Yes or no: Pride events

Notorious sporan-wearing Yorkshire poof Piggy McPigster made a very good point about Pride events in a comment on my previous post. Here it is:

"I really can't stand all this 'Pride' shite.

As I see it, it's no longe about being 'out' and getting some kind of acknowledgement for actually existing and (hopefully) gaining some kind of acceptance.

The whole thing has been commercialised to the point of becoming vomit inducing - the bars out to fleece everyone for every penny in their pocket, the clubs doing the same thing and - and this is where it really fucking annoys me - help only to strengthen the 'gay ghetto'.

I don't know about the dykes, but as far as the poofs are concerned, it's just one long jolly - everyone out to get as pissed as they can and to shag anyone they can get their hands on. Hence why you see the same old faces at every pride event around the country and beyond.

I don't feel the need to visit or take part in Pride events. I also have no need to line the pockets of the straights who once would never touch us but have now discovered the money to be made from us. I also don't need to visit such events to feel 'love' or to be part of a so-called community (biggest crock of shite I ever heard).

I'm a human being, first of all and that makes me feel proud enough. Events such as this do nothing to enhance the image we have, despite what anyone says."


He's right of course. The Village in Manchester is teeming with people making money out of people who they probably don't care too much for. The takeaways and taxi firms there are run by people of a certain religion that would happily see all LGBT people hanged, stoned or burned to death. During the Big Weekend, stall holders rake it in selling tat, the main bars have floats on the parade that are manned by muscular straight boys, some of whom clearly find approaches by enthusiastic gay blokes quite distasteful. Then again, given some of the enthusiastic gay blokes, most gay blokes would probably find them distasteful.

So why support Pride? Why line the pockets of those who hate us? Why put on a freak-show display for the sake of straight people who think that being gay is all fun and games, a constant party?

Let's have a look at some of the messages from the parade itself. First of all, the Christians and the National Front were positioned at prominent locations on the route. This is a leaflet the Christians were handing out:

Then there are the statistics in the UK:

Attitudes towards people with HIV/AIDS:

The global attitudes to homosexuality:

So I guess it's important to show ourselves to the world every now and again to remind people that yes, we're normal, but no we're not the same. Some like to get the message across a little more subtly:

Not all Christians are obsessed with being shocked and appalled at who people have sex with:

Of course, some just like to make a show of themselves.

And some fuckers get to ride a tank through the streets of Manchester!

I think Pride is an important and necessary event. Gay people are still not accepted. I still have difficulty with things, still have to pretend to be "living with a friend" to my family. You still have to be careful about where you go on holiday, and worry about whether you can hold your partner's hand in public in certain parts of town.

For an interesting angle on Manchester Pride and how people find it abhorrent that, while businesses make up to about £20m from the event, the charities that it is supposed to support get about £65,000, check out www.get-bent-manchester.com. They even invaded the main parade.

So, think on and look sharp. And if you don't want to line the pockets of the bar owners, try to slip a bottle vodka in your man bag, or under the back of your mullet.

Keep right

You know when you're driivng along a motorway or dual carriageway and there's somebody pootling along in the outside lane, refusing to pull in? Have a look to see if they've got a sat nav stuck to their windscreen. If they have, you can bet your life that, rather than thinking about how to drive properly, they're actually obeying Jane Tom Tom, the sat nav woman as she tells them "Keep right" on the motorway.

Seriously, I used my sat nav yesterday and that's what it says, all the time, keep right. I was concerned; there are a number of really really thick people in this country. People who can't read maps or follow road signs. But surely nobody is stupid enough to stay in the outside lane of a motorway when they're not overtaking, just because a computer-generated voice tells them to?

When I got back to the office after my trip, I mentioned this to my colleague. "I bet some people are thick enough to think that this means they should stay in the outside lane", I scoffed.

"Well, funny you should say that. We were on the motorway the other day and my friend was driving. We were in the outside lane and she was going really slowly with all these cars flying past us in the inside lanes. I asked what she was doing and she said that the sat nav had said keep right, so that's what she was doing".

Thick cunt.

I think the fucking things should be banned. If your sat nav told you to drive on the railway, would you? Well, yes, people have done. Because they don't bother using their brains, or following road signs. Because some people are too fucking stupid to be allowed to even breath, let alone get behind the wheel of a car.

Using a sat nav is a bit like driving blindfold; I'm not sure I'm mad keen on the whole, although I admit to acknowledging their use when trying to find back of beyond places.



Pride
It's Manchester Pride this weekend. It's OK. We've already been treated to Belinda Carlisle in Friday's entertainment, tonight we get The Gossip. That Beth Ditto doesn't half scream.

Out in the Village last night, I felt really old. Loads of baby dyke clones, seemingly sponsored by Henleys, G-Star Raw, Hackett, Bench and St-St-Studio Line from Loreal (they're not even worth it!). Many modelled themselves on Shane from the L Word. Why can't anybody model themselves on Bette or Dana? I guess because most lesbians that go out in the Village are 14 years old short-arses.

I am quite horrified that there's a whole section given over to "Youth Pride" which excludes anybody over the age of 30. Not only is this a completely arbitrary cut off - surely a 29 year old can't be classed as a "youth" - but I thought age discrimination was illegal. Shocked and appalled. And so depressed at being so old.

And although I find it a touch distracting at first, it's good to see that all stage acts are accompanied by at least one person who signs for the Deaf. The PA system is so crap that even those without hearing problems need subtitles.

Today: the big parade. Photos to follow.

Rules are rules

I'm a stickler for following rules and I can't abide rule breaking.

I was in Morisson's supermarket earlier, getting some stuff for tea while trying to grab as many grocery and carrier bags for picking up poo (supplies are running low). Steak pie, oven chips, baking spuds and mushrooms in my basket, I headed for the "Hand baskets, cash only" till. The bloke being served paid by debit card. I could the hear woman behind him suck her teeth and I noticed her look up animatedly at the "hand baskets, cash only" sign.

They paid by cash. Gold star.

The young bloke in front of me paid by card too. BLACK MARK!

I pickced up the next cutomer bar, which clearly stated "Hand baskets, cash only", and placed it bheind my shopping on the conveyor as the woman behind me unloaded the contents of her TROLLEY.... yes, a TROLLEY!... onto the conveyor. I was shocked and appalled.

If people can't comply with simple rules of shopping, is there any hope that they'll comply with the law of the land? I don't think so.

Heading home, I was confronted by a psychotic bus driver as he swerved out of the bus depot, forcing me to swerve around him. He then drove up my arse until he could overtake; flying past at about 50mph - in a 30 zone! Where the fuck had the Drive Safe spying twat gone who'd been photographing motorists at that very spot just earlier on?

Bus drivers are all mental. And they're all total bastards too.

We're heading for total anarchy in the UK.


Salt of the earth
The working classes of Britain are the salt of the earth.

The woman from next door came out to meet us as we got back from walkies this afternoon. "He's a total pain in the arse" she said, referring to Rocky. I scuttled inside and let Trump deal with her.

According to her - whose husband often wakes us up hoiking up greenies through the night; who has visitors coming and going at all ours of night, slamming the front door; who has the telly on so loud that I can hear it from the bedroom - according to her, Little Rocky howls all day and into the early hours of the morning.

LIES! Yes, he's a little bastard who hates being left on his own, locked in the kitchen, but I know that he stops his yelps within about an hour or so of us leaving him - I've returned within this time to find him quiet. As for yelping into the early hours? LIES! He hasn't made a peep since he started sleeping in the living room over a week ago.

We live in terraced houses, you hear noises from your neighbours. We're often woken by our other neighbour phoning Karachi or Lahore or wherever and shouting for hours on end from 4am. We're often woken by numpties having arguments on the street.

I just loved the way she didn't come round and tell us, but instead waited until she collared us (Trump) in the street. Yes it's annoying, yes I hate upsetting the neighbours, but it's not as if it's something that we're doing deliberately. And it's not as if it's not getting better. I'm going to record him tomorrow and see how long he goes on for. If it's more than half an hour, we'll have a look at what can be done to stop him.

I might just suggest that she turns the telly up even louder than it already is. I'm surprised she can hear anything over that anyway.


Salt of the pie
I'm not liking the way that supermarkets are reducing the salt content of food these days. You buy a Tesco Indian meal and it's delish, but contains no salt. How can this be authentic? My pie was woefully lacking in salt. I'm sure you end up taking in more salt by adding it than you would've done if they'd just have kept the recipe as it was.

Fucking food Nazis.

Walkies!

We took the dog out for his first walk yesterday evening.

I'd waited for this moment for such a long time. The anticipation that builds up while waiting to walk your very first OWN dog almost rivals that of losing your virginity. Well not quite, most people would think that they'd eventually get a shag (even me), but not everybody gets to walk their very own pooch. Would it ever happen?

For years, I'd watched longingly at people taking their trusty pals on walks with them in the countryside.... and I'm referring to people walking dogs, not people going dogging... and watch from afar, hoping that a little pooch would find me exciting enough to come running to for some attention. Oh, how I loved the attention too; it was magical. A little doggy, with owners who loved it and whom it loved, finding time to come to lonely old me.

So the time was right at last! Little Rocky was finally ready to face the big world. Still too little to wear his new Foul Weather Coat that had dropped through the letterbox yesterday and not in the right part of town to wear his red paisley neckerchief, we thought that wearing his car harness was a good idea to enable us to pull him back without snapping his delicate little neck, should he want to get into mischief. He wasn't mad keen, but he got on with it.

Would Rocky be the sort of dog that walks calmly at your side? Would he become the sort of dog that can be walked off a lead? From last night's showing, no.

Rocky's first walk consisted of:

• Sniffing
• Pulling
• Running
• Jumping like a spring lamb
• Cowering from the attention of other dogs
• Barking at joggers
• Rolling in stuff

Most of these things I had kind of anticipated and didn't mind too much. What really got on my tits was the dog that insisted on following him around, nose firmly entrenched my poor puppy's backside. It's owner was somewhere on the other side of the field, oblivious to the nuisance he had unleashed. Fucking idiot. I asked Trump if I was allowed to kick it. She said no.

It wasn't the most successful trip out - it probably didn't help that I was distracting him while Trump was trying to walk him - but it could've been much worse. We decided that it might be best to take him out when it's quieter, both making a mental note of when the Yorkshire Terrorist was allowed to run feral.


Waking early Sunday morning
Half past five, Sunday 19th August: Sniffy is woken by the alarm. I argued with myself about just slinging him out into the back yard, but decided against it and got up to take him out while it was quiet. Aware of the risk of horrific murder in a frenzied attack, I wore my hi-visibility cagoul over my fleece - potential witnesses to the crime would remember seeing that particular ensemble.

Off we went. He was great. This has potential to be what walkies is supposed to be like. The only thing he growled at was an odd-looking Irish woman pushing a child's push chair that was laden with all sorts of things (I'm guessing her possessions), including a laundry basket.

And then it happened: his first wee. I was very proud of him. This was followed by even more frenzied sniffing and.... a poo! He'd done his first walkies poo! I was so proud of him, but then I had to get down to the task of picking it up using the inverted carrier bag technique (note: Tesco carriers have holes in them). From that distance, and what with me being totally conspicuous, it was obvious to the witnesses to my murder that the dog had pood. I could feel them saying "I bet she leaves that, dirty bitch". But would they be able to tell the difference between me messing about on the ground, carrier bag in hand, pretending to pick up a poo and messing about with a carrier bag and actually picking up a poo? Well, yes, if they had a look at the dog's reaction to being walked with a bag of poo hovering over his head. He didn't like that.

You know what this is like? This is the queer equivalent to straight people talking about changing their babies' nappies, but they don't get to wear hi-vis clothing.

Property ladder

Seeing that the house next door but one had gone on the market, I had a look at the estate agent's website to see how much it was on for. Silly money, in all honesty, but there you go.

Of course, this got me looking at property websites to see what me and Trump could get for our money (well, hers, since I haven't got a house to sell). Looking at the descriptions of the houses and locations, and knowing the reality of a lot of the areas being described, it made me wonder whether estate agents are actually on drugs?

You look at the photos they take that are supposed to impress potential purchasers. One had taken a photo of wardrobe doors. For fuck's sake.

Let's have a look at some examples of things that estate agents think are huge selling points for properties:

To the exterior, there is some well-appointed and very stylish grass:

On the ground floor, the kitchen-diner has a bin and space on the worktop for a nearly-used kitchen roll:

In the main bedroom, the lingering funk of TCP takes us back in time and into a parallel universe:

Also on the first floor is a retro bathroom suite that is especially designed to hide blood splatters:

I also like having a nosey inside people's houses - some are fucking horrible and you can tell that a lot of those at the lower end of the price range are a bit scummy. You get the idea that there are lots of people with their own distinctive decorative tastes, or lack of it.

Imagine if you could smell the places too.

Blimey.


Rotten
I've spent most of today feeling fucking dreadful with one of my heads. It started yesterday afternoon and stayed with me through the night and into the morning, making me feel sickly and shaky, light-headed and all that. I've had these before quite a lot, on and off, for about a year now.

I think it's my hormones.

Anyway, once I started to feel better, I put the telly on. Punctuated by the usual insurance and easier-living products to make old age better, the programmes on offer are pretty good. One of my current favourites on Living TV is "Cheaters", whereby a so-called detective agency pursues and films adulterous partners after being prompted by their suspicious other halves. True car-crash TV.

I can't believe Great Ormond Street Hospital have a charity that advertises on national telly. Not that the Peter Pan money is enough or anything.

Stornoway

This is where Stornoway is:

Yes, that's it, the green arrow stuck in the Outer Hebrides, some islands off Scotland that are drifting into the North Atlantic somewhere.

I'd normally have no beef with Stornoway, or its 5,600 inhabitants. They're probably very nice people. But the BBC are as obsessed with Stornoway as they are with Islam, global warming and recycling.

Every day you get the weather report. There are apocalyptic floods in major population centres in England; people are dying there, there's no food, no power, but the weather reporter tells us "It may be raining like shit on the rest of us, but Stornoway's 5,600 people are enjoying sunshine today".

Stornoway.

Front page news on the BBC's website today was an invasion of Stornoway town centre by some sheep that had escaped from somewhere. Here they are, escaping:

Of course, what you can't see in the picture are the marauding hoards of kebab shop owners, trying to capture the sheep to make a mega doner that will last the town's population for about 500 years.

Does Stornoway have a kebab shop? I think so. Check out this place:

New Island Star Carry Out Restaurant
28, South Beach,
Stornoway,
Isle of Lewis HS1 2BN
Tel: 01851 705256

Give them a bell to see if they do doner kebabs, I dare you! And don't forget to ask them if they watch the weather report on the BBC news. I'm sure the BBC would like to be assured that the licence payers' money is well spent on the grateful population getting a special mention every day.


RIP, Mr Manchester
You know Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays? The man behind them, Mr Manchester himself, Tony Wilson, died this evening. He was a bit pretentious, but he cared about putting Manchester on the map and he did just that. I'm not sure who Mr Stornoway is, but he's doing a fucking good job!

I don't think there are any Mancunians of any note left in the city these days. I can't imagine anybody else having the influence, drive and passion that he did.

Hey ho.


Hot wheelie Trumpster
She came home in a car today. A sixteen year old Peugeot 205; like I learned to drive in years ago. Her OWN car. How cool is that? She let me drive round in it earlier, it was fucking ace.


Guitar Sniff
I picked up my old guitar last night. Didn't have a clue what to do with it. I started learning classical guitar when I was about 8, I did exams and everything, then stopped playing when I was about 16. And when I picked it up again, I couldn't remember a thing. But I tried and it made some noises that seemed like they should come out of a guitar.

Today, the wrist on my left hand is totally fucked.


Hungry
I'm peckish. We haven't been shopping and there are no snack things in the house. No bread or anything. I might have to try dog biscuits.

I'd just have to be careful that eating them won't give me the sudden urge to have a wee on the toilet then run downstairs and have a poo on the living room carpet.

Talking of Rocky, he's just done his first wee by cocking his leg. He's so grown up!

The ties that bind

Why is it that blokes generally have to wear a shirt and tie in the workplace and women can get away with much less formal dress? I've never quite understood this.

Ah well.


Breasts
There's a stink been kicked up by some nannying charities who want the advertising of infant formula to be banned. Fucking Breast is Best Nazis want to stop sticking their self-righteous noses into peoples' business.

Having spent a considerable amount of time with a newborn this year, I think mothers should be forced to use formula to shut babies up. With the best intentions, some mums don't satisfy their babies with the breast milk they can produce and they need to supplement. But of course, at the back of their minds are the lectures from the Breast Feeding Nurses at the maternity unit and the displeasure in said wimmins' voices when they're asked what to do if mum can't breast feed. "Persevere!", no "Well, you need to know how to sterilise bottles if you're going to formula feed", so the mums end up giving their babies nasty gut infections and killing them instead.

Cocks.

Let's face it, with some of the shit that some breast-feeding mothers eat, formula is probably much safer than toxic boob juice.


Bored
I'm here at the Moonlighting Drug Testing Agency. What with having more mouths to feed, I need to bringing in more cash.

Working here occasionally has its bonuses; the folk here are nice, the work is OK (but there are long gaps at times), the money comes in handy for my gadget habit. But once you agree to do this sort of locum work, you always feel kind of tied. There's no reason for me to feel a responsibility, but I feel guilty if I don't agree to come in at weekends and evenings. The weekends are OK, it's evenings that are killers.

But what I like about being here is that I'm back in the lab, doing science things, wearing a lab coat. Your day is dictated by beeping timers that help you stick to a set protocol. You have defined tasks.

And you get two hour gaps here and there.

And they don't block blogger.


Pop my TV cherry
Tump upgraded our cable TV today. After a number of text messages asking when I thought the TV channels would come through, then one saying everything had gone off, I told her to phone them. Instead of upgrading us, they'd disconnected us.

Well done Virgin.

Of course, they'd never had treated her so shabbily had she dropped in a "Do you know who I am?", which she has every right to now that she is a star of radio. It was weird listening to her as she gave an interview on Gaydio yesterday (listen live on http://www.gaydio.co.uk/!), it was her, but she sounded really professional. Made me feel unworthy.

But what if she is destined for stardom? How would I cope with being her wife, tagged along to premieres, never given a speaking role? There'd be gossip magazine articles about why she should dump me for some glamour model, the press would delve into my past. Actually, the press would delve into her past, which is a lot more interesting than mine.

Perhaps I'm off the hook. Perhaps me, Rocky and Looshkin won't be abandoned afterall. The latter spent all night out last night. She came back wet, whingy and with her front paws died orange. I think she must've been messing about with the travelling fairground that appeared on the field at the back of us yesterday.

I wonder what a cat or dog would do if you took it on a waltzer?