Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot
I don’t complain about your fucking dog barking all the time, so one night a year I will let off fireworks!
I’m sorry.
I love Guy Fawkes.
I do.
The joy of my younger years running around with double-happys and sparklers and moon rockets have been all but reduced to sparklers these days as we have relentlessly moved to reduce the more dangerous elements of fireworks but the idea behind Guy Fawkes is one so beautiful that I don’t want it to leave us.
I do not want us to lose the spirit of rebellion that Guy Fawkes represented.
When I burn the Guy on my bonfire, I’m not burning some Catholic zealot from 400 years ago, I’m burning the 1%, I’m burning neoliberalism, I’m burning vested corporate interests, I’m burning the deep state and I’m burning the 5 Fucking eyes.
We should as the Activist Left, take back Guy Fawkes Day and make the symbolic burning of the 1%, neoliberalism, vested corporate interests, the deep state and the 5 Eyes a fundamental part of the celebration.
In the words of V from V for Vendetta…
‘People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people”
…as a nation of sheep, we need more symbolic rebellion, not less.
The Neanderthal glee of loud fire mixed with the exhilaration of different coloured exploding fire is a pleasure I refuse to relinquish!
However.
Even as sing the joys of Guy Fawkes Day, I have to admit the glaring reality that demands private fireworks must be banned.
Global warming.
Our country is being turned into one giant tinder box with all the pine trees and foliage getting dryer and dryer.
We are on the verge of an enormous fire season problem that will require enormous spending of money on professionalising the volunteer Fire Service and allowing people to use private fireworks is just a recipe for disaster.
We need to ban private fireworks because the fire hazard is only going to grow and grow with each passing year as global warming becomes more extreme.
You can take my sparkler out of my dead cold hands (because sparklers will be the only thing we can buy).
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When I was eight, I shoved a banger inside a glass bottle and screwed the top on and held to see what would happen. It went out. Luckily.
When I was ten, we were throwing bangers at each other, and one went down inside my gumboot and burnt me badly.
When I was 17, I was dared to throw a banger at the physics teacher in class and was suspended from school. I was always a sucker for a dare!
Later in life I designed explosive manufacturing plants and spent weeks testing the products in the field. I designed explosive pump trucks for mines. I also managed a detonator factory for a while. It was a glorious job!
Much later in life I set off some enormous fireworks outside a bar in another country and got the bar shut down permanently by the authorities.
OK I realize my view is based on ‘survivor bias’, but hell I enjoy fireworks! Fuck the grass, the forests and the firemen. :=)
Andrew. Expect a visit from the SIS, you’ve really done it this time. How are you going to explain this to the grandchildren ? I hope you know how to build a boat, they’ll be watching the airports, and they are rather in need of a very public success story. Looks like you’re it.
Ba ha !
Well You were a bit of a little bugger weren’t you.
So in a South Pacific country we celebrate the bloody execution of a Roman Catholic rebel around 400 years ago, on the other side of the world? We do this by burning down forests, injuring children and terrorising domestic pets. Why?
I mean the only things more weird would be celebrating a Spring Festival for the Northern Hemisphere in our Autumn, or a mid-winter feast in our summer.
I mean a few evenings ago a strangely dressed group of young people came to my door and demanded sweets or they would ‘play a trick on me’. I replied to their extortion by releasing the hounds.
Incidentally I hope people understand that originally November 5th was a test of loyalty to Protestant monarchs. An effigy of the pope was publicly burned along with dummies of the Gunpowder plot conspirators and ‘Papists’ were dragged out of their homes for compulsory participation.
If you did not take part expect a call from the local Justice of the Peace and his posse.
I AM NOT SAYING PEOPLE SHOULD NOT ENJOY GUY FAWKES NIGHT. If that is what floats your boat go for it. Blow your fucking fingers off and burn effigies of Roger Douglas, Richard Prebble and John Key.
I just think along with Matariki we should come up with some festivals that actually make sense for Aotearoa. I suppose it might take a few hundred years.
I have a house in a port town and someone fired an emergency flare last night. It. Was. Awesome. It went up with a fartish hiss then ignited and slowing fell to earth burning a blinding red/pink onto the main road in front of a car. The car slowed down and stopped then everyone scrambled out to take selfies with it in front of the car with it before it went out. All is not yet lost.
My father told me a story about when he was a kid while walking in down town Invercargill during Guy Fawkes once. Other kids were setting off sky rockets out of a beer bottle stood on the foot path when a huge gust of wind blew the bottle over just after the kids sparked it up. The sky rocket flew along the foot path and just as a woman in a heavy coat came around Bank Corner another gust blew her coat open and the sky rocket went up her skirt. There was considerable howling and leaping accompanied by sparks, smoke, screeching and what looked like an Irish Jig. The only injury was to my fathers right ear after getting a smack round the head from grand ma for laughing hysterically at the poor smouldering woman.
It’s a conundrum, that during these times of enduring peace we’re slyly meanest to each other. So lets break out the explosives I say.
NO NO NO do not ban fireworks. For me it has little to do with guy fawkes but frankly a great event in my childhood on Port Hills Road, growing up on an acre of land, the big bonfire, the 44 gallon drum that we threw tom thumbs into. I don’t know anyone who was ever hurt.
BOOZE DOES MILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF DAMAGE EVERY SINGLE YEAR.
BAN BOOZE!
Guido Fawkes – the last man to enter parliament with good intentions.
It’s a shame a few idiots to spoil it for the rest of us, because Guy Fawkes night is indeed tremendous fun for children of all ages.
The problem isn’t so much about global warming – it’s that we’ve filled up so much of the landscape with highly flammable pines and eucalypts that were literally born to burn: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3545728
Pope Punctilious 11. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, Guy Fawkes was a good Catholic man who was set up.
Ah, but it’s a good neighbourhood gathering on a wintry nights – on old Brit bomb sites ; traditions add pattern to lives, and we’re losing too many so hang onto them – but perhaps under the auspices – gulp- of local councils.
Guido Fawkes – the last man to enter parliament with good intentions..
Careful dude. That slogan may have been invented by the British Left back in the halcyon days of the late 60’s as a bit of a laugh, but in the wake of Jan 6 and our very own Rivers of Flith it’ll probably get you on am SIS/GCSB watchlist.
nov 5th comes round again and out come the middle class whiners and media shills, it’s 1 night a year (2 if you count matariki–don’t hear complaints about that…apparently pets support maori holidays).
the question of wether it’s relevent in NZ to commemorate the british burning of a catholic terrorist is more to the point…..but by now it is just a bit of fun.
” You can take my sparkler out of my dead cold hands (because sparklers will be the only thing we can buy) ”
Great we can all light them up after the next budget when Robbo legislates a windfall tax and actually lifts families out of poverty.
” but by now it is just a bit of fun ”
Not a lot of fun for the residents at Pegasus Bay north of Christchurch. In fiercely hot gale force winds the next generation of mindless idiots started a fire that wiped out a two hundred hectares of pine forest , countless birds and other species and put 150 peoples homes at risk.
Fortunately the fire service and volunteers put their lives on the line to try to stop the inferno destroying more forest and homes.
The usual referral to youth aid and a cuddle will make up for the damage and destruction and threat to life and property.
fireworks don’t burn stuff people do…..familiar..? you can’t legeslate away stupidity.
and exceptional anecdotes don’t mean a thing how many let off fireworks last night and still support a full complement of fingers today
” fireworks don’t burn stuff people do…..familiar..? you can’t legislate away stupidity ”
I seriously doubt that had fireworks not been involved ( giving youths gunpowder to play with ) that the fire would have started.
No you can’t legislate for stupidity but you can minimise the causes of stupidity by regulating the use of explosives and to ensure everyone else’s safety have public displays that are set by experts with no threat to human life , property , wildlife and forests by removing dangerous explosives from the inept and stupid of which we have to many.
Its because we have low levels of intelligence that laws are created to protect everyone else who isn’t stupid.
how many fires are caused by discarded fag ends….ask the aussies they know because when the rightwing media lied about arson…it turned out the vast majority of bushfires were started by dickheads not decking their fags.
Forget Guy Fawkes, celebrate Matariki; better time of year (before daylight saving, and in winter).
Equip Air Force with with aircraft capable of being used as water bombers; I know it will limit local aircraft operator profits, but the threat of large forest fires is too great (and increasing year on year) to not have massive water droping capability instantly available.
Yeah, move fireworks to Matariki. No Spring winds then and a less combustable environment and it’s dark early. And old people can tell stories of Mighty Cannons..
Guy Fawkes is a fantastic celebration. One group celebrates the terrorist not blowing up the parliamentary democracy while the other group is celebrating the terrorist standing up for religious freedom (and by extension freedom of thought and speech). Don’t worry about a bit of global warming, a few house and bushfires and distraught pets these lofty ideas are more important. Oh, and we should never tolerate the fun police!
actually a rabid catholic dedicated to bloody mary…so not really ‘religious freedom’ as such.
School-Marms now rule us. No fun for you horrible, naughty boys. And put your bike helmet on!
” fireworks don’t burn stuff people do…..familiar..? you can’t legislate away stupidity ”
I seriously doubt that had fireworks not been involved ( giving youths gunpowder to play with ) that the fire would have started.
No you can’t legislate for stupidity but you can minimise the causes of stupidity by regulating the use of explosives and to ensure everyone else’s safety have public displays that are set by experts with no threat to human life , property , wildlife and forests by removing dangerous explosives from the inept and stupid of which we have to many.
Its because we have low levels of intelligence that laws are created to protect everyone else who isn’t stupid.
Heh. Yeah I know it’s American California Boomer nostalgia, but you really need to read thisI had a fortress once in Paradise:
We found many things and then…
then…
Then there was the day when we cut back a bunch of manzanita branches and pulled out a tightly dovetailed and nailed wooden box with the top stove in. Tom pulled back the shattered wood of the top to reveal a torn sheet of stiff brown paper. Widening the rip in the paper we looked in and saw about half a case of dynamite composed of broken sticks on the top and whole sticks of TNT on the bottom of the box….
and that is pertinent how tom…?
meh – the dog loves shotguns and fireworks. the cows jumped around for a minute and then went back to eating grass – the sheep moved to a far corner – the cat was inside on the couch. no animal died from a few roman candles going off. The stupid thing is surrounding your home with flammable pine and gum trees.
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