I once happened to be in Glasgow at this time of year and was curious about the annual big orange walk through the city so decided to go and watch it. As I emerged from Central Station, I heard the sound of drumming in the distance and it sounded pretty good so I followed the direction of the sound, expecting at any moment to turn a corner and see the bigots marching in all their glory.

What I found instead was a little African guy sitting on the pavement playing a pair of bongo drums. It turned out the marchers had already been and gone. I later consoled myself by watching some of the videos of the march on youtube and leaving facetious comments about not realising Glasgow celebrated Gay Pride so enthusiastically.

That was great sport so this year I decided to go to youtube again and do the same thing. I’ve had one response so far from a ‘MrJimthejock’ :

skepticat1, i bet you take part in gay pride marches..in fact i bet you are the gay pride queen!!!

Naturally, I am devastated by MrJimthejock’s incisive wit  and I’m wondering how I’ll ever recover.

Talking of Gay Pride and Glasgow, I recall a great brouhaha a few years ago, when a bunch of small-minded firefighters were told to attend the Glasgow Pride and distribute fire safety literature. Yes, that’s all they were told to do: attend a public event where there would be thousands of people and give out a few leaflets. They were disciplined for refusing, snivelling like a bunch of little girls that they were afraid they’d be sexually harassed or some such nonsense but they were treated like heroes by a cross-section of the Glasgow public, who left their sanctimonious and obnoxious comments on the website of the Herald newspaper and elsewhere.

At the time, Scotland was welcoming visitors with an advertising campaign modestly proclaiming itself to be ‘the best small country in the world’.

Funnily enough, they never mentioned the dinosaurs.

Bigots

These guys on the right gave a great performance. They’d obviously been rehearsing a long time and — it may be a cliché — but they lived the part.

I was at the Pride by accident. I’d forgotten it was on but I emerged from Charing Cross station into Trafalgar Square and found myself in the middle of it. I didn’t stay long because I wanted to catch the last few hours of the nearby summer science exhibition, which was fab, by the way.

I was sorry I missed the parade through Central London an hour earlier but was delighted to catch this piece of street theatre by a small group of players, mainly old men and a few women wearing strange hats.

They had set up stall a short distance from the thonged throngs and were obviously determined to bring the Lord’s Word to as many sinners as possible.

I never thought I’d find myself saying I’d been to the Pride and seen a freak show but that’s exactly what this was. It was like they were just begging people to taunt them and jeer at them and people were happy to oblige. But whatever people did, the Christians, who were heavily protected by grinning police officers, bravely stood their ground and continued to rant endlessly about what Jesus said, as if anyone cared.

Even this inconsiderate couple, who went and stood in front of them and started snogging passionately to huge cheers from everyone else, failed to intimidate the valiant Christian soldiers, though a few of them may have got disconcerting erections.

Only when the dude in the blue frock and stilletoes (see pic below) went over and started wagging a finger at them did the steely masks crack and cold fear flash across the faces of the ranters, even though she was only giving them some much-needed style advice.

The Pride rocks!