Guy Fawkes Night

Not only do we not bother to mention Guy Fawkes much on Bonfire Night (see) any more, but we have little respect for even celebrating it on the right day, convenience being far more important. Our Guy Fawkes Night was last night, while many people had it on Friday night, but at least I’m writing about it on the correct day.

I’ve never been entirely sure whether to consider the night a celebration of Fawkes’ failure, or of his effort. On the one hand, I don’t agree with killing anybody or anything (I have to use ‘thing’ to cover animals*, strangely) for any reason. Perhaps the only exception would be ‘with their permission’ (which in the case of animals, it’s sometimes necessary to take as read, as many of us have had to do – R.I.P. Snoop), or of course, for my Sunday roast. On the other hand nothing is ever that clear cut and perhaps sometimes fire has to be fought with fire. For me, Fawkes’ murderous intent was mitigated somewhat by the fact that he was going straight for the source of the problem. In today’s world of course, the act would have been committed randomly on innocent people attempting to travel from A to B. If there’s a reason for this counterproductive insanity, I hope it’s more signifcant than the fact that you can no longer rent a cellar under the Houses of Parliament. However, no surprises at all that the driving force, as always, is religion. Anyway, I should probably have stuck to talking about fireworks – avoidance of this kind of thinking is probably why we call it Bonfire Night. When you’re in a hole, it’s best to stop digging, so…

As has been the tradition for the last 5 or 6 years, we went to the house of a friend who consistently holds what surely must be the most impressive display in Yorkshire, private or otherwise. It was Baby Mia’s second year in attendance. Last year, barely 3 weeks old, she slept through the whole thing. This year she fell flat on her face on the tarmac, and was inconsolable by all the usual means and only the fireworks saved the day, putting “Ooooh!” in place of  “Waaaah!”. She’s forgotten all about the injury now of course, but she’s sporting a grazed forehead and bloody nose to make sure her delinquent parents don’t get to do the same. Normally I’m inclined to consider her many bumps and bruises as ‘her own fault’ (running around, as she does now, like a crazed lunatic) or ‘just one of those things’ but last night we had her wrapped up like a marshmallow man due to the cold, and she couldn’t even put her arms out quickly enough to save herself. Ouch.

*Houseflies are specifically excluded I’m afraid. There was a time when I tried to live and let live, but enough is enough.