Filler 41

Saturday was, among other things, the first Pride in five years without prior arrangements. I was certainly aware of that absence in the run up, but what with one thing and another I'd actually forgotten what day it was when I got the message from Kym on Saturday morning asking whether I was going to go. I'd vaguely intended not to, but in the end couldn't stay away.

It's 20 years since my first Pride, maybe 21 -- I didn't join in that time, just went to watch and walked awkwardly alongside -- and 14 since we first danced. Sentimentality wouldn't let me miss out.

It was all very sweet; and all very different from back then. Sunnier, in every sense.

Weird to be standing on the sidelines. Dancing has always been such a thrill, and such an effort. So much energy and organisation, so many crises. Previous hiatus years have seemed as dull as ditchwater, and although this one didn't, quite, there was definitely something missing.

Kym and I watched some of it together, before he dashed off to teach a class.

"I think we could wheel out the old bones for another outing," he said.

On Sunday, Ian performed a piano recital in our flat, with several others, including his teacher Maria -- a rather excellent concert pianist who took the opportunity to run through a few pieces she has to perform in a couple of weeks. I served Eton Mess, then dashed off for a family gathering at Dorigen's.

On Friday I went to see teenagers -- youth offshoots of The Cholmondeleys and The Featherstonehaughs going by the names Colquhoun and Marjoribank -- performing Flag, an iconic Lea Anderson dance from the late 1980s. It wasn't bad at all -- the musicians, also children, were a bit screechy -- but it did feel like viewing through a vaseline-smeared distorting lens and made me and my companions yearn to see it done by the original performers. Some of them were in the audience, which must have been a strange experience.

And comments are enabled again, operating behind the veil of a very low-rent Turing Test. In some ways this tactic is just a belated follow-up to a conversation about the ecology of spam bots I had with Alastair more than two years ago in Maison Bertaux. Which, regardless of the success or failure of this particular attempt to nudge the WalkyTalky environmental niche into evolutionary inimicality, must at least stand as evidence for the lasting intellectual potency of tea and cakes. Let me know how you get on.
Posted by matt at July 3, 2006 10:12 PM