Well, today is the real Autumnal event in England, Guy Fawkes Night. Bonfires, fireworks, baked potatoes, hot soup etc, all because a plot to destroy the King and Parliament all in one go was foiled in 1605. Being a weeknight, though, some events were last weekend, and some will be moved forward to next weekend.
The problem is, because we have such a multi-cultural city, the event is now swamped by Diwali, the Indian festival of Truth & Light. This requires the letting off of loads of REALLY LOUD fireworks for a fortnight, and all the neighbourhood pets are scared to venture outdoors.
So the English traditions are being lost beneath the much more exuberant Indian ones. Don’t get me wrong, I love their enthusiasm, and welcome their input into the melting pot of cultures that is London today, but it’d be nice if we English could shout a bit louder sometimes.
Autumn tradition in the Detroit area when I grew up was to have “Devil’s Night” the night before Halloween in order to soap windows, ring-and-run, or deploy a device known as the "zittletweeter"on the windows of unsuspecting neighbors.
The zittletweeter consists of a large, empty wooden thread spool with notches carved in its flanges, then strung on a long nail or gutter spike and wrapped with
twine so the spool spins when the twine is pulled. -The grooves carved in the spool create a percussive, loud but non-destructive rattle when the twine is pulled while the device is pressed against a neighbor’s window. Its efficient at producing anger, exasperation and shock, and sometimes productive of a sore behind or a mouthful of one’s own soap if said neighbor apprehends one.
-Another great fall tradition is the progeny of MAD magazine, 43-man squamish. Any C & Fers ever play it?
Brian O.
[ This Message was edited by: brianormond on 2002-11-06 02:36 ]
On 2002-11-05 12:11, Martin Milner wrote:
This requires the letting off of loads of REALLY LOUD fireworks for a fortnight, and all the neighbourhood pets are scared to venture outdoors.
Glad you mentioned this Martin, it really gets my goat. When I was a kid, we knew to keep the cats and dogs indoors for just one night and the poor things sat quivering under the dining table. But now, as you say it’s a fortnight, or even more - it’s gone too far.
On 2002-11-05 12:11, Martin Milner wrote:
This requires the letting off of loads of REALLY LOUD fireworks for a fortnight, and all the neighbourhood pets are scared to venture outdoors.
Glad you mentioned this Martin, it really gets my goat. When I was a kid, we knew to keep the cats and dogs indoors for just one night and the poor things sat quivering under the dining table. But now, as you say it’s a fortnight, or even more - it’s gone too far.
Growing up in Australia we had crackers on Guy Fawkes night and some other night whose identity and significance I now forget. Now crackers have been banned here except for displays by qualified professionals. They were deemed too unsafe. People had lost hands and some were even killed through stupidity and carelessness.
It sounds as though the two week festival you speak of is a good example of a tradition migrating and receiving an understandably hostile response. It is a bit different of course when the tradition accompanies a migrant group but I should have thought some compromise with the sensibilities of the natives would have been in order.
On 2002-11-06 23:30, Wombat wrote:
Growing up in Australia we had crackers on Guy Fawkes night and some other night whose identity and significance I now forget. Now crackers have been banned here except for displays by qualified professionals. They were deemed too unsafe. People had lost hands and some were even killed through stupidity and carelessness.
It sounds as though the two week festival you speak of is a good example of a tradition migrating and receiving an understandably hostile response. It is a bit different of course when the tradition accompanies a migrant group but I should have thought some compromise with the sensibilities of the natives would have been in order.
The real issue Wombat is not the migrant groups but the fact that for weeks in advance you can buy fireworks over the counter in every corner store.
Australia’s much more sensible about such things. There, you have RBT’s, no smoking in restaurants, and so on; suggest those kinds of things here and all the loonies stand up and say “big brother!”, “invasion of personal liberties”, ra ra ra. So the pets suffer, people blow their hands off, and non-smokers get lung cancer from passive smoking. Rant over.
Growing up in Australia we had crackers on Guy Fawkes night and some other night whose identity and significance I now forget. Now crackers have been banned here except for displays by qualified professionals. They were deemed too unsafe. People had lost hands and some were even killed through stupidity and carelessness.
Fireworks can be great fun. True, I did blow a firecracker up in my hand once, when I was 13, but who hasn’t? I would hate to see them outlawed. Is it really the government’s business to protect us from ourselves? The problem is someone burns down a house, instead of taking responsibility, they sue the firework vendor, et cetera, ad nauseum. Thus the courts get backed up with things that never ought to have gone to court in the first place.
An interesting thing I have noticed. In Oklahoma it is now largely church groups that are operating the firework stands.
That said, I usually buy up fireworks at the 4th of July and New Years, and never actually fire them off, and unscrupulous teenagers wind up swiping them from my house.
Growing up in Australia we had crackers on Guy Fawkes night and some other night whose identity and significance I now forget. Now crackers have been banned here except for displays by qualified professionals. They were deemed too unsafe. People had lost hands and some were even killed through stupidity and carelessness.
Fireworks can be great fun. True, I did blow a firecracker up in my hand once, when I was 13, but who hasn’t? I would hate to see them outlawed. Is it really the government’s business to protect us from ourselves?
The law changed whilst I was out of the country for seven years in England, not that my presence would have made any difference. I have fond memories of childhood fireworks events and got through without serious injury myself. I think the law might have changed because some people started blowing up other people rather than themselves but, being absent at the time, I’m not sure about that. I suppose it’s that sort of thing that worries Nick more than the fact that occasionally idots blow themselves up. (That was a little cracker that exploded in your hand wasn’t it Walden? You do still have both hands don’t you?)
Martin, and the person before you who mentioned something about Charlie Brown getting rocks for Halloween…
…on my mission to Arizona, we gave the kids ice cubes because we didn’t have any candy! I couldn’t get over the surprised looks on their faces as they went away, holding a dripping cube (which melted very fast, I am sure)! Ha, the good ol’ days!
Brian Ormond referred to a Detroit tradition called “devils night” (the night before Halloween) during which all sorts of harmless pranks were done. That’s how I remember it as a kid as well, but unfortunately the tradition devolved during the '90s, and kids in the poorer sections of the city took to burning down abandoned houses.
Now, however, the city fathers have taken to renaming it “angels night”, and lots of volunteers drive through the neighborhoods to prevent this from happening.