h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Problem is, as with many other issues, it isn't a matter of which is best, rather what is appropriate?

Before I am lambasted as a grumpy so and so, let me explain...

We built playgrounds in parks for children, especially in the post war period, and nobody thought them to be a problem. Unfortunately, as we are all aware, they are all broken glass, discarded syringes and not where you would wish your children to be.

Similarly, Halloween and bonfire night celebrations suffer from how older children and young people use them as an opportunity to create mischief. (When I was a kid, 4th November was Mischievous Night, but that's another story, pre USA Halloween etc.)

The mischief we see include today's report of a large firework let off in a shop and a baby being admitted to hospital as a result. My neighbour had a firework let off in his letterbox the other year, and we could go on all night. Similarly, if a teenage gang knock on your door trick or treating, and you don't give them money, thousands of pounds worth of damage could be inflicted on your car, and we read of this being a regular event. Apparently the police steer clear of protecting us from demanding money with menace one day per year. Didn't see that in the legislation...

Old people will be spending tonight in fear. We will be going out for a meal, so we are not answering the door every two minutes. We will take the most valuable of the two cars on our drive, to reduce the risk as it were.

So..... Halloween or Bonfire Night? If we look at everybody's safety and sell fireworks under licence to adults, who apply to the council for a licence to use them on set dates, AND we encourage Halloween parties, but remind parents that encouraging children to take sweets from strangers, enforce demanding money with menace crime etc etc..

Then, we can perhaps have a debate around how to celebrate events, and everybody who wants to having fun. Not an excuse to force scared people to turn off lights and not answer the door, or be wary of feral brats with fireworks on the streets...

I sound like Victor Meldrew I know, but good ideas do need reflecting on, just like playgrounds in parks...

I think sales of fireworks to the public should be banned altogether. Call me a killjoy, but the public as a whole clearly cannot be trusted with them; there are always going to be idiots like the guy you mentioned.

In this day and age, it seems slightly ludicrous that you can legally purchase explosives and set them off in public places.

Well, as far as I can guess, from how things are in my local area, Bonfie Night still far surpasses, in terms of popularity, Halloween (trick or treating and all ). There are several large firework events, in Bury St. Edmunds, and Ipswich; so a big hand please for traditional November 5th celebrations !

As far as I'm concerned we all need to do as much as possible to keep our traditions seperate and intact, from American ideas; or soon our country will have no character left!

Halloween started in Europe, then went to the states, died out in Britain (that Oliver Cromwell - don't get me started...) and came back. Although it was the Catholic 'All Hallows Eve', lots of traditions associated with it were kind of Pagan, and the Protestant authorities weren't to keen on that, so they used the whole 'gun-powder, treason and plot' excuse to shift it back five days and adapt it into something pro-authority. People would have lit the bone fires anyway, and asking 'penny for the guy' isn't too far removed from trick or treating. I love both bone fire night and Sanhaim - had hoards of kids round demanding sweets on Halloween, it was very entertaining.

I just wish people wouldn't use November the 5th as an excuse to set off fireworks for two months straight... It gets a wee bit distracting.

Super_owl1867 you are a being a grumpy
Kids letting off fireworks, accidents occuring because of them been going on for as long as I can remember (back to the 70's). There never was a golden age

They're both aspects of the same thing, aren't they?

Bonfire Night would not have lasted so long were it JUST a celebration of an attempt to slay the King and Parliament over 400 years ago. The original cause and reasons why and the people involved have dissappered into history: all most people can recall is that Guy Fawkes tried to blow up King James I. Literate Scots might add that he was King James VI of Scotland. But who can tell you why, or who else was involved, without searching for a history book?

The time of year is why we still do it: this is a survival of the pagan Samhain with its traditions of fires and song to mark the onset of winter. This has been going on for thousands of years; the Puritans of King James' time made determined efforts to kill off the survival of the old Winter festival as pagan and un-Christian (even today, fundamentalists pop out of the woodwork to denounce Halowe'en as a resurgence of paganism and demon-worship - I suppose even Puritans have to follow their own historical tradition!)

I should imagine Guy Fawkes gave canny Pagans a good excuse to perpetute the Samhain fires under a nice handy cover-story: nobody, not even bible-bashing Puritans, is going to object to patriotic English folk celebrating the salvation of their King from traitors and burning the traitor Fawkes in effigy..