I have to shamefully admit, I’m a Yankee. I started this thread because I went to recite the first few lines, but I made up the last four of five.
But after reading a few posts, I’m kind of amazed about how much this Guy is loved/reviled. Either he’s a failed freedom fighter (a martyr) or he’s an insurrectionist. Yet every year, everyone remembers. That’s kind of cool. . .
See, over here, we’re kind of one-sided. You never hear of “Tory Day” in the States.
Tripler
Earlier pun intended.
The only thing I can contribute is my fondest Guy Fawkes’ Day memory: I went to a GFD party and my girlfriend had the cutest “Rolls Royce” T-shirt on. That’s I all can divulge…
I’ve never been completly sure whether the celebration is because the act of blowing up parliament was twarted or attempted.
Really? :dubious:
Anyway, the reason we have bonfires is cuz after Fawkes was captured his madge ordered that bonfires were lit across the land in celebration of having thwarted the dastardly attempt at mass murder.
Fireworks came later
My friend Emily always used to miss fireworks on 5 November.
She attended St Peter’s School, York, which was also Guido’s alma mater.
According to the Headmaster, “Here at St Peter’s we don’t like to burn our former pupils”.
The celebration is over Fawkes getting caught after too many people spilled the beans, then re-enacting his torture and execution. Mixed in with older Bonfire Night traditions.
Here, though, no one bothers with the “penny for the guy” thing, and even bonfires are secondary to just watching stuff go pop, boom and whoosh.
Yep, as a kid growing up in NZ, the whole “burning a catholic” thing was a whoosh.
It was just a chance to play with explosives - when I was small, there were three sorts of crackers
Tom Thumbs - tiny things in strings of 50-100
Double Happys - about 3cm long, had a real bang, strings of 20
Thunderbolts - 10cm, sold individually. Eardrum bursters, capable of taking a hand off. They stopped selling those.
I’m with Helen Clarke, NZ PM. Public sale of fireworks should be stopped, and only organised events should be held.
Si
I’m sort of with you - I think public sales of fireworks to people I disapprove of should be halted, whereas I should get a 99% discount on cool exploding things. And public displays should only be allowed if I get to set them off. 
I love fireworks, but they’re one of the many things that don’t combine well with idiot chavs.
Yeah but you didn’t do a proper job of it the first time. I’ll give you another chance.
I saw this thread a bit late in the day (week) but I wanted to add my two cents. I’m a Labour voter through and through. I think Helen is a very good leader. I have declared my bias…BUT Jesus!!! stop the knee-jerk reaction of banning stuff!
Clearly every year more Kiwis die driving then are even wounded with fireworks,
but no one would think banning cars would be a “sensible” idea, but we are becoming a country obsessed with wrapping everyone in cotton wool.
Our children are constantly and consistently being exposed to less and less experience of anything even remotely dangerous. I’m 40, in my day there were no carseats, no seatbelts in the back of the car, there was concrete under the monkey bars, we played all day at the beach without even knowing what sunscreen was, we went off to the murderhouse without our parents knowledge, we even wandered around the neighbourhood without parental escorts! And we LIVED to tell the tale!
I’m not saying any of those things are good but they made for a real childhood not some sanitised, safety obsessed sham. I want children to be safe but not so safe that they may as well be enclosed in glass and live in a museum.
Surely wrapping children in bubble wrap can not lead to successful adults…or let parents have any say in how they chose to raise their children.
Like I said I am a Labour voter but the whole culture of rescuing us from any threat at all is getting on my nerves.
I have a 16 yr old who is over fireworks so I didn’t buy a single one this year but I want lots of other families to enjoy the fun that is blowing stuff up on the back lawn! Good memories and I never lost a single eye…I am hoping I don’t have a tragic car accident tomorrow.
I agree with you in general about the absurd increase in risk aversity, but I think the car accident argument is potentially bogus. Just because A is more common than B, doesn’t necessarily mean A needs more regulation before we can think about reasonably controlling B, or that B is safe enough to leave alone.
Absolutely but the car accident thing seems to be the biggest example of how futile these silly laws about protecting us from ourselves are.
We have developed this knee-jerk chain reaction. Child dies from drowning in a bucket? Make mopping the floor illegal!
But car accidents still remain one of the biggest killers. We (or our politicians) like to tamper with the small stuff that really just gives everyone the ‘awww look we are doing something’ care factor while ignoring the big things (I only used cars as an example…in NZ we seem to like to bash our kids to death. No changes to make that better seem forth coming but banning fireworks is on the cards). It just seems ridiculous to ban something that effects so few people in the grand scheme of things, that deprives children from a fun experience and seems to be a convenient way to ignore larger problems.
I am much the same age, and I grew up in much the same way. In general, I am more of the “survival of the fittest” than “cotton wool” school of child raising.
But there are dangers that can be removed with a limited impact (like banning public sales of fireworks) and dangers that can only be reduced because it impacts major aspects of how we live (like banning cars to prevent accidents). I think the benefits of a fireworks ban outweigh the costs in that instance. In the same way, having safe playgrounds makes childhood play more fun. Kids can and do still get hurt, but they are more likely to retain a lesson that hurts a bit than a lesson that causes brain damage or death.
And some of the risks kids face now are a bit more dangerous than when we were kids. I spent days wandering through the local bush stands and pine forests round town. Lots of fun, but you had to keep your boots on because any dope patches you saw and backed away from may have had a gin-trap or two nearby. These days, it could well have a tripwired shotgun or armed guard. The stakes are higher and the risks considerably more.
And while you and I lived to tell the tale, a proportion of kids growing up when we were did not make it, due to concreted monkey bars, melanoma, youthful driving at 15 and a bunch of other things that may not claim lives now.
Si
Banning cars was an extremely exagerated example (one I obviously don’t endorse!) and I am a (former primary) pre-school teacher, keeping children safe is in my job description :). I am not advocating brain damage to small children!
Fireworks seem to be something we have all enjoyed for generations. I know I have wonderful memories of Guy Fawkes day, I’d like today’s generation to also have those memories.
Well I grew up on the North Shore of Auckland so I can’t say I ever happened upon a dope patch (other then my brothers but I knew where that was and his only defence system was begging me not to tell mum 
) but I look at my child and the children I teach and I feel sorry that they are exposed to less experiences as children (for more perceived danger rather then an ACTUAL increase in danger).
Fireworks seem to be the last opportunity a parent has to teach their child how to act safely around something that is actually dangerous. Why are we afraid to trust parents when our parents managed to teach us without killing us.
I’m with you ** kiwi**. When I was a kid we went everywhere on our push bikes, shared a bottle of pop, all drinking out of the same bottle ::gasp:: we climbed trees looking for birds eggs, we scrumped apples and pears from farmers orchards, we stayed out until the early hours, we had fireworks, bangers, rip-raps, flying imps etc.
We collected wood and built fucking great bonfires, parents came on Nov 5th and we all had a bloody good time. We ate half baked spuds out of the embers and gorged ourselves sick on toffee apples, parkin and treacle toffee.
Not a single one of us died as a result of these excesses