Monday, November 01, 2004
Bah humbug!
Halloween has come and gone. Three separate sets of kiddies knocked on my door the other night trying to extort sweets or money or something off me. The reason I'm not sure what they were after is that I simply don't answer the door on October 31st.
When you think about it, Trick or Treating really is extortion: "give me some sweets or I'll let the tyres down on your car". Why is it even allowed? In fact I have a vague recollection that it is a distortion of the original American tradition where the home owner was the one doing the tricking or treating as demonstrated by the Peanuts cartoon where the children went Trick or Treating and everybody got sweets except Charlie Brown who always got a rock.
Another thing that annoys me is fireworks. As I write, the first displays happened in my area about two weeks ago. They have been going on every night since and will probably not cease until the week after November the Fifth. Didn't people watch Blue Peter and note the concern of the presenters for pets everywhere? I think all fireworks should be banned except on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday around November 5.
Actually that reminds me that this time last year I was on a contract in Dublin. My hotel was in a residential area and so for the week leading up to November 5th I was treated to many and varied fireworks displays from nearby gardens. You can imagine my surprise when I learned, on the Wednesday, that fireworks are totally banned in the Republic. By "totally" I mean "utterly" and "completely" to the point where you can't even have big official displays. The taxi driver on the way back to the airport explained how fireworks were smuggled in from the North - yes the North of Ireland where I'd imagine that the sale of explosives is fairly tightly controlled.
It has only just occurred to me that the 5th November probably wouldn't be considered a day to celebrate in Southern Ireland being as it is the anniversary of a failed catholic plot to kill a protestant King whose descendents, directly and indirectly, caused the Irish a lot of misery. They still seem to have the fireworks though.
When you think about it, Trick or Treating really is extortion: "give me some sweets or I'll let the tyres down on your car". Why is it even allowed? In fact I have a vague recollection that it is a distortion of the original American tradition where the home owner was the one doing the tricking or treating as demonstrated by the Peanuts cartoon where the children went Trick or Treating and everybody got sweets except Charlie Brown who always got a rock.
Another thing that annoys me is fireworks. As I write, the first displays happened in my area about two weeks ago. They have been going on every night since and will probably not cease until the week after November the Fifth. Didn't people watch Blue Peter and note the concern of the presenters for pets everywhere? I think all fireworks should be banned except on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday around November 5.
Actually that reminds me that this time last year I was on a contract in Dublin. My hotel was in a residential area and so for the week leading up to November 5th I was treated to many and varied fireworks displays from nearby gardens. You can imagine my surprise when I learned, on the Wednesday, that fireworks are totally banned in the Republic. By "totally" I mean "utterly" and "completely" to the point where you can't even have big official displays. The taxi driver on the way back to the airport explained how fireworks were smuggled in from the North - yes the North of Ireland where I'd imagine that the sale of explosives is fairly tightly controlled.
It has only just occurred to me that the 5th November probably wouldn't be considered a day to celebrate in Southern Ireland being as it is the anniversary of a failed catholic plot to kill a protestant King whose descendents, directly and indirectly, caused the Irish a lot of misery. They still seem to have the fireworks though.
# posted by JeremyP : 8:27 pm
