Jesus, is it Pride again already? I’ve barely recovered from the last one. Right, where’s my Oyster card? Where’s my bandana? Someone wake up Rebecca Ferguson, I think she’s still curled up asleep on my sofa. Cuddling a slowly decomposing kebab.
It’s that time of the year again! When our community comes together to celebrate solace and freedom. To revel and revere and rally and rebel. To shed the shackles of heteronormativity and homophobia. To get pissed, basically.
The time of year when London’s LGBTQ community sings for its rights, when the rest of the city sings our praises, and when Silver Summers sings Diamonds. When men fall in love with men, when politicians fall in line with policeman, and when John Sizzle falls in a dustbin.
Every year, Pride In London has a theme which dictates, shall we say, the general comportment of the day. This year the theme is #NOFILTER. How 2016! Pride for the Instagram generation. Kylie Jenner’s probably booking a booth at Shadow Lounge and snapchatting Cara Delevingne’s dog as we speak.
It’s a got a great message behind it though. People who have no filter live life on their own terms, a quality which I think is massively commendable. It’s kind of an essential quality to have if you’re anything other than a straight white male. You have to be comfortable with outraging and shocking people and HAVING NO FILTER, to live the life you want to live.
I’ve always been drawn to people with no filter. It’s totally visible in my friends (Vanity Von Glow, Duncan Day) and the celebrities I idolize most (Lindsay Lohan, Nikki Grahame). None of them have got a filter. Lindsay Lohan once disappeared and was found three days later under a trestle table in Brazil, surrounded by tissues and beautiful comatose boys. Vanity Von Glow once got in a fight with a rickshaw. Not a rickshaw driver. A rickshaw. And she won.
What I’m saying is, we should all emulate that for Pride. Most of us have to have filters in our everyday lives. We have to not talk back to our bosses. We have to not scream at that commuter when they breathe garlic on us on the Victoria Line for the fiftieth time. We have to pay £3.50 for a baguette at Sainsburys. We have to accept the fact that we can’t give blood, and we’re not allowed PrEP, because a bunch of old men in offices are dictating our lives.
SO, for one day only, on Saturday 25th June, have NO FILTER! If you want to jump in a fountain, DO IT, there’s one over there! Want Olly Alexander’s number? ASK HIM, he’s over there! Enjoy our beautiful city! Living in London is like living in a theme park with alcohol, it’s great! Most of all, enjoy each other. We’re alive, we’re happy, and it’s PRIDE.
