Fireworks

Oooooooooh aaaaaaaaaah.
That was the text that a friend just sent me. I was all 'If you're trying to be a ghost, you've missed it by a few days', and he was all 'I was doing an impression of me and the kids watching the fireworks, silly.' Which made me laugh.

And I've just typed that and realised that most non-British people probably don't celebrate November 5th, right? I've never really thought about it before. Feel free to let me know if you have Bonfire Night wherever you are, and if not if you've even heard of it. Because this is probably bigger than Halloween over here. Less merchandise, but I think we're probably about 10times to head out to see the bonfire and fireworks on Nov5th than dress up and go to a Halloween party.

The origins are all a bit morbid really - several hundred years ago a Catholic plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament was foiled. So we celebrate that they're still standing and all go and watch fireworks (gunpowder, see?), have a huge bonfire, and occasionally burn a paper Guy (Guy Fawkes being the poor fella who is historically landed with all the blame, despite not really being the brains of the outfit), although you see that less and less these days - sometimes paper celebrities are burnt instead. Anyway, I guarantee you that over half of the nation don't have a clue about the origins of the festivities, and most of the other half know less than what I just put there. So it's not remotely political (in fact the idea of celebrating the Houses of Parliament is faintly hilarious in the current political climate), or religious or anti-religious. It's just a chance to watch the local council spend a few thousand pounds on brightly coloured moments, get warm by a big fire, often go on a fairground (my university town turns Nov5th into a HUGE deal, the whole town turns up. The fireworks were incredible, and the fairground was verging on a themepark, not that I went on anything). And eat toffee apples, candyfloss, treacle toffee and parrkin. Not that I ate any of that either - I got too into Halloween to rememer Bonfire Night properly this year. But I went with good company, and we watched the fireworks from a great spot. Very pretty

I'm hopefully off to London tomorrow to go to a film museum and research for my dissertation. I find london exciting, but terrifying too - fingers crossed I don't get very lost.

Nanowrimo word count: 3153 :-s