Pride?

[16.05] As I sit here, slowly tapping away, trying to sum up three days of Birmingham Pride for the readers of Gay Times, I have the TV on. It's been on for hours, as I switched from watching two superb World Cup matches this morning/lunchtime, to the coverage of Liz Windsor's sponsored walk, or whatever it is. It's been an intense weekend of Birmingham Pride, football and a few snatched moments of TV in the brief moments I've been in the house. It's been a seemingly successful one all round, with the one blip being England's underwhelming performance on Sunday morning. I saw James Whittaker, official royal snob to the nation, saying on TV last week that the success of the Queen's Jubilee celebrations would depend on the England v Sweden result. Thankfully, we didn't actually lose, and the nation seems to have risen above the disappointment of the feeble draw, if the enthusiam I'm seeing on TV right now is anything to go by. But I find myself wondering, is there a support group for homosexual, football-supporting, Eurovision-loving Republicans? Are there other people who are quite happy in one week to wave the Union flag in a concert hall in Tallinn, to wear an England footie shirt while watching the match, very hungover, in a Birmingham gay pub at 10.30 on a Sunday morning and then find themselves strangely glued to the coverage of the Queen's jubilee parade, while fervently disagreeing with the whole concept of the royal family?
Actually, I don't think I'm that contradictory really; it just feels that way sometimes. I'm very much in the 'let's reclaim the flag(s) from the fascists' camp, and wanting the flags of St. George and the Union to stand for the diverse reality of society in England and the whole UK (respectively) as it is today. And reflecting that diversity seems to be very much at the forefront of what they've arranged in London today for this Jubilee parade. The royals may well have been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, but what I'm seeing on the TV now has certainly moved on from what we would have seen in 1977. Yes, it's a real cultural mish-mash, and some of it is very tacky, but it fair warms the cockles of my heart to see so many people out partying together. I would like to think that what we're seeing is just proof that we love an excuse to party, rather than any real support for the idea of the monarchy, but that's probably my optimistic interpretation. At Birmingham Pride there was a lot of red and white on display, and a fair few Union Jacks being worn, and a lot of football shirts, but it's all very culturally mixed up. Some of it is probably deeply patriotic royalism. Some of it was the Birmingham Pride organisers just playing on the 'Queens' joke. Some of it was visiting straight football supporters from the mixed pubs like O'Neill's, showing the footie while in the roped-off confines of the gay village. Some of it is the Gay Football Supporters' Network, fifty of them, in town for their annual weekend away. Some of it is sports kit fetishism from people who wouldn't know Zinedine Zidane if they bumped into him in Tesco. And my point is....if I have a point at all.....that you just can't tell who's who. And that is the diversity of my life, and of living in Birmingham, that I love so much. And that's why I'm glad that we still have Pride in Birmingham, not Mardi Gras or Gayfest. On many occasions over the weekend, as I surveyed the scene around Hurst Street, pride is indeed what I felt. So many different people, all gathered together having fun. I just love it.
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