I took a lot of photos of the parade yesterday. I’ve tried to narrow the selection in the gallery down to just a few.
After the parade, I headed up to the Northern Quarter again, did some writing and found yet more graffiti.
Then I went to see Jeremy Corbyn give a speech. I hid my Green Party badge, of course.
So I started the day at a cycle jumble at the Velodrome.
And had to photograph a levitating Formula 1 car before leaving town at the end of the day.
But in between, and luckily between rain showers, was this year’s Pride parade. The photoset is on Flickr. But let’s share a few here.
I don’t know who this is- apparently she’s the country’s favourite “trolley dolly”- but she headed the parade. I know it’s disrespectful, but when you’ve had Sir Ian McKellen at the front this is a bit of a climb down.
Balloons!
Don’t argue with the homosexuals, they have tanks.
Scary transgender Spice wants you. Baby transgender Spice looks like she doesn’t know where she is.
Oh pirate girl I love your look. If only I were your type.
The hairy arm of the law. The bears are always good for a cheeky float.
A quick tip of the hat to So So Gay, who have used one of my pictures from last year’s Manchester Pride parade to headline their preview of this year’s events. To celebrate its 21st year, Pride’s starting this Friday and going on to Bank Holiday Monday. I should be photographing the parade, but finances mean that this year I’ll be missing most of the stuff going on in the village. Shame.
Manchester councillor Pat Karney, who’s responsible for the city centre, wants to ban the Christian Voice demo from chanting vainly at future Pride parades. The tiny band of narrow minded protesters have been a fixture of the parade for a few years. Last year I filmed an interview with one of them before the parade started. Annoyingly I have yet to get the footage onto a computer to do anything with it. They’re something of a sad bunch- except in their own heads where they’re no doubt fighting bravely against a tidal wave of sin and perversion- but they definitely shouldn’t be banned.
Twenty or so homophobes with banners get lost amongst the thousands of people who’ve come out to see the spectacle, spot friends and enjoy themselves. It’s almost symbolic- a tiny minority calling for a return to bigotry and oppression surrounded by the mass of open minded and joyful humanity. They shouldn’t be banned, that just feeds into their self righteousness and imagined martyrdom, they should be allowed to come back every year and humiliate themselves. Perhaps the realisation will filter through to some of them that they’re missing out on the joys of being a decent caring human being and find a nicer denomination or (even better) none at all.
As pointed out by some of the commenters on the report, Karney’s call, if not outright hypocritical, does show a lack of joined up thinking. If hate laws must be used to silence a few delusional god-botherers why weren’t they used last year to keep the English Defence League out of Manchester? The EDL’s values are just as wrong, if not moreso, and they’re a far nastier bunch to have to deal with. If you try to stop evangelicals showing their ignorance in public then you’re giving the Catholic church room to call for protesters with valid questions about clerical child abuse to be hidden away when the Pope visits.
Let Christian Voice protest all they want. The crowd will prove how wrong they are.
And he borrowed my marker to get it done.
I’ll write more about the event later, because it’s taken far too long to upload all these pictures and I’m off out to see what’s happening in the Village today.
I’m not a fan of Lily Allen, but you can’t fault the sentiment of this song, and the sweet Manchester Pride video.
And here’s Eric Idle with the FCC song-
I decided to forgo my usual spot for photographing the Pride parade this year. I also gave up my camera, letting Dan take a lot of photos whilst I videoed stuff. He didn’t do too badly.
Many more photos in the Pride 2009 set on Flickr.
Only a week and a half in this case. There are over a hundred pictures of the parade in my Pride 2008 gallery.
On the window ledge of the Cross Street Chapel, from which I watch the Pride parade every year.
This seems appropriate reading after spending the afternoon watching the Pride parade.
Maybe I should demand that the cameraman in the next Spinneyhead production looks like this. Check out the Pride 2007 set on Flickr for many more photos.
Released during the Pride parade. I think this is the guy I threw at the crowd of goth kids that was retrieved by someone near the end of the parade.
This Joe was successfully thrown at the pink tank in the Pride parade. I hope he found a good home there.
I swear the Lord Mayor’s Parade is nowhere near as long as the Pride one. The only real disappointment was the indie room at Poptastic on Saturday night. If you’re going to convert a big car park into a multi room venue then you really ought to invest in some huge drapes to act as baffles between the rooms.
Originally posted to Spinneyworld 29/08/05 by Ian
Technorati tag: Pride, moblog, Nokia 3230
No sign of the threatened national front demonstration and the parade only started a little late. I actually took my photos from the same place as last time, which is cool.
And now we’re off to the village to have fun. There are about a hundred photos, the rest will go up soon.
Originally uploaded to Spinneyworld 27/08/05 by Ian
Technorati tag: moblog, Nokia 3230
