As I’m walking in this rainbow parade merrily protesting our right to live as we choose and celebrating our differences and similarities, I find my mind wandering back to another march I witnessed with Funiculosus earlier this year…

We were in London on our second food and kink tourist trip. We’d been warned that there was a far right protest that same day.

London was quiet that day, subdued.

Funiculosus, who is of Nepalese descent, was particularly uncomfortable. His bubbly energy dialled down low. He was not himself.

And we decided to leave early. We didn’t feel safe. We felt physically unsafe.

Leaving wasn’t easy though: we had to cross the line of the protest.

And what a sour, miserable group the protesters were. Zero joy and zero pride in themselves or what they represented. A few people looked on from the side. Nobody clapped, nobody cheered, there was nothing uplifting about this group of men shuffling towards Trafalgar Square.

There was nothing attractive about that protest.

Then I am in this Pride celebration. I can see what the right wingers fear here: our joy and happiness is attractive. People having fun without harming anybody else (except irritating a couple of drivers delayed by our short march).

People on the sidelines taking photos. One little girl holding up a sign in support of Pride and diversity.

We passed a group of drunken footballers waiting to go into a ‘Spoons. What a miserable lot they were – all dressed in dark colours.

They started making a noise – chanting perhaps – but I couldn’t hear them over the cheering, horns, and whistles of our celebration.

For once, we were the majority.

And there’s another thing to value about Pride: for that day there are more of us than there are of them.