Gone With A Bang

Well, as the old saying goes, remember remember the 5th of November, and quite rightly so since its Bonfire night - an annual celebration in memory of a fella trying but failing to blow up the houses of parliament. But before the night sky is lit up there are the usual tasks to be completed before anything else. For a start, I'm up at virtually the break of dawn and it's not very long before I'm perched in front of the computer carrying on with the work I started earlier in the week. And that's where I stay for most of the day, only breaking for some lunch and helping Phil put on the hardtop to his car, which is definitely a 2 person job.

As evening approaches it's pretty obvious that us brits like to put on a bit of a show on bonfire night and so the entirety of the early evening and well on until about 11pm we are surrounded by flashes, bangs, whizzes and explosions - in fact so much so that you'd think that the whole of the fireworks stock had been sold to the residents on our estate.

The fireworks remind me of my trip to Hong Kong in 1997 when control of it was handed back to China. It was also the chinese new year - and boy do they know how to do fireworks over there. I remember that it felt like the entire population of Hong Kong and Kowloon turned up at the harbour, there were thousands and thousands of people there all standing around waiting for something to happen... then wow didn't it just! The sky scrapers that surrounded us rattled with the power of the explosions, car alarms went off, you could feel the force permeate through your body as if you were standing right in front of the biggest sub woofer you can imagine. And the colours? You wouldn't see more variety if you were standing in the middle of a mardi gras procession.

It makes british displays look somewhat feeble by comparison, but I've no doubt with the current aggression of our parliament and it's attitude towards implementing an even more suffocating nanny state, it won't be long before the tradition is ruled out as a health hazard and banned from our skies for ever. Maybe Guy Fawkes had the right idea after all...

Posted by Abi on the November 5, 2005 9:43 PM

sjon at November 7, 2005 11:11 AM