LOOKING BACK AT FR PRIDE 2013 EE QB Nottinghamshire’s Queer Bulletin October/November 2013 Number 74 How did they do it? How did the Pride Committee manage to persuade the City Council to let them use the Arboretum? How did they ensure that the weather was wonderful until precisely 1 minute after 6 pm? In this edition Thanks must also go to Pride’s sponsors - E.on, the Co-op and others. Cavorting manatees Many people (including us) thought that this was the best Nottingham Mugabe enthroned Pride ever and it has set the bar very high for next year’s organisers. Fruit bats One feature which distinguished this event from many Prides is that it Britten, Britten, Britten has not become over-commercialised. Unfortunately, the low collec- Flamingos in the Market Square tions taken on the day may mean an entry charge is needed next year. Hattie Jacques Ironing boards Schrödinger’s cat Watson Fothergill Nottingham invaded A Fest of Booqs The electronic willy and, of course, Other Things If you have any information, news, gossip or libel or wish to comment on anything in QB, please contact QB Lesbian and Gay Switchboard 7 Mansfield Road Nottingham NG1 3FB or e-mail [email protected] The deadline for the next edition will be October 28th SwitchboardSwitchboard is registered is registered charity charityno. number 1114273 1114273 MORE PRIDE PICS VOLUNTEER FOR SWITCHBOARD Switchboard will be running its regular training session for new volunteers in the Autumn. It’s more than just a phone service the- se days, with many enquiries coming in by e-mail and text. They also have a Facebook presence where much new information is posted and you can send them messages requesting information via Gaydar and Gaydar Girls. If you are interested in getting involved, contact them soon. You will find the contact details are on the back page. DESPOTS AND DEMAGOGUES: REMEMBER PROFESSOR ADAMS Vladimir Putin is the latest in a list of despots eager Tinpot dictator Mugabe to use scapegoats to draw attention away from their (anagram of Buga Me) own government’s problems, in his case by target- has clung on to power ing LGBT people. in Zimbabwe. You can join actress Tilda Swinton in protesting Does he use his vile about Putin’s actions via the petition at policies towards lesbi- ans and gay men to https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/52656 distract from his own failure, or is he a living example of Prof. Ad- ams research. It was the Prof who showed (using the “electronic willy test”) that the most vocifer- ous homophobes are often closet gays. Car- dinal O’Brien, J. Edgar Hoover, Ted Haggard … the list is endless. Birds, Bees and Educated Fleas Crab-eating Macaque monkeys are nearly all bisexual. Unusually, they also sometimes have same sex contact with other species. They have been known to have sex with orang-utans ….. and even foxes. The incidence of same-sex activities amongst bats varies from species to spe- cies. Though observed only occasionally in Fly- ing Foxes and Vampire bats, same sex ac- tivities are very common In Livingstone’s Fruit bat. West Indian Manatees sometimes have same-sex orgies as part of a social activity called "cavorting", during which they indicate their pleasure with noises described as "chirp-squeaks" and "snort-chirps". GCSE BSc MA PhD THE NOTTINGHAM MAP There’s a link to the map on the homepage of Nottinghamshire’s Rainbow Heritage’s website. Every red spot on the map links to a place with some LGBT connection. Here are some of those places. The Black Boy, opposite the side of the Council House, was one of those bars/hotels which had a gay reputation in the pre-1967 era. It is perhaps more famous for be- ing one of the best examples of the buildings of Nottingham's ec- centric but utterly individual archi- tect Watson Fothergill. The Black Boy was demolished, against much public opposition, in the 1960s to make way for the bland shops which now occupy the space. The View from the Top was a gallery on the top floor of the Waterstones shop, though it was a sepa- rate organisation from Waterstones. The View from the Top pro- vided the ideal space for Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage's LGBT History Month exhibitions in 2008 and 2009. The spacious, light and airy surroundings were complemented by helpful staff + the passing trade from those visiting Waterstones on the floors beneath. It was greatly disappointing that the gallery closed in 2009. QB’S BITS Nottingham Invasion is a new group for “T- girls”. They meet every 3rd Friday for a pub crawl starting at 8pm at the New Foresters. There will be a meeting of the Bassetlaw LGBT Forum on Wednesday October 9th. 6 pm at Worksop Town Hall. Anyone interest- ed in improving the lot of LGBT people in Bassetlaw should attend. For further info, e- mail [email protected] Does anyone who works with you want (need?) training in LGB+T awareness? Not- tinghamshire’s Rainbow Heritage will be running its annual LGB+T awareness training day on Wednesday November 20th at Arnold Library. E-mail [email protected] to book a place or for more info. The City Council’s LGBT Forum will meet at 2pm on Thursday September 12th at Life at the Centre on Parliament Street. Come along if you want to have an input. Contact Switchboard for fuller details. Thanks go to E.on for providing Nottingham- shire Pride with £1000 for each of the follow- ing: WOW and Outburst LGBT Youth Groups; Tagadere, Recreation and Notting- ham Switchboard. The Pink Humanist is an online LGBT hu- The new Gay Guide has been out for a month or so, manist magazine. You can read issue 13 at but if you haven’t picked up a copy yet, you can al- http://issuu.com/infidel69/docs/ ways download it from the Healthy Gay Nottingham the_pink_humanist_june_13 website www.healthygaynottingham.org.uk Tony Bilton is continuing his research on LGBT Olympians. At the time of last year’s Olympic Games, the total had reached 128. The praise for this year’s Pride was loud and uni- Now it’s 153. You can see the lot at versal. Unfortunately Pride costs about £50,000 to http://nottsrh.webeden.co.uk/#/display- run and so far the organisers are £7700 short in their fundraising. materials/4541029711 (near bottom of page) Whoops. Big boob. Not a unimammary, but If you enjoyed Pride (and that’s lots of you) think our comment that we thought @D2 had about sending them a donation. Go to closed. It’s very much open. www.nottinghamshirepride.co.uk/donate or send a BooQfest - the Midlands' LGBT Literary Fes- cheque made out to Nottinghamshire Pride and tival - is back for it's second annual outing! post to Nottinghamshire Pride, 7 Mansfield Road, All housed under the roof of the Royal & Nottingham NG1 3FB. Derngate Theatres, Northampton, the festival offers readings and talks, book signings, workshops and storytelling over the course of TACKLING HOMOPHOBIC CRIME the weekend from 13th - 15th September 2013 and all completely FREE! For more in- The Nottinghamshire Hate Crime Steering Group formation visit booQfest.webs.com looks at all aspects of hate crime. It has set up a “task All the nice people who put their tokens in and finish” group to look specifically at homophobic the boxes at the John Lewis restaurant pro- crime. Some of its proposals include: duced a donation of £360 for Nottingham Switchboard. Thanks to all of you. Printing articles about homophobic crime in the newsletters of district councils, of the County Staff who work with elderly people who have varying degrees of dementia took part in July Council and, it is hoped, the Nottingham Arrow. Setting up training on homophobia and on in some LGB awareness training at High- LGB+T awareness for staff. bury Hospital - it was provided through Les- Gathering reports from the Crown Prosecution bian and Gay Switchboard. The response Service (in anonymous form) of examples was that such training needs to be rolled out where reporting homophobic crime has had on a much wider scale. successful results. NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T Like Schrödinger’s cat, which may be both dead and alive, the existence of local LGBT people may be simultaneously present and absent. The City Council has a new website, but its search facility is not very helpful. Here’s a comparison be- tween the City and County Council websites in SPOT THE terms of links to LGBT related words. TERM County City GAY Gay Yes No Lesbian Yes No LGBT Yes No Pride Yes No Stonewall Yes No A little while back Nottingham City Council organ- ised a Community Cohesion event. Lesbian and LGBT History Month Yes No Gay Switchboard and Nottinghamshire’s Rainbow IDAHO Day Yes No Heritage represented the LGBT bit and had a go at cohering. Nottingham Switchboard Yes No The organisers asked stallholders to do some- Notts Rainbow Heritage Yes No thing interactive as well as showing the usual leaflets and displays, so those present were asked to “Spot the gay”, a test of whether the ste- Not only does the County Council website usually reotypes are correct. have several links for each term, they also have de- tails of many of the smaller LGB+T social support “Spot the Gay” resurfaced at Pride on the Rain- groups in the City and County. bow Heritage stall. Faced with 16 pictures, people had to pick out the “yeses” - 8 who were lesbian, gay or bisexual.