What I love about bonfire night/Firework night/Guy Fawkes night in the UK is that every 5th November, families and kids gather round in overpriced firework displays in public parks, with loud PA systems pumping out chart music and overpriced hot dog stands charging a fortune for unquantified meat in buns. Everyone goes nuts for it.
What I particularly love is that by celebrating Guy Fawkes, you are effectively celebrating a terrorist, found guarding a load of explosives underneath the House Of Parliament in 1605, after planning to assassinate King James I and return a Catholic to power. Fawkes was arrested and then tortured before admitting his guilt and sentenced to a public execution. He committed suicide before they could kill him by jumping from a beam and breaking his neck.
Grizzly huh? Not only are little kids celebrating terrorism, explosives, torture & execution but death as well. Hows about that then guys and gals? Who needs Grand Theft Auto? Just shows how screwed up UK is without knowing it. Back in 1605 there were no Ipads, sms or HDTV. No Al Quaeda. Just plain old simple religious terrorism. Times haven't moved on that much have they?
I loved firework night when I was a kid. There were not as many public displays as you get now. Instead it was the Garden Firework kit for £20, that included a Catherine Wheel you had to precariously nail to the fence, a Bomb, a couple of rockets that never went high or long enough, some coloured bombs that blew in the air and lots of spinny things. Of course several of them didn't go off, forcing the father to swear even more and get the matches out threatening his entire face, fingers and sideburns with fatal burning. There was little in the way of health & safety back then.
Of course there had to be hot dogs, they always tasted so much better on 5th November. Wank every other day of the year but Michelin standard on the 5th. The dog would be shit scarred and kept inside behaving like they were on Paranormal Activity 23. The fireworks were so exciting until they actually took off. Then they became a let down. You cursed you were born into a middle income family instead of wealth as you longed for those super rockets. See ungrateful behaviour starts in childhood.
At least they were better than 'indoor fireworks'. They were truly shit. Who remembers the pyramids that were as interesting as watching a lit candle. Indoor fireworks promised much but delivered little. They were effectively the Barak Obama of the firework world. (Do you like my nod to something topical there?)
The smell of the fireworks were pungent. An acrid smell that was so nice. Even better if you had a slight hint of burnt fingertip by the adult risking their life to light them. You wrote your name with sparklers apart from the dyslexic kids who concentrated more on shapes and writing the words 'zzzzzzznniiii'.
Then it was over far too quickly. Unless of course you were a teenager, then you could stretch it out for days by leaving fireworks in neighbours houses, doors, driveways. Sometimes adding dog shit to create a shit bomb. God I hate teenagers. Nightmare aren't they?
Now of course, it's all different. Kids rarely leave fireworks in driveways, preferring people's faces instead. Huge public displays costing a fortune to get in all computer generated in sequence to loud music. Very slick. Like everything now, it is big business and a mass consumer product. Christmas will be next.
It's great for kids. But at the end of the day once you've seen one firework you've seen them all. I mean it's just sparkly lights in the sky right? Big deal. 'Ooooh a sparkly thing. Oooooohhhhh. Another. etc etc'. Not sure I'm on board with that one. Definately one for kids me thinks.
What I especially love are the people who take pictures of the fireworks in the sky, what is that all about? 1 - they are missing the display and 2 - It looks shit on camera. If ever there was a case of 'you had to be there', fireworks is it. Surely they are an experience not a picture?
God I sound like a right miserable git don't I? Bah humbug.
I'm not sure if November 5th is a big deal in other countries? Obviously Halloween is huge in USA, however I'm presuming firework night is predominately a British thing. I mean which other country would celebrate religious terrorism with such innocence and Tesco Extra?
Quiet day today. Still reeling after the enormous feeding yesterday of all the things I rarely eat. Not any good at processing pounds of chocolate cake anymore. Cycle, run. cycle, procrastinate, friend, meeting, coffee. Home. That's about it for Monday. I'm not going to lie. It's not going to enter into the top ten of amazing days. But then again I didn't drink, abuse anyone, hurt anyone, get arrested, lose my phone/wallet and I spent some time finding out how other people were doing. Plus I'm breathing so it wasn't a bad day I guess.
Not a great blog today people. I'd rate it at 40%. Still, it can't be gold every day can it? At least the critics have piped down a little. Though I'm sure they'll be back criticising that i didn't go and help some old people today. I did actually hold a door open for a senior citizen, though the old fucker never thanked me. Does that count?
I allowed 2 people in front of me whilst driving, thanked every shop person I came into contact with, didn't lose my temper in Martins when the bloke couldn't seem to grasp the price of The Times, Guardian and Wrigley Extra, no matter how many times he tried. I kept my cool on one of the customer service lines to Barclays Bank even though I was placed in a queue several times and cut off. I didn't swear at the adviser on the other end of the phone, end up getting cut off and smash the phone up. I didn't do any of that so I guess on reflection it was a decent day.
Until tomorrow readers have a tip top and tidy day
xx
No comments:
Post a Comment