Brighton Pride
I did end up going to Brighton Pride in the end. A couple of mates were going and asked me to come with them. I didn’t much fancy spending such a glorious day just pipping things off my everlasting todo list so I went. I got up at about 8.30am and got on the train to Woking where they picked me up in a BMW M3 at about 10.30am. We didn’t bother with the parade but we did see the floats coming in to the park at the end of it. I guess we must’ve spent about seven hours in the park before going back to the car to freshen up, change our clothes and then hit the bars.
My friends stayed in Brighton for the night whereas I took the last train back home from Brighton, which was absolutely rammed full, obviously because it was the last train out of Brighton on Pride day. I managed to get a seat but I changed at Haywards Heath onto a much less crowded train so it wouldn’t have mattered if I was rammed into a vestibule for that leg of the journey. Indeed, some people didn’t even have that privilege and were left standing on the platform. I would have thought that First Capital Connect would have laid on extra services on a day like that but hey, what do I know?
Survival of the (very long) day was made much easier with the presence of my patented Pride Survival Kit. This is small bag containing the following items:
- Pair of jeans for the evening
- Three spare tops
- Spare pants and socks
- Wet flannel in plastic bag
- Dry flannel
- Sun protection lotion
- Deodorant
- Toothbrush and toothpaste
- Poppers
- Tissues
- Condoms and lube
- Ibuprofen
- Antihistamines
- Mepore in case of body piercing misbehaviour
- Train timetable
- Mineral water
- Cereal bars
- Smints
- Sunglasses
- Baseball cap
Absolutely everything that a gay boy could possibly need at Pride, whether he decides to stay out all night afterwards or go home with someone or not! Next one’s in Manchester, in four weeks I believe although Chris suspects that it’s in three weeks so we should definitely check that before too long.
I also got recognised by someone because of my tattoo. Chris posted a picture of it to BME (Body Modification E-Zine) and some bloke stopped me totally randomly in the field and said that he recognised my tattoo from a picture he’d seen on BME. Totally small world, and a totally random encounter. It blows my mind when things like that happen.