1,400 volunteers and 8,500 parade participants are busy putting the last fabulous shimmering touches to 135 floats for 2011 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade.

This year we have a respected collection of 8 gay Heroes replacing the Chief of Parade. Lily Tomlin, Peter Tatchell, Don Baxter Bev Lange, Lex Watson, Sue Wills and school girls Hannah Williams and Savannah Supski will lead the parade and encourage everyone to SAY SOMETHING.

So concerned mum Linda Fitzsimmons feels that we should have audience suitability ratings on live shows because she was “shocked and surprised” by the graphic sexual nature and swear words that are an integral part of Lady GaGa’s Monster Ball show. Aghast, she found GaGa’s masterpiece of live entertainment inappropriate content for her 9 year old daughter.

The hyped 9 ½ minute clip for the Lady GaGa and Beyonce’s Telephone  collaboration track has been released from its cage today. Or should I say, prison cell.

Continuing on the mass hysteria about whether GaGa has a tuck game going on, she is stripped in the clip and the snarly guard says “I told you she didn’t have a dick”.  Don’t stress if you are on the “GaGa has dick team” a pixilated strip will let you continue the debate.

The parade was an amazing splash of colour and homo-energy however I miss the artistry of the costumiers of past such as Ron Muncaster, Pip Playford and  Brenton Heath-Kerr. They delivered engineering marvels that made you wonder how they managed to manoeuvre the elaborate costumes all the way to the after party.  These creations often took a year in planning, months of work and hundreds of dollars in materials and were usually self funded out of the artist’s love of creating a show stopper.