Fireworks

The local MENSA group have decided now is the time to start the annual celebration of failure.

 

Yes I believe Highgrade, as chairman, had the casting vote.

 

After Brexit and the shreading of all the hated EU red tape, namby pamby safety regulations, will we be able to take back control of our bonfire night?

Bring the alleyways of West Watford back to life with bangers and jumping jacks thrown at the feet of your unsuspecting mates.

Feel the sudden shock of a wwwwwwzzzzz past your ear as someone fires a rocket at you. Snap the stick off a rocket and watch it go all over the place.

Have proper British bonfires with old mattresses and all sorts on them - and lunatics with petrol cans to get them going. Fire rockets at the lunatic petrol can man. Allow the kids to dare each other to run through the embers at the end. Bring back the potato in tin foil.

And the round table and their choreographed classical music, electronically-timed Euro safety display can move to bloody Brussels if they don't like it and take their pathetic little pyramid of old pallets stacked half a mile away with 'em.

 

Yes, the UK was far better when kids had their hands/feet/faces blown off on a regular basis. It builds character that's sadly lacking in the current generation.

 

Potatoes in tin foil from a proper bonfire, now there's a thing of beauty

 

First outlaw this American Halloween nonsense. Never had it in my day etc. etc...

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-halloween-has-taken-over-england-180953211/

Relevant to your interests.

 

And what ever happened to penny for the guy?

 

When I was a student in Salford in the mid 90s it was still popular amongst the locals. One had put a large teddy bear in a track suit for his guy and came up to me saying "pound for the guy mother-f*cker". Very ****ensian.

 

Penny for the guy generally started during the last week of September (with the arrival of the freshers) in Liverpool in the late 80's. The 'guys' were frequently one the group of kids.

Meanwhile - you're doing Halloween all wrong (from P O P B I T C H):

FWIW I always imagined as a kids that Bushey (around the American University at the old Masonic School) was a good hunting ground.

 

Penny for the guy, traditionally, was dragging a badly but enthusiastically made 'guy' (I guess you'd call it an effigy) around on an old pram or cart and begging for money to pay for fireworks. Then on fireworks night you'd burn him top of the bonfire of pallets, old furniture and anything you could find.

I don't know but I'd guess its origins are way earlier than the 80's.

Haven't seen it done for decades. Shame really, all the kids used to get together and make the guy in our street, go around collecting money, and building the bonfire.

Then health and safety happened.

 

And they say us commies are killjoys.

 

For anyone with animals it can be a miserable period. My dog is ok but some of my family’s pets absolutely hate them. I wouldn’t mind if it was just the one weekend per year but they seem to be going off for at least a week either side these days.

 

Err...the 1600s, surely?

 

Burning Catholic revolutionaries probably; collecting money for burning effigies of Catholic revolutionaires perhaps

 

It’s a thoroughly dodgy industry with a poor health and safety record and poor conditions. Explosions are common, 22 killed in India last month, a series of huge explosions in China throughout the decade and one worker killed last year in the UK. As the UK has one factory that’s not a great rate.

Still it’s cheap fun for all the family.

 

Bloody hell we've had fireworks since the ancients threw bamboo sticks in the campfire.

If the industry is corrupt and dangerous then so are plenty of others. Regulate.

Fireworks and community bonfires are fun and a connection with our past. By all means ban them from the rest of the year if you must, but leave us our bit of muddy field mischief night.

I'm sorry that it's scary for some pets, but a little rain falls into all our lives at some point and worse things happen at sea. I'm sure they get mollycoddled enough all the rest of the year to make up for it.

In fact I dare say the vast majority will have forgotten all about it by the time they're tucking in to their braised venison supper and snuggling down into their comfortable bed with pillows and blankets while human beings are huddled under some bits of cardboard in a shop doorway not far away.

 

No doubt someone will come up with e-Fireworks, an environmental alternative

(not to be confused with 'eeee fireworks' which is a Yorkshire expression meaning (I think) 'gosh look at the lovely fireworks')

 

Not the point Clive. You go on about back in the day it was good, it was. A big display to watch up the park, drink a can of Kestrel and maybe get a snog in the dark, very nice. A few sparklers and a couple of rickety rockets in the back garden with a few friends around or visiting friends fine.

Like so many festivals it is now maxed out. Big fireworks, huge home displays, everybody needing to have their own, weeks of it. All on the back of third world workers under constant threat of harm. The fun is getting squeezed out.

And maybe if we do consume so much, drive so much, fly so much, burn so much fuel, maybe the room for too much of this isn’t there anymore. A bit like how Xmas used to be a great time for massive indulgence. Now most are pigging out all year it needs a new theme.

 

Like everything else in the UK we are just paralysed by fear of upsetting someone or getting hurt by something. Try going into a ski resort for instance over new year, absolute mayhem with rockets fired from bottles and fizzes/bangs everywhere. everybody having fun and normally local councils clean up so no evidence of anything left over the following morning.

 

Sounds great.

So what festival justified the setting off of fireworks in a car park near Reading, at 2.00 am this morning?

 

U sure that was fireworks and not a drug deal gone wrong with retribution gunshot sparks?

I took our dogs out before sunset (so no fireworks, I thought) but oh no, some plonker shot off about 8 really loud exploding rockets nearby. Nowhere for us to go to get away from the noise, and dogs scared shitless their hearing much more sensitive than ours.
It’s ridiculous, on a Sunday at dusk.
Wait for 31st for Halloween and Guy Fawkes day ffs.
It’s going to be fireworks every night for weeks.

Luckily our dogs are from SA so they were used to daily gunshots, so at least they didn’t throw up their venison and caviar you’ll be happy to hear Clive.

 

Anyone who is having a bonfire remember to check for hedgehogs before firing it up

 

May be it's an age thing but does anyone else find fireworks ******* boring anyway?

The last time I was amused by one was when the wind blew the firework detritus back across the crowd. The oohs and aahs of the wide eyed children were soon replaced with red sobbing eyes as bits of burnt material fell back to earth.

I sometimes times wonder about my sense of humour....

 

And lob a couple on if it's not burning very well?

 

Time it was restricted to licensed displays only.

Nov 5th and the weekend either side.
Diwali and the weekend either side
New years.

There's no need for fireworks to celebrate your cat's birthday or commemorate tow people who will get divorced in 5 years time.

Back in the day I shared a student house with a chap from Northern Ireland. (Fireworks were band there height of the troubles). Nov 5th scared the **** out of him.

 

Yes I went to one like that a couple of years ago. At least it added a little excitement to an otherwise boring annual chore.
My wife loves fireworks and Xmas and current chart pop music. **** knows how we ever married.

 

I guess it's now illegal to burn real catholics ? Bloody H&S gone mad. Will we be able to after Brexit ?

 

November 5th and the closest Saturday, no need for extra days.
New year's night at midnight, not other times.
Why Diwali?

 

Why not?

 

My point was why just Diwali. If we include Diwali then we should allow every festival/event from all round the world. Why not Chinese new year for example?

 

No reason and yes, we should allow genuine celebrations of specific festivals, under controlled conditions.

The point is that fireworks are less freely available at other times of the year, given that Diwali falls around the same time as Bonfire Night, so there is less anti-social behaviour.