Happy pride. This weekend was London's gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, gender confused, gender unconcerned, polysexual, gay curious, ex-lesbian, latina dragqueen, and everyone else festival. It draws an enormous crowd but manages none of the style, excitement or level of pride that other cities do (San Francisco.) Sure, there's a parade meandering through the streets of Westminster where you can go and gawk at the awkwardly ungawkworthy paraders ("I'm a lesbian Tube driver and all I got was this stupid tshirt") or the club queens who clearly didn't feel any more pride with go-go dancing on a float in the middle of chaos than with dry humping an out-of-towner at Trade. Then you can end up in Finsbury Park -- if you pay your ticket and can manage to find the flipping bus from King's Cross -- to listen to the newest round of vaguely ambiguous boy bands ("Are they interesting or not? I just can't tell") and has-been gay icons whilst paying too much money at corporate sponsored lager stands and cruising either the same boys you cruise who ignore you on Old Compton Street or the small village gays who've snuck out of a Beatrix Potter book to stand around like a group of Miss Marple movie extras but secretly like to be spanked by canoe paddles whilst bleating like a foot and mouth diseased ridden sheep.



Wow, do I sound bitter. I didn't even go. I was recovering from a second night in a row of pretending I'm young enough to stay out past two am. Friday night we did the usual, went to the local gastro-pub to drink bottles of white wine and eat olives and chat with Geroge, the bar manager who knows our names, our regular drinks, and anything else we've told him in a vino haze. Then went onto John's private club, Home House, the stunning 18th century mansion that was home to the French Embassy and Courtauld Institute, but which is now the hunting ground for the wealthy and terribly uninteresting, and the ravenous peroxide anorexics who clearly think that sucking down gin and tonics is foreplay and that vomit is an aphrodesiac. An awful thing to happen to such nice architecture. But then, I guess I would never really be happy there until I could sweept through the neo-classical halls in pantaloons and powdered wigs.



Saturday, foregoing the hoopla above, I had dinner with Kirsten at the always amazing Rasa Kurmuda in Charlotte Street which specialises in seafood from the Kerala district of India -- crab in masala spice and tamarind, a delicious flatbread stuffed with crab omelette and curry leaves. We quizzed our waiter about the various mysteries of smoked tamarinds and spicy okras and licked the spicy paste of our finders. Then went to the Charlotte Street Hotel bar, den of trendy american new media types, to gawk at the hunky Australian bartender with the hairy forearms (what is it about those accents?). So I didn't march in a parade, but still managed a bit of gay and a bit of pride.