Devil Take The Hindmost

Most people would say it was a gay man’s dream come true; to be invited to perform at the Gay Policemen’s Ball (well, that’s what everyone called it, but strictly speaking it was the Annual Dinner Dance of the European Gay Police Association.) Sure enough there were lots of cute men in uniform from around the world and they were all in a sociable mood.

The show we put on was not our best (for a variety of reasons, both chorus- and venue-related) but they seemed to like it on the whole.

The disco afterwards was no fun for me. Certainly most of the guys dived right in there and were bopping away with the coppers before you knew it. I don’t feel comfortable dancing. It may or may not be ‘just in my head’ but I don’t feel I have a good sense of rhythm on the dance floor, consequently I feel very self-conscious and don’t enjoy it at all. Watching everyone else enjoying the dancing and having a good time then feels like rubbing salt into a wound and I usually get depressed and go home in a bad mood. That’s what happened tonight.

The one upside of the evening was that Brett was home when I got there and managed to cheer me up fairly quickly

Saturday was entirely given over to Pride. The Chorus was marching, manning a stall and doing two performances on the stage in Trafalgar Square. It was a full day, albeit mostly spent standing around waiting for things to happen. First there was waiting for the parade – which was good when it got going; As ever there were plenty of colourful sights to be seen. I spent a lot of the parade carrying a Chorus sign at the front of the boys, so I got caught in a few pictures.

After the parade Brett and I grabbed some lunch near Charing Cross before heading into the Square to sing. Turns out that we were only doing one song in each set. The second set was delayed by about an hour as the scheduling of the stage slots was wildly optimistic, so there was more hanging around. We slipped in a third song after the billed ‘Seasons of Love’ and the audience really appreciated the rousing rendition of ‘YMCA’ after the hours of desperately worthy speeches that we followed.

After it was all over, Brett and I went for a drink at The Yard with John W and Rich C. John G and Nick B arrived as we were finishing up and we went on to a rather nice Goan restaurant for dinner. Although the company and the food were good, I was rather weary and actually quite glad to head home at the end of it.

The weariness on Saturday night was probably the first symptom of the cold I woke up with on Sunday morning. After giving up on breakfast about halfway through the bowl, I went back to bed and slept until about 11am. Brett and I had arranged to have lunch with Ping and Miles K at the Lanesborough so I stoked myself up with fluids and vitamin C tablets and set off at a slow pace.

Lunch was rather good. The cold was held sufficiently at bay that I made a passable attempt at conversation and indulged in a delicious roast dinner – which, to me at least, looked far more satisfying than the more nouvelle (read: small portion) dishes my companions received and was just what I needed to keep me going.

Even so, by the end of the meal I was heading off towards zombiedom and subsequently spent the evening on the sofa watching Las Vegas and Big Brother before getting an early night.

On Monday I felt sufficiently recovered to go into work but just barely got through an uneventful day. I skipped the Chorus rehearsal as I knew it would be too energetic for me. Instead I opted for another evening on the sofa, soaping my brain out.