My friend’s son collected 16 shiny ‘Poppers’ (Amyl Nitrite) bottles off the beach after this year’s Pride. He was delighted with his haul, devastated when his dad said he could not keep them, and then confused about the explanation of what they were for.

 300,000 people came to Pride this year, the most the city has ever seen. That’s a lot of visitors. A lot of hedonism. A lot of litter. 187 tonnes in fact, 40 tonnes more than last year. 19 more Dustcarts to be exact.

I don’t mean to sound miserable. I’m a stay-at-home mum to three argumentative daughters. I’d love to get off my head and dance in the streets naked save for a feather boa and rainbow stripes painted on my (slightly sagging) buttocks.

If I could’ve gotten the childcare, and weight of parental responsibility lifted, I’d have used Pride as an excuse to ‘paaaaarty’, and act like a brit abroad in my own town, which is what Pride seems to be about these days.

The political bit seems to have left the party.

The first Gay Pride was organised by the Sussex Gay Liberation Front in 1973, just seven years after being gay meant being behind bars. Men openly marching hand in hand was a brave thing to do. 

It may no longer have been illegal, but there was still work to do breaking down barriers. The 73’ march ended with a small and stylish Gay Dance at the Royal Albion Hotel.

It didn’t come back to Brighton till 91’, driven by political objection to the government passing laws to ban the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality. It was a patchwork, but very ambitious festival of events that ended with a Pink Picnic in Preston Park.

The political Pride marches lasted four years, struggling against homophobia and pitiful financial support from the local council. LGBT was still taboo.

Finally, the organisers managed to convince local businesses that it was a good thing to be associated with and slowly Pride began to grow and change. They were right. Almost £15 million in revenue was made at this year’s Pride. How the council love Pride now. All those parking fines!

So with all that money made, why is it taking so long to clean up the mess, and how much did it cost us as a city?

I was unfortunate enough to visit A&E this weekend. The doctor who saw me said the trauma department were overrun with drug overdoses and alcohol poisoning from Pride.

According to Wikipedia ‘Pride is the positive stance against discrimination and violence toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people to promote their self-affirmation, dignity, equality rights, increase their visibility as a social group, build community, and celebrate sexual diversity and gender variance. Pride, as opposed to shame and social stigma’ (Bit of a mouthful).

Wasting NHS money with drug and alcohol related incidents and leaving Brighton covered in filth is nothing to be proud of as far as I’m concerned.

Why does celebrating always have to involve alcohol and drugs? I’m not saying Pride should have been a mass of people clinking bone china tea-cups with their pinky-fingers pointing out, but it would be nice to see a slightly sober celebration for once. Kid’s manage it with jelly and ice-cream and pass the parcel, not pass the poppers.  

As for the litter, I attended the Latitude festival this year, where you could earn £5 for handing in a bag of litter or recycling. I wonder if this would have made a difference at Pride.

The Argus: Battle's Steve Scott with his medal

And over to Rio, where legendary swimmer Michael Phelps has won his 21st gold medal, safe in the knowledge that a trained lifeguard was thee feet away, in case he got in jeopardy.

Two people in yellow and red, with whistles and buoyancy aids at the ready, stood watching in the background.

The pool was filled with some of the greatest swimmers in history, but Brazilian law means that any public pool over a certain size must have lifeguards.

I suppose it made a nice change from stopping kids running, bombing, petting or ducking. And from people like me, who never learned to swim properly and always cause alarm when attempting the back-stroke. ‘She’s fine, honestly’ my husband assures the lifeguard, every time.

And a man called Eric is employed to ensure the athletes are protected at all times. His job is to walk around the Olympic village with a big sack of condoms (‘Camisinhas’ in Brazilian slang) distributing them to athletes.

The International Olympic Committee for Rio 2016 has provided more than 450,000 condoms for the two-week games. This works out at 42 per athlete, (nearly) three-a-day. A true Olympian effort indeed! I just wonder who is tasked with cleaning up afterwards.