For Fawkes Sake!

It’s that time of the year in which we embrace an American holiday; Halloween, but we also celebrate that fact that some northerner wasn’t able to blow up Parliament in 1605. I am of course talking about Bonfire Night.

Now, I don’t know how many other countries celebrate failed assassination attempts but I’m guessing there aren’t many, which puts our certain kind of celebration in a class of its own.

The thing is at the end of the day all Bonfire Night is a gathering of people watching shit burn. We commemorate Parliament not being blown up by burning shit we don’t want for one night a year. Then stare at the bonfire like we’re some-type of unintelligible caveman staring at a plasma TV. “Woooo, look at the burny, burny!” We then stare into the sky to watch pretty lights, which always seem to be a let down. If I leave after watching some fireworks and I’m neither slightly deaf nor slightly blind, I’m not satisfied. I also love the way most adults try to say that the fireworks are for the children, when most kids are scared of them and would be more than happy with a sparkler. The fireworks are really for adults, just a nice little distraction for a couple of minutes to take your mind off your shitty lives.

At this time of the year it’s easy to see the difference between us and our American cousins, while they dress up scary costumes and go door to door asking for ‘treats’, we gather together for a tradition deep-rooted into our history. At the end of their night they get home to find a bag full of ‘candy’ and maybe a couple of dollars in their pocket and we end up stinking of smoke, covered in mud, occasionally drenched and often coming down with the first symptoms of a cold or flu.

To me it seems as if this British tradition has run its course. In this day and age in which most of the population hates the government and wouldn’t think twice about walking in Guy Fawkes shoes and attempting a Gun Powder Plot, maybe we shouldn’t commemorate a failed assassination attempt by standing around watching a big fire. When chavs stand around a stolen Corsa as it goes up in the flames that’s illegal, but it’s fine for members of the public to stand around a huge fire once a year. When tramps stand around a burning bin under some bridge they’re still smelly tramps and we point and laugh at them, then go on to stand around a bigger fire, you need to step back and wonder, are you any better than a bunch of chavs or tramps?

So what I propose for next year, is instead of the archaic tradition we should band together and attempt; Gun Powder Plot 2010; Mission Probable! No longer will we celebrate Guy Fawkes getting caught, instead we shall finish what he started.