Carnival Crazy Colour

This weekend was a carnival crazy one in London. Firstly, on Friday, I attended the World Cup Carnival in Shepherds Bush for the Brazil v Netherlands quarter final. The atmosphere was beyond electric with the entire match punctuated by a soundtrack of samba music and steel drums and all you could see were the the bright crayola green and yellow shades of the nation's football strip. After the match, even though the team lost, the sulking was minimal (English fans could learn a thing or two from this mentality!) and everyone carried on the party dancing samba to a live band, spinning and and jumping and turning and stamping until dizzy and too hot and exhuasted to carry on. Ole, indeed!

Yesterday I headed up to Regent Street for lunch, completely unaware of the fact that it was the Gay Pride March (I have had no idea what has been going on at all lately, as I have not been in the country for the past 10 days). Again the visual theme for the day was colour, but this time, there was a veritable kaleidoscopic feast for the eyes of every colour under the sun. Despite the fact I had had no idea about the parade I had luckily been clutching my sailor's hat when I set out that day, and it inadvertantly turned out to be an ideal accessory and I saw several other sailors and even a pirate. My favourite costumes however were those which involved so many colours, patterns and textures that even Joseph would have regarded his technicolour dreamcoat as a rather too conservative choice.