. We always got warned that we were about to start marching when the brass band ahead of us started to play. They had a very specific "we are about to play" roll that they did. Then we'd march a few metres and stop. In the beginning we stopped a lot but by the end, we were marching fairly consistently.
We wended our way through Oxford Street, into Picadilly and through Haymarket onto Trafalgar Square, swapping banner carriers when someone got tired and helping out when someone needed to put a coat on or take a coat off because the weather went from rain to sunny in no time at all. Right near the end, the wind picked up and nearly floored the PFC people.
Then, when we'd gone through Trafalgar Square, into Whitehall and onto Whitehall Place, where the march ended, some of us decided that we were really hungry and so we nipped across the bridge to Waterloo and went to the Strada there. Soon after that, I went home and ended up collapsed on the sofa, being completely finished by the whole experience.
Thank you for letting us walk through your streets the other day. It was pretty awesome.
Lots of love, me
So yesterday was Pride. I'd never gone before and I had no idea what it would be like. Apparently it's been very different this year, because Pride ran out of money to stage its usual event, so instead of having a parade, there was a march which started earlier. I got to hold aloft the TransLondon banner, which was a three person affair, for parts of the route from Baker Street to Trafalgar Square.
I'm completely intimidated by crowds, so I organised some of us to meet together before the march at a pub I've come across near Baker Street while I've been visiting the tall women's shops on Chiltern Street. The pub, called the Globe, sits in between Baker Street and Chiltern Street, and it's actually quite nice.
We then walked down Chiltern Street to Portman Square, where the march was supposed to start. However my cleverness undid us, since I'd been hoping to avoid the crowds. Instead, the whole march was being staged in sections from Portman Square to Baker Street, and TransLondon was right at the back. So, having walked passed them, we walked all the way to the front looking for them, not knowing we had done so. Then, with time running out, we started to walk all the way back, which was no mean feat considering the crowds. Fortunately, the march kept getting later and later in its start.
Eventually, we found the FTM London and Press for Change in the yellow section and we decided that they were the best plan in the event of failing to find anyone. One helpful person told us where TransLondon was. So one person went out to look for them and telephoned that they found them. So on we went to find them again. Having found them, we got the banner set up and took our place, while I chatted to some of the people around me, which included the LGBT group for those involved in politics and some BDSM gay men's group, who were really flamboyantly dressed, having a guy in spiky fetish gear on stilts among lots of other very scantily clad men. Before the political people were lawyers for equality, who were in legal robes and the like.
Having stressed myself out completely in nearly not finding the TransLondon banner, everyone decided to move down to join up with FTM and PFC in the yellow section, so this is what we did. Fortunately, the march was so utterly and totally late by this point that we could get away with it.
One of the guys holding the PFC banner had a pikatchu costume on, which was fun. But it was the leather guys behind us who got lots of cheers. We also had a brass band in front of us who were pretty awesome, launching into Lady Gaga, YMCA and one other song I can't remember on a rotating basis. This made marching a lot of fun and it gave a decent metre to march to.
The march eventually started, but because the roads weren't totally closed off, there was a lot of stop-start to the whole thing. We always got warned that we were about to start marching when the brass band ahead of us started to play. They had a very specific "we are about to play" roll that they did. Then we'd march a few metres and stop. In the beginning we stopped a lot but by the end, we were marching fairly consistently.
We wended our way through Oxford Street, into Picadilly and through Haymarket onto Trafalgar Square, swapping banner carriers when someone got tired and helping out when someone needed to put a coat on or take a coat off because the weather went from rain to sunny in no time at all. Right near the end, the wind picked up and nearly floored the PFC people.
Then, when we'd gone through Trafalgar Square, into Whitehall and onto Whitehall Place, where the march ended, some of us decided that we were really hungry and so we nipped across the bridge to Waterloo and went to the Strada there. Soon after that, I went home and ended up collapsed on the sofa, being completely finished by the whole experience.