[NB, in the French that follow I apologise for the lack of accents, I have ommitted them because I know some news readers will not interpret them correctly. Honest guv, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.]
Niles suggested the title "Travles With My Arse", but quite apart from the risk of that going over any heads hereabouts I'd be worried that folks thought this a fuck and tell expose which it is not. Nothing exposed at all really, well maybe just a little now and again. :)
La plus ca change, la plus c'est toujours la meme chose. Which Just goes to show those frogs know a thing or two because my second Pride in Paris was different and the same all at once. So in order to compare and contrast (as they say in exams) I'm writing this year's report aroud quotes from last year's.
If anyone's interested last year's report in full and the short ensuing thread dangling therefrom is at http://www.calmeilles.co.uk/pride/parispride97.html
} Paris in the spring, they say, is the place to be. Sod } spring; even with occasional showers the end of June was } much more fun!
You can say that again!
But no showers at all this year. Indeed nary a cloud on the horizon, blue skies all the way and temperatures climbing to 35 degrees (95 for those who don't do this new fangled metric stuff). Boy was it hot! - two coffees, two beers,1.5 litres of water and a coke all came out as perspiration!
But that's getting ahead of myself.
Unlike last year we sensibly got on the Eurostar on Friday evening in the hope of being fresh for Saturday's jollities. Having been delayed by 45 minutes because of a faulty train ahead of us we didn't make the Gare du Nord until 11.40pm[1]
Another delay happened earlier. I'd not really been very quick off the mark with the organising and by the time I phoned the normal hotel it was "complet!" Damn it! seems there was a little sporting tournament of some kind going on so even though the Hotel Pax is quite big for some reason everybody wanted to stay there. Thus I was reduced to sending begging e-mails across the chanel to Gregoire for help while formulating backup plan "C" (digging out the tent and wondering if the places I dossed down fifteen years ago would still be viable).
Thankfully it didn't come to that. Greg proved himself (not for the first or last time) a hero and found us a place at the Hotel Ibis on the rue Louis Blanc in the 10ieme. Just ten minutes walk from the Gare du Nord and on the Canal St Martin it proved an excelent location.
But still as we aproached the hotel I was worried for although I'd confirmed the booking by fax I'd had no confimation and not been able to get through by phone at all in the previous week.
Miracles happen though and not only did we have rooms they had both the names so the fax got through and notice was taken of it. The concierge just ticked our names off his sheet and handed us keys which surprised me a little.
| Me: | Don't you need some documents or something? |
| Him: | Why? Do you have a bomb with you? |
| Me: | Er, not this time. |
| Him: | Well it doesn't matter to me if you bring one tomorrow as I won't be here. |
| Me: | Okay. |
Now get this (Tigran!). The headlines of the last few days had been screaming about British football hooligans when two English men turn up at midnight, one with long long red hair (rather a mess by that time) wearing a tee shirt depicting a man hugging a swan and the other shaved bald (looking piebald as the bits Sean shaved hadn't been while he aquired a lovely tan in Greece last week) with five (visible) piercings. What do you get? Passport checks? Credit cards required? No. You get humour, a laugh and not even a sarky comment about my accent! So there!!
And so to bed.
As it happens I didn't sleep much.
Look! There was some good telly on, right! I learned a lot about portable distilling towers being taken round Normany farms to turn cider into Calvados (never a bad thing IMHO), the sex lives of wild boar [sanglier], rabies control in the South West and that BBC World news is trivial, superficial and anglocentric. Oh, and when a general sends a handsome young warior into battle saying that personally he'll stay with the elite guard protecting the retreat you can bet good money that he's a bad egg and will come to a sticky end.
And talking of sticky I'm getting stick fingers and crumbs in the keyboard eating genuine pain au chocolat here (gloat) :)
Next morning saw us up in good time to phone Niles who was at the Hotel Monier and arrange to rendez-vous at the Gare St Lazare. That being where Greg was to meet the cohort from Le Havre due to come in on the 9.55 train. Having later seen the video of the trip I remain somewhat astonished that the train survived the experience. Somehow I doubt that the ticket inspector did.
So here's someone fitting Greg's description getting kissed and hugged by thirty or so assorted people and a tall cute man carrying a bike helmet and an oven door (don't ask). That had to be them, and it was. Eventually (about 10 minutes) Greg disengaged himself sufficiently to recognise me (long red hair, slinky black number - not difficult) and just at the right moment Niles came walking down the concourse so for once everyone was in the right place at the right time (only time that day I think).
I forgot to mention the pram...
Yes, the pram. festooned with paper flowers all the colours of the rainbow and red and white lables saying "Le Havre" (Greg, does the town know? Will it ever forgive you?) this was our constant companion throughout the day.
Into the Metro went the pram, the French, the English, the oven door and all to La Republique and rue JP Timbeau to the hotel that had been foolhardy enough to accept their reservations.
While most checked in and freshened up some of us went to lunch at which point we began to get names. Laurent came late, Didier was tall (and later proved an invaluable marker to keep in sight) Olivier and Emanuel I double checked on later but the rest more or less got lost in the welter of names and faces [NB: Greg, you promissed to furnish me with a list of names and identifying characteristics to make this easier. When you do could you also note who is, or might be, available please :) ] Okay, lunch: formule a 59F, assiette de chacuterie, steack au poivre (bleu), creme caramel (which Sean ate), a couple of bees and coffee. Then back to the hotel to pick up the others. Now the less said about near naked French hunks hanging over their balconies like Juliets awaiting their Romeos the better I think. No, I didn't try climbing the drainpipes, although had it not been broad daylight I might have. The rainbow flag draped from the first floor was a tastful touch I thought.
Perhaps I should remark that around this time we lost the oven door and the proud possessor thereof. But otherwise intact the group eventually decended again the the Metro, destination Port Royal
} For piccies look at } http://www.france.qrd.org/events/97/album[of LAST year]
I'm afraid that I'm too lazy to fire up the browser and see if this is by any chance still in place and I've not yet got any info on sites with this year's pics. Greg, sweettie, we need illustrations.
} I'm certain that I cannot do the parade justice. A lot of } people moved from A to B, but apart from that it was } different from London Pride in every respect. As Sean put } it, it was more like a moving street party than a march.
Well so it was again. Less a march than an amble.
} Assemble, they said, at 11:30 in the Place de la Republique } to move off at 12. Pah! time-keeping was not a conspicuous } aspect of the day. It was more like 2:30 before anything } moved, but that wasn't problem as there was lots to see. } As well as the pl Republi que itself the floats were lined } up for a considerable distance up both the Boulevard St } Martin and Bd de Magenta (I think) and there were stalls } about for food and drink - sort of barbeques on wheels. } Behind the assembled people were phalanxes of street } cleaning machines, more of those later. Oh, and there was a } goat to - never did work out why.
[Gavin eventually came up with an explanation for the goat, for which you'll have to see the full 97 thread]
This year the assembly point was Port Royal which appeared to have less space and so it wasn't as easy to see what was going to be in the parade. We didn't actually get there until about 1:45 which was a good move as we moved off at about 2.20 this time.
From Port Royal down bd Saint Michel, right into bd Saint Germain Across the pont de Sully, bd Henri IV (towards the Bastille), bd Bourdon, pont Morland, quai de la Rappee, bd Diderot past the Gare du Lyon, and eventually into la place de la Nation.
In all roughly 6.3 km or for the metrically challenged a tad over four miles which is slightly shorter than last year I think.
This took almost precisely five hours. I said it was an amble, not a march.
} Somehow someone got the thing moving and then the real } differences started to become apparent. } } There's the police, or rather the lack of. ... } Stewards ditto - did see two chaps with 'organisation' } across the back of their tee shirts and carying 2-way } radios, but if they were stewarding the march they } apparently didn't see the need to do very much except mosey } along with everyone else.
Same again. Saw one chap with a walkie talkie. Neither police nor organisers were in any way evident. One ambulance and one fire dept van went by sirens blaring. The crowd parted to let them trough with considerable dispatch and there was no clue to tell if it was the march that actually occasioned their presence.
} Lots of floats, lots of music, lots of very loud music - the } 'Scorp' float (Scorp is a club aparently) was certainly the } loudest thing that I have heard in the open air, and } (remembering that I'm not a clubber) possibly indoors too.
Scorp had three floats this time - and were no quieter.
} Lots and LOTS of pretty boys, not just dancing on the club } floats. } } And quite striking was the number of young people (AOC is 15 } and has been for more than a decade wich might explain it). } Also there were large numbers of folks come to look at what } was going on - not in 'peering into a goldfish' way, but } enjoying the atmosphere, often mingling so that it was often } to say if a particular familly was 'on' the march or just } caught up in it.
And old folks too! ...
} Happy people all over the place, smiles and more smiles. Not } a single hint of even the possibility of the slightest } trouble of any kind from anyone!
Lets say that again! Not a discordant note sounded!
All along the route people at windows and on balconies were waving and singing eliciting roars of aprobation. Most memorable were a mother with two tiny tots dancing stark naked (not the mother, the tots) on a fifth or sixth floor balcony. Suddenly off the rushed only to return wearing sunglasses but still not a stitch and still dancing. Had such a thing happened here I can bet the Sun headline would have been "Unfit mother exposes todlers to perverts".
Without Vincent's passion to photograph absolutely everything we did far less trotting up and down the line so covered less ground.
97 was Europride Paris, 98 that's in Stockholm (next weekend if you're interested) so there was no speechifying the end was just a gathering in the very spacious Nation.
But the polictical message was more distinct. Equality, nothing more, nothing less.
Some of the placards and banners were in turn touching, funny, ironic and powerful.
"C'est interdite de intedire l'amour" [It's forbidden to forbid love]
"Les droites egaux" [Equal rights]
"Blair avance, Jospin recule" [Blair goes forwards, Jospin (Fr. PM) retreats - and I suspect a pun here more intentional than any irony the Brits might see]
"Je cherche deux salopes" [I'm looking for two tarts - no, not me dears]
"Fierte de quoi?" [Pride in what?] (From Act Up)
and something about Jospin being buggered that I can't remember verbatim. Greg, Niles can you?
The political campaign is for equality in ever aspect of life from adoption to pensions and this is significant with a proposed civil contract to be soon debated in the Asembly and Chirac's speach of which more in a bit.
} Sean and I were both exhausted so eventually worked } ourselves up into returning to the hotel.
It was undoubtedly tiring but we were in far better shape than last time.
During the course of the afternoon we had scattered and regrouped innumerable times. Tall Didier, Greg in his orange tee shirt, Olivier doing a John*G* (though less shapely) in an all rubber number and, of course, the pram forming focal groups around which we gathered to pause and recuperate for a few minutes.
At one point I was with Greg and we lost sight of anyone we knew.
| Me: | Where are they? |
| Greg: | I don't know. How can you loose fifteen pansies with a giant freedom flag? |
| Me: | Er... In this lot? |
| Greg: | Oh, I suppose you have a point. |
Amazingly we didn't lose anyone all afternoon.
Well, almost no one. Almost all afternoon. Right up to the last moment...
Just as we'd turned into la Nation and the end was not so much in sight as achieved Olivier shepherded us to the appointed meeting place. For a while all was calm as we rested and sorted out what was to happen next. Then I realised that neither Sean nor Niles were in sight. Oh shit! And as we hadn't been told where the meeting point was (bad boy Greg!) there seemed little prospect of them turning up by chance. So I got instructions for later on and took a couple of turns around la Nation.
I know that Sean had been following the ASMF float - well we all had for a
while
Trying to locate two strays amongst what might have been 200,000 in a place of something aproaching as many square meters (la place de la Nation is circular and almost half a kilometer across) was unlikley to meet with much success so I said to myself "buggerem" and went back to the hotel
} The Metro wasn't } quite as bad as the Northern Line at Clapham Common :)
Line 2 goes from la nation to Colonel Fabien just 50 meters from the hotel and was crowded, but less so than the London underground at rush hour and the eight stop trip took less than half an hour.
} the } mid evening news on TF1 surprised me with a 15 minute } segment on the parade along with interviews, vox pops and } excerpts from the speeches. Their estimate was for 'over } 200,000' people
I missed the main news bulletin this year but I hear that the coverage was less. Later on I did see a TF2 news report of the march that covered the floats, did some vox pops and spelled out the political demand for equality pretty well. Still far more impressive treatment than Pride gets.
The same report went on to show Chirac giving a speach in Perpignan. In essence he was trying to put a damper on the equality demands with all the rhetoric one might excpect of the right wing: civil partnership (for gays) can't be the same as marriage for "familly" heterosexuals; things must be done slowly; social change requires painstaking consideration before being enshrined in law "for future generations".
On the face of it a gentler form (he didn't go as far as saying "no" to anything) of all the reactinary talk we hear. But in a way it's reasuring that even having divorced himself from the event by leaving Paris for an enagement at the far end of the country he felt the need to devote an important speach to the issues being raised by Pride. Again more than one might expect here.
Before I have felt that the French political gay movement lacked, for want of a better word, oomph, having lost momentum when the age of concent was equalised more than a decade ago.
yet while Blair fannies around with free votes on the age of consent the French legislature will imminently debate a civil parnership law and the President feels it necessary to address at length the political issues raised by Gay Pride in a televised adress on the day of the march.
What are they doing right? What are we doing wrong?
} I must say that there are a couple of } things that London does better, like the free (for a 3 quid } 'donation' festival and market) rather than a ticket open } air party.
Having come home to the "is it on, is it off" posts I love the irony here. Gavin said that last year's party was a flop. This year there wasn't one except for the music continuing to play for a while in la Nation and the Marais (Paris' Queer Quarter) kickin in the evening.
} But it would be a salutary lesson for all the } Pride committee and the Metroplitan Police's liason oficers } to be obliged to attend the Paris event in future.
Intermission - there will now be a short rant
Make 'em go! Make the politicians go and see what a great event Pride could be if only they and the Met weren't so up-tight about the whole event.
A few months ago Mark quoted a parliamentary question about the cost of policing demos that put Pride at by far the cheapest and least troubled yet still the barriers go up, the police attend by the division load and we can't get a location like Hyde Park in which to celebrate.
With all the media hysterics over English football hooligans abroad there is an uncomfortable light thrown on the policing of public events. Do the Met and the Home office believe that we need such measures? Would it really be dangerous to the public or us to assemble on the embankment, march up Northumberland Avenue, St Martin's Lane, Charring Cross Road, Shaftsbury Avenue, Piccadilly and so into Hyde Park. Don't tell me it can't be done. The NUS March for Education back in '88 did it. Why not the gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered and everyone else?
For fuck's sake, the French were recently critisised here for being reactionary but almost every comparison between the London and Paris events in the last two years make us brits seem as if we are still living in an age where pansies on the street should be seen as signaling the imminent collaps of civilisation!
/Intermission - normality will be resumed as soon as we work out what's normal anyway[2]
Now at this stage last year Sean and I were exhausted and managed only dinner before retiring. Being better organised we not only were fit for further celebrations we even had an invite to a party and detailed instructions on how to get there. Only one problem: I'd lost Sean and Niles. Ooops, careless of me.
I got back to the hotel a little after eight, had showered and settled to searching the TV for news while agonising over how lonmg I was going to wait when the phone rang. The prodigals had returned! Being sensible they'd figured that the best place to head for was our hotel. But thinking that someone might phone (I didn't have the number on me, did you Greg?) Sean was reluctant to use the Metro for fear of loosing the mobile's signal - so the walked!
Rather more footsore than anyone else they cleaned up and we set out once more. This time a gentle 15 minute stroll into the 18e, just north of the gare du Nord to the rue de la Goutte D'Or - street of the Golden Drop (no comments please) a stones throw from Montmatre
Destination Steve's apartment and party! (Steve was one of the marching party though not from Le Havre his b/f is hence the connection. I think from Corsica [Damnit Greg, I need that list!] I didn't find out why he anglicises his name unless Greg was correct in his guess that it was just "cool". beautiful apartment with roof garden, beautiful man, beautiful guests - heck, now there's drool along with the pastry crumbs in the keyboard).
At eight Greg had suggested an hour and a half maybe so at half ten I feared we might be late. far from late we were almost the first to arrive. :) We're working to gaytime here! Eventually Greg arrives and then the gaggle from Le Havre along with sundry others.
But they managed to loose one along the way. Greg what happened? And did you find him again in time for the train on Sunday?
There must have been fourty people there (and at least half a dozen I'd have cheerfully brought home with me) and we were catered. A table groaning under alcohol - no bring a bottle this, you paid 60FF a head and our hosts laid everything on. Once everyone was suitably supplied with beverages the came green salad and rice salad and chicken legs, huge stacks os French bread and for pudding several charlottes.
And we got the video!
Did I mention the video?
The whole farago from the ticket barrier at Le Havre railway station was
recorded for posterity - which I suspect will be horified. :) We did get
an explanation of the oven door. It was a birthday present (this time
really don't ask). We saw the expression of the inspector on the train.
There was Oilvier-in-the-rubber offering commentary, the flag, the bare
chests and several previously un-noted bums at the hotel, manoeuvering the
pram through the metro, one guy in his pyjamas, Emanuel jumping in the
fountains at Port Royal (good move) another lust-creating hunk barechested
except for a rainbow sash that seemed to get lost on the way, the women in
their face paint, even ocasional glimpses of me (shudder), Niles and Sean.
Greg I MUST have a copy of that to bore everyone with at the next uk.glb
party
Now, strange and lovely people the French. There has got to be something about a group none of whom could possibly be over fourty (or of there were they looked exceedingly good on it) spontaneously launching into a corus of the Piaf number "L'homme a la moto" Il portais les coulotte et les botes de moto, un blouson de cuire noire et un (q'chose) sur le dos... Made my spine tingle 'cause I'm an old romantic. Just a shame I couldn't (and still can't) remember all the words.
Lastly (at least for us) a trip back into the Marais for a bevvy. At which point Sean retired from the scene.
} Then a wander round the Marais (Imagine } Old Compton Street with style, and lots of it)
Alas, this fell down a bit as most of the bars were closing as we got there and having taken four separate taxis and two cars it took an age to find anyone - the streets were heaving, but as earlier the crowds were thoroughly good natured. It was here the we found the only other English speakers I heard all weekend - although the guy who thought Niles was French and haltingly asked him in French if he had a pen turned out to be Irish. And Naughty Nile kept up the gag for a while before admitting his origines :)
Many of the party were for clubbing away the small hours but finally we'd had enough. So Olivier (not the one in rubber) drove us to our respective (if not respectable) hotels and to bed. We first dropped Niles at la Pigalle which drew the comment "It feels dreadful to be leaving him with his air of youth and innocence in this quarter full of junkies and prostitues" (Niles dear I do believe some of our friends are suffereing from some misaprehensions).
Then me on the Louis Blanc. Greg, that was a very convoluted route you took
to get there. Strait along the bd de la Chapelle and you could have dropped
me at the canal St Martin and been pointing in the right direction for la
Nation. By the way, did you know that that part of the canal is a trolling
ground? And a lively one too!
And so, by five o'clock and the sun well risen, to bed.
} A wonderful weekend, and though hardly 'rested' I certainly } feel much more boyant than I did last Friday. :) Tempted } to start planing for next year already!
Well, as you'll have read, my planning wasn't as meticulous as it could have been. But next year there won't be any football to contend with so who'd for it? And in the same vein who'd help out organising a trip for Greg's mob to grace our pride next year too?
Aha... I'm still linguistically and geographically confused. Not only have I been playing Piaf again the next door but one neighbours have been having a party. They are Camerouni and long French conversations have been drifting through my window as I write. Indeed I've written from before dusk until well after dawn - albeit on close to the shortest night of the year - for which I make no apology. We had a wonderful time. If you have been, thanks for reading.
Bise a tous
Matthew
[1] For the delay Eurostar were handing out vouchers for a single to Paris but I missed mine 'cause I didn't realise what they were until Sean looked at his by which time we were beyond the barrier
[2] HHGTTG