Wall to wall trannies...

Is how I would describe this year’s Sparkle event, at least on Saturday night when Pippa and I travelled to Manchester to join in the celebrations. There were loads of trannies there last year, but I was seriously impressed by how those numbers had risen this time. The English weather managed to restrain itself for the evening and Canal Street was a sea of colourful transgenderness, with lots of people drinking and chatting alongside the canal and generally milling about. This year there was a main stage (if there was one last year I wasn’t aware of it), giving the event a central focus and more of a festival feel. We went to see if there was a band on after having a couple of drinks in Via Fosse, but they were apparently running later than advertised and we caught the end of the beauty pageant, "Miss Sparkle" I presume. Lots of good looking ladies there and a great atmosphere; many hundreds of trannies watching and cheering all the contestants.

Bumped into Anna-Marie and Charllet on our way back up Canal Street, then Christina and Fay in AXM, then had a good chat with Cerys outside, as the bouncers at AXM had decided it was getting too busy and they weren’t letting people upstairs. The Trans-mission party was being hosted downstairs, too noisy for us old fogies. So then on to Napoleon’s, as we felt it was about time we settled ourselves somewhere, where we were joined shortly after our arrival by Maryanne and co. and "The Americans" – Gloria and Robyn, who we’d met last year at Halloween. Nice to see you both again girls, and well done for making it all that way across the big pond to join in the fun.

After a few hours at Nap’s we’d had enough, went back to the hotel bar for a drink and a chat with the above mentioned who were also staying there, and finally we collapsed into our bed.

Now I can’t do this blog without complaining about the hotel…

Queen’s as it’s now known (I still groan at that), formerly The International, well what can you say? We kind of liked it at first, cheap and cheerful, it was a bed for the night at least, and this time because we’d booked at short notice we knew we were lucky to find anywhere that didn’t cost an arm and a leg. Perhaps not so lucky after all, as not for the first time there was work going on through the night on the tramlines right next to the hotel, a stone’s throw from our single-glazed window. By work I mean pneumatic drills and other incredibly noisy machinery, starting around 2am – our bedtime, and still going on when we left around 11am. Suffice to say, I didn’t get a wink’s sleep, grrr.

None of that of course is really the hotel’s fault, though some double-glazing wouldn’t go amiss. But the place in general, now under new ownership, is quite shameful. The rooms are tatty, less than clean, our bed was broken, we had a non-en suite room and of the 2 toilets on our floor, one was locked with an out of order sign, and the other was just out of order. Shocking. I informed 2 members of staff about this, but suspect it went in one ear and out the other in both cases. The guy on the desk had an attitude problem, "I’M the reception manager", he said, like I’m supposed to be impressed, and yet again, they expect us to believe that the credit card machine is not "online". It cannot be coincidence that the machine is always down and we have had to pay cash every time we have stayed there over the last 2 years. I’ve made a point of asking the last few times if I can pay by credit card when I make the booking, "No problem…" but when you get there, "Oh sorry the machine is down at the moment…" Grrr.

No soap in the room, curtains hanging off, mugs cracked so badly that they leak, no locks on ANY toilet door in the whole building, no lights working in any toilets either, 2 measly sachets of coffee between us (I drank them both, sorry Pip, I needed caffeine for the drive), and en suites, when you can get them, that are frankly quite scary to go into. Honestly, I’m not the fussy, complaining type, hell I lived in a cave for a month when I was picking oranges in Greece, but this place is a disgrace. Never again.

Doh! How many times have I said that?! Next time I would rather drive back up to Cumbria than spend a night in such squalor. But hopefully next time we can book early to avoid disappointment, as they say.

Anyway the main thing is that Sparkle seemed to be a success, and I for one was glad to be there and be a small part of it. When you see so many t-girls gathered together in one place it makes you realise that we are not such a rare species, and such events can only encourage others who haven’t yet made the steps toward their first public appearance. I hope also it won’t be long before the event becomes more recognised by the media, as with the Pride marches, which are now world-wide and which I personally believe have gone a huge way to improving society’s attitude towards gays and lesbians. Of course Pride is now a BLT, no hang on that’s a sandwich, um, a GLBT event, but I don’t think being tagged onto the end of what was originally a gay event has quite the same impact as a purely TG gathering. I’m sure there are some girls who would be terrified if there were national TV cameras present at Sparkle, but I think it would make the general public sit up and take note, that blimey, there are bloody thousands of these girls aren’t there!

If the event continues to snowball, as it seems to have done in only one year we will be spilling out from the Village onto the streets of "mainstream" Manchester. Soon, we’ll be taking over the city.

One day, the world….!

xx