Bonfires and Fireworks

Fireworks! I've always disliked them. The lights mess with my (not quite normal) visual cortex, and I just don't see the fun in standing out in the cold to look up. At least they used to be restricted to a twice yearly annoyance: Bonfire Night and Old Year's. Now, people set them off all through autumn and half of winter. It drives the dog crazy. The poor thing's terrified and shaking, caught between anxious pacing and a desire to hide. I hate fireworks.

It's worth pondering where this tradition came from — The Gunpowder Treason and Plot. (History snapshot commencing). The Protestant King James VI of Scotland succeeds Queen Elizabeth I to become King of England. He is less tolerant of Catholics than many expected him to be, so several English Catholics decide to blow up Parliament with their new Scottish king inside. Guy Fawkes was caught with the barrels of gunpowder, and everyone was either hung drawn and quartered, or shot during their last stand at Holbeche House.

Bonfire Night started as a commemoration of the King and Parliament's survival. Quite a macabre commemoration, it must be said — people make stuffed "Guys" and then burn them on open fires. Today, though, most people set off explosives instead. Those in power may wish to contemplate this apparent reversal of meaning. We're no longer Guy's ceremonial executioners, but his pyrotechnical apprentices.

I can feel a very anti-establishment mood brewing in Britain. Granted, that's not unusual. Britain has always been the kind of place that experiences rapid cultural shifts. But it's also been a place where power has modified itself to suit the zeitgeist. The monarchy survived the Age of Revolutions by stepping away from politics and becoming a ceremonial institution. The pseudo-oligarchy that ruled (as a "democracy") before 1914 avoided post-war rebellion by enfranchising the returning soldiers. When the "winds of change" blew through the world, as much in Britain as anywhere, the government set about dismantling the Empire. Such flexibility kept us away from fascism and communism, and kept our nations together. I think we lack sufficient adults in power to maintain the trend.

We're arguing over our flags. We're still arguing over the EU. After years of right-wingers failing to get the fire lit, we're finally arguing over bathrooms. And we've become so socially fragmented that our country of millions is brought to despair by illegal migrants numbering in the thousands. I've always wondered how the Vikings got away with so much when they showed up in such tiny numbers. Perhaps it had a lot to do with how divided our island was?

And this might be a terrible heuristic of national mood, but there were hardly any Halloween decorations this year. Granted, Halloween as a delightfully gaudy affair is a relatively new import from our American kin, but my little corner of England had enthusiastically embraced it. There used to be all manner of plastic ghosts and ghouls hanging from houses, smoke machines and projectors running, skeletons and bats and spiders. This year, hardly anything. Even the trick-or-treaters were half-hearted and sloppy, not even obeying the sacrosanct pumpkin rule — no pumpkin, don't knock! It was all rather confused, and quite sad.

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