Tom Ballard demands ‘respect’ while not showing any. As usual.
…I’ll be thinking about those words as I tear up at the many thousands of punters who travel across the country and the world to line Oxford Street, brandish rainbow flags, cheer and try to avoid being hit in the face by the free condoms that rain down like lubricated hailstones.
The event is Mardi Gras in Sydney, and it sounds a lot like the sort of tasteful celebration that you can see here, courtesy of the estimable David Thompson.
For me, Mardi Gras is a community’s response to all this grim news. It is hope personified. It is bright and colourful and loud and over the top because it has to be. It is a festival of kaleidoscopic light to drive out the dark. It is fun and vital and gloriously silly. It is for everyone.
Everyone, that is, who doesn’t mind dodging thrown condoms…
Like hailstones, he says? They couldn’t source feather lite?
“Like hailstones, he says? They couldn’t source feather lite?”
No. It’s because they keep them in the fridge with the beer.
Perhaps they are used ones?
“No. It’s because they keep them in the fridge with the beer.”
Really? Iced Frenchies, eh. Weird.
Skin-tight Gold-lame pants on fire as we slide down the well lubricated pole. Petroleum jelly can spontaneously combust in Sydney’s heat. Sodom in the Antipodes.
“Petroleum jelly can spontaneously combust in Sydney…”
Well they say you learn something every day. Perhaps they should keep that in the fridge also?