The streets of NYC were glittering with gold on the weekend. Not to mention red, blue, green and purple. With the Grateful Dead showering thousands of followers with multi-coloured tie died roses on the west side of the country, NYC went all out to put the East side over the rainbow.

The Gay Parade is a feast of photography at any time, but with the timing of the marriage laws it was more flamboyant than ever. Standing on a street corner for just a few minutes was like being in a Dali dream sequence. Urban Aztecs in full feathered headdress, dogs wearing rose coloured glasses, women in tutus, others who couldn’t even think straight, and men in sissy girl ensembles. Everyone wanted to pose, especially the old boys in pink. Having just come from the Alice in Wonderland Exhibition at The Morgan, I felt curiouser and curiouser. It turns out the boys were retired and, being happily beyond the reach of employers expectations or any particular dress code, they created their own. Miss Kitty meets Miss Piggy. Not only was it stand-out-in-a-crowd-worthy, winning upgrades on the flight to NYC, but it made a latent claim to the forbidden fancies of their childhood. For me ‘I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then’, but I do wonder about those impossibly perfect roses…that’s the great puzzle…!