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.