LONDON GAY PRIDE 2010

Saturday afternoon saw the annual London Gay Pride March, with nearly a million spectators and participants lining the streets of the capital as well as gathering in Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square and Soho. It was certainly one of the warmest Pride days in a few years. Britain seems to be basking in some decent weather at last. And here in the South East it's now going into it's fourth week with drought warnings already in the news.
But this Pride was a special one in that it commemorated the brave few that first marched 40 years ago on the back of a lorry and put up with all sorts of insults, abuse and the odd missile, and just the kind of thing we're still seeing happening around the world even today. So it was good to see some of those older marchers that paved the way that led to a more acceptable tolerance that we now have although things are still not perfect. The Parade itself was probably a bit below par and for many it probably seemed too political, perhaps because of the 40th year celebrations.

One thing that was badly missing, and it's something that New York Pride does so well, was the lack of Bar and Club floats. Everyone knows that they never fail to sex up a gay pride parade. It wasn't until the Queer Youth Pride crowd arrived that things seemed to liven up. And leading the parade was Bumbling Boris Johnson The Conservative Mayor Of London, who frankly looked like he'd rather be somewhere else. At least former Mayor Ken Livingstone was prone to the odd moment of enthusiasm. And the last time I saw Mayor Bloomberg at NYC Gay Pride there seemed to be no problem with him being able to acknowledge the Fifth Avenue crowds.

The usual group of Christian fanatics representing The Church, now a dying British institution, set themselves up on their usual corner although they seemed to have been pushed back even further away from the Parade route by the Police so as to avoid any skirmishes, like ones that have often taken place in the past. These deluded people do themselves no favours by being there insulting gay people. It just puts another nail in the coffin of a once revered institution. I'm looking forward to Gay Rights activist Peter Tatchell's controversial Channel 4 documentary on The Pope coming on tv soon, thats if The Vatican dont get wind of it and try and ban it.

After the Parade huge crowds gathered at Trafalgar Square, in fact you could hardly move during the early afternoon. This might have had something to do with the Soho Square Stage and stall area being cancelled this year due to the Crossrail building project. But I did manage to catch a few acts there including Livin Joy, Kim Mazzelle The Gay Mens Chorus and the West End Show cast performing songs from 'Hair.' Actually our blog mascot Bloggy looks like he'd be suitable for an audition for the show. I dared venture into that bottleneck Soho what with the Soho Square stage area being cancelled so we went over to the Stage area in Leicester Square where absolutely nothing was going on. There was just a dj playing pumping music with nothing much else happening.
Normally we'd of had a whole afternoon of acts and entertainment including a few tranny hosts, but the cutbacks wer'e clearly showing. And everything that G.A.Y Club promoter Jeremy Joseph recently said about the demise of London Gay Pride clearly happened on Saturday.
There was a lot of gay press feedback the other week after his comments on Pride, and most were in agreement with his statements. We can only hope that some group of financial backers will soon come forward and rescue Pride and take it back to the golden days of 5 years ago when the whole Pride event was put on in one of the big London Parks, usually Finsbury Park. And believe me they were something to look forward to in the same way that carnival revellers prepare for the Rio Carnival/Mardi Gras. London Gay Pride photos by Deejohn@the beauty hunter