This year’s Pride Survival Guide is brought to you QX’s very own vegetarian, half-American, Libertarian boy Friday, Dylan Jones.
Lube
Lube is great for getting out of all sorts of tight spots. Or getting into them. Slide into Pride with a trusty sachet! Or a bottle, if you’re posh. Superdrug even does it in a tube, like toothpaste. Careful not to mix them up though. Lube doesn’t taste very nice does it (don’t pretend you’ve never tasted it). And toothpaste as lube is probably quite…tingly. Minty fresh though!
A bandana
We LOVE a bandana. Very rough-and-ready, very boy-interrupted, very Victoria Beckham circa 2001. A boy who wears a bandana knows how to have fun. He’s the sort of person who might have both ketchup AND mayonnaise with his chips. He’d wait until his Oyster card was in minus funds before he topped it up. He doesn’t need a fucking weekly travel card, he’s too cool for that. He’s not dating anyone at the moment, but he is shagging that homeless guy who lives in the Elephant & Castle underpass. He’s just THAT edgy.
A drag queen
A drag queen is VERY useful for surviving Pride’s steaming assault course of side streets strewn with shattered glass and comatose twinks. A drag queen will storm a path through the roiling rubble, heedless of her heels piercing plastic cups, making a beeline for the nearest Port-a-Loo, cabaret stage or luxury flat. We can recommend Vanity von Glow, who we once witnessed starting a fight with a rickshaw (AND WINNING), or John Sizzle, who carries a water pistol and five fireworks in his handbag at all times. We love Lady Lloyd of course, but she’s useless before 7pm, bless her. She probably doesn’t know what 7pm is. She probably thinks it’s a song by Rita Ora (who definitely ISN’T performing at Heaven on Saturday btw).
A copy of The Beach by Alex Garland
Something to sit on the curb and relax with if you start to get a bit trembly (the “Shoreditch Shakes”, is what our friend Ben calls it). The Beach is a subversive, arrestingly dystopic commentary on the beast that lives within all human beings; our greed, our litigiousness and our inherent socio-political idealism. More importantly, the cover looks like a Bel Ami DVD, and Pure Shores by All Saints is on the soundtrack to the movie version. YAY.
A water bottle
Not necessarily with water in it. Well like, you could get a full one and drink the water first, but we all know that water is NOT what water bottles are for. They’re for mixing own-brand supermarket vodka with orange juice. Or for pissing in.
An iPhone 5 Charger
As professional after-party/penis enthusiast Dom Top would say, “Babe, have you got an iPhone 5 charger?” We’ve all heard it. A thousand times. At every after-party from Stoke Newington to Stockwell. Bring a fucking iPhone 5 charger, because your iPhone WILL die, halfway through taking a blurry selfie with Silver Summers, or when you’re about to send your location to ‘VERS FUN’ on Grindr, or (worst of all) when you’re loading YouTube to show someone that ‘Really Rude To Sandra’ clip. Have I got an iPhone 5 charger? I’m SORRY, but no. Come on Sandra, we’re leaving.
A copy of QX Magazine
We’ve heard it’s a really good mag. Really classy and highbrow. JK, it’s a FAG RAG. The tart with a heart of the London newsstands. Like TimeOut run by Baga Chipz. The great thing about all this is though, you’re already one step ahead of the game with the pride survival guide because guess what…you’re reading it RIGHT NOW! You’ve already got it! That’s the great thing about us, we’re ahead of the game. And self-referentialism is, like, so meta. Zeitgeisty innit.
DISCLAIMER: QX accepts NO RESPONSIBILITY for whatever egregious situations you are led into by his numerous nuggets of questionable advice. Thank you.
• Dylan Jones was last seen being dragged into the undergrowth of Soho Square by various Drag Queens of London cast members. If you have any details on his current whereabouts, let his mother know.
He owes her money.
