Brighton Pride And Other Things

Ok. Friday (nothing exciting happened Thursday) at work David (the old, there's two and this is the one that annoys me) started insulting gay men and women vis a vis the whole gay bishop row. It annoyed me enough that I lashed out, using all my A-level Religious Studies abilities to destroy his argument. After that, a bit deflated, he goes "Well what with you going to Brighton and your defending of gay men, people might start to talk Jason." This was when everyone else in the room (who all actually have spent the time getting to know me thus know I'm gay) laughed at him. Ha ha! Pride power!

After work Zoe came and got me and we went and saw Legally Blonde 2 at the cinema ("Your. Dogs. Are. GAY!") Which was cool. I stayed over her house, and in the morning quickly (ha!) got my haircut at the barbers which was stupidly busy for 8.30 in the morning!

She came and got me and we headed off to Brighton, via Jon's house where he and Ben (covered in glitter of course) followed us in his car. They soon over took us, and we headed into traffic. The M25 is hell! Oh well wasn't too bad. We got into Brighton, to discover Ben and Jon right behind us. They had stopped at a service station, had something to eat and still caught up with us!

Zoe made an executive decision and we parked in Varndean Road which turned out to be quite near Preston Park where Pride was. Went to Pride, where there was a huge fun fair filled with extremely scary rides!! There was stalls everywhere! Porn, wigs, t-shirts. After watching the end of the parade, and a fancy dress contest we wandered around. Meet up with Saul (see London Pride post). I bought Zoe a rainbow bandana (kept saying banana). Zoe got a henna tattoo. Me, Zoe and Ben went into a tent that was advertised as a circus. It was in fact a scarily sauna like line dancing tent of doom!!! AH!!!! The cabaret tent wasn't up to much, we saw the most bizarre touch rugby game ever with trannie lines men with pom poms.

The pole dancing display was amusing, the Red Devil van was selling lovely drinks called Ice Burst and gicing out water pistols.... Zoe kept getting me.... he he.... when we got to the Amnesty International stall (I give em £4 a month so I was not to be parted from any more of my money!) the lady was talking to us and said "Amnesty supports gays, lesbians and transsexuals" (gives Ben a knowing look). Was most amusing, guess it was cos Ben has just been at the wig stall. I won a dolphin toy (now named Dolph) on a grab a bag competion. After getting some noodles and watching some martial arts (how oriental!) we got bored and decided to head into town. Via the car. Which involved a lot of walking.

Now. Bearing in mind this was my first trip back to Brighton since it sent me insane (have you all read my January 2002 posts?) I thought it might be scary going back. But turned out to be just like slipping back into comfy well used slippers. We went to Spoons (of course!!) which was rather posh for once. Then headed to St James Street, after a stop in a pub which was really hot, and where Ben kept twitching his legs, we decided to walk up and down the street like plonkers till Jon made an executive decision and we ended up in the Queens Arms (just opposite the Kings Arms which is strange). They were having a Camp Attack in there. Was ok, if very small! Went to Safeways, where I bought an Argus (ah the memories), got taxi back to car, Jon went off gallavanting and Zoe kindly drove me and Ben home. Thanks love.

Thanks again to Zoe for driving me there and for not running away scared!! He he...

Pride links:

Here

And here. Kent police were there too which almost makes up for them not being allowed to wear uniform in the London parade... almost...