All over the UK tonight, the sky will be lit up with fireworks and the evening will reverberate with a lot of loud bangs as folk mark Guy Fawke’s Night. Here is a nifty website explaining all about the event, what is commemorated and why. I’ll be off to Battersea Park later this evening to enjoy the fun. I hope people use their common sense and don’t get hurt.
Here is an informative book about the early 17th Century plot to blow up Parliament and the subsequent anti-Catholic crackdown. There is also even something called the Gunpowder Plot Society.
When I was a student living in Brighton, I once went to nearby Lewes, a town that stages a massive series of processions and bonfires every year. It is pretty non-PC in that a lot of people have muttered that such an event, especially one that involves burning effigies of a 17th Century Pope, stirs up ugly prejudices. I can sympathise up to a point with the grumblers. When I went along to the event there was the smell not just of gunpowder in the air but quite a lot of aggressive body language on display (although that may have been due to the potent local ales). I am glad to say that, all this time on, anti-Popery hysteria is mostly a thing of the past in Britain (apart from the odd bit of nuttiness at Glaswegian local football matches between Celtic and Rangers). Alas, it lingers on in Northern Ireland.
will you be watching the fun from the safety of the bushes, johnners, mon brave?
Guido, I am not at liberty to disclose my location. I could tell you but would have to kill you, as they say in the CIA!!!!!
It really seems odd to celebrate a failed revolution. But that’s just me.
Steven, we Brits celebrate failure all the time. It is part of our cultural DNA. Seriously, it is held to mark the failure of a group of people in their desire to overthrow Britain as a sovereign, non-Roman Catholic-run state. It is one of those Great British Historical Events, like the signing of Magna Carta, the Battle of Trafalgar or the Glorious Revolution of 1689.
Personally, any excuse to set off fireworks, drink good beer and eat beefburgers is fine by me.
We’ve started early here in Tuscany, a fantastic conflagration of olive branches and some toasted marshmallows – imported from Engerlund, natch, we simply coudn’t have had anything catholic carbonising on the fire! Apart from which, Italian marshmallows are rubbish for cooking for some reason. Maybe they’ve been sprayed with antiincendiary chemicals in readiness for tonight.
A safe and fun evening to all Anglo Saxons and their friends everywhere…
Hmmm.. non-Muslim run state?
Would it be premature to add Osama’s & etcs’ effigies to the pyre?
You get to throw unsatisfactory politicians on the fire? We need one of those holidays over here.
Jonathan – “All over the UK” …? Are you sure the Scots celebrate Guy Fawkes night? I don’t think so!!
On Bonfire Night in 2001 I believe an effigy of Osama bin Laden was burnt at Lewes.
Of course they do. Where do you get your odd ideas about Scotland from, Verity? Shortbread tins?
EG
The Muslim invasion should be sufficient to unite Catholics and Protestants against a common enemy, rather like Shia and Sunni joining forces to fight the Infidel.
Are you sure the Scots celebrate Guy Fawkes night? I don’t think so!!
There are plenty of fireworks going off here in Edinburgh at the moment.
One of the plotters’ concerns was that James VI/I had reneged on promises for Catholic emancipation and that was seen as being connected with his Scottish upbringing.
Of course, reference the earlier post ‘The merde is hitting the French fan’, it’s nice to see that the French also celebrate November 5th, in their own way …
Yes, well any of us who saw the bit of channel 4 where they got the right amount of gun-powder and blew up a mock (in full detail) Houses of Parliament appreciate what an evil cretin Guy and his buddies truly were. He was well and truly a terrorist…celebrating his demise is perfectly apt. Lets hope we can have a similar event to celebrate the gruesome death of OBL.
One of my favorite graphic novels of all time,
V for Vendetta involves an update of the Guy Fawkes story, but with the twist that “V” is very much the hero. Highly recommended, especially for libertarians.
I’m all for updating the website as it were.
Bung on as many modern bogeymen (they usually are) as you like to my bonfire in effigy to make it er like cool and relevant to the “modern world”
In the mean time just enjoy the joy.
Now hold my Sparkler cos I’m going for a toffee apple and a burnt hot dog…..
I’m all for updating the website as it were.
Bung on as many modern bogeymen (they usually are) as you like to my bonfire in effigy to make it er like cool and relevant to the “modern world”
In the mean time just enjoy the joy.
Now hold my Sparkler cos I’m going for a toffee apple and a burnt hot dog…..
My personal Nov 5th lament is that we are now permanently restricted to burning the traitor Edward Heath in effigy.
I was always hoping against hope that, one night down in Sussex, we might have managed it before the bugger died and escaped the fate he so richly deserved.
UBL has indeed been burnt in effigy in Lewes. But then so have Brown, Blair, Clinton and Bush, to name but a few.
It’s almost as if the people didn’t like their masters.
Having just come back from Lewes tonight, I can say there weren’t any popes being burnt a shame – nothing like baiting the whiney metropolitans who populate brighton and increasingly Lewes itself.
As for the anti catholic bigotry suggested the people of Lewes are commemorating those murdered by Bloody Mary – a fact not that cannot be dispelled by duplicitously calling it bigotry.
As for the comment about aggression – high spirits yes but nothing as initimidating as you regularly find in London everyday.
Err, one reason why Lewes always used to bait Catholics was because nearby Arundel was traditionally the seat of the Roman Catholic faith in the UK. They always used to celebrate the execution of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, by Elizabeth I in 1572 for his part in the Ridolfi plot.
It was my first Guy Fawke’s Day. Saffron Walden did a wonderful fireworks display and they burnt down Parlement. It was a sight to see.
That said as an American it felt like a bizzaro-world version of the 4th. In fact it made me, after 3 months without it, feel culture shock.
Here is my post about the whole thing.
http://luthermatrix19.blogspot.com/2005/11/i-miss-america.html
Peace,
Chris
One thing that bothers me about V for Vendetta is that its release has been delayed; it was to have been out this weekend, but because it involved the blowing up of an underground train, it isn’t. Victim appeasement?
As for Guy Fawkes, as I think I’ve posted before now, my old school did not allow the burning of a guy on the bonfire – as it was disrespectful to an old boy of the school…
I live in Pimlico and the sight of smoke from fire-works drifting acros the area on Saturday night gave it a very eerie aura. Not that it is a bad thing…