Samizdata wishes you all a happy Guy Fawkes night. Have fun. But perhaps not as much fun as the fellow in the above photo.
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Happy Guy Fawkes NightNovember 5th, 2017 |
 16 comments to Happy Guy Fawkes Night |
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And a Happy November the 5th to you.
“Do they have the 4th of July in GB?”
Of COURSE thy do, they just don’t celebrate like we do in the colonies.
In coincidental (?) celebration of Guy Fawkes Day, we had assorted folks that fancy calling their efforts anti-Fascist (#nevertrump, #resist, #whatever)wielding both signs, AND bull horns in the US.
(Sigh, no shapely,female,topless, human plackard, “protesters as yet. It IS pretty cold.)
Apparently, their mums told them not to go outside in “the weather”, or to be home before dark
for macaroni, cheese, and cut up hot dogs)
It apparently WAS a relatively violence free day, after the “antifa baseball bats and axe handles were confiscated.
Well whilst we are at it, a splendid private school in Wokingham, the Luckley House School, has, for its Bonfire Night, recreated the scuttling of the German Cruiser Graf Spee after the Battle of the River Plate.
Kudos to Wokingham for making something already awesome even more awesome!
It’s a good thing you’re leaving the EU- no doubt all fireworks will be outlawed soon, especially if it revives any memories of unpleasant moments from history!
Looking at the cost of fireworks in Morrisons the other day, you’d need a second mortgage to be able to afford to do your own fireworks party (like we used to have as kids).
Went to the public display at South Inch, Perth instead along with about 10,000 others. Great fun was had by all, even a cynical old fart like me.
😆
Fireworks have got more expensive and less fun over the years. I have fond childhood memories of venturing out onto my local heathland to test my rocketry. I established a limit with three rockets, small, medium and large, remove the star shell bit from the large and medium ones and sellotape the next smallest on so that its fuse sticks into the propellant of the larger one. Put in a milk bottle and light the blue touchpaper. The first stage lifts off and powers it up, the second stage also ignites, taking it higher, but with three stages (but not with a two-stage), on the third rocket igniting it became unstable, inverted and shot back down to Earth, the star shell detonating on the ground about 30 yards from me. Must have been inspired by all those Apollo missions, and ended up more like a schoolboy’s imitation of an early V2 launch. Pocket money restraints stood in the way of significant improvements.
Nowadays the rockets are plastic units and not so amenable to such experimentation.
It’s a good thing you’re leaving the EU- no doubt all fireworks will be outlawed soon, especially if it revives any memories of unpleasant moments from history!
Oh we don’t need the EU to do that, “bansturbation” is alive and well in our green and pleasant land, spurred on by our ever lurching to the left.
Why did they get more expensive?
Alisa,
I’d guess compliance, legal and insurance costs at every stage of manufacture and sale. Plus global demand may be higher, since there’s a lot less really poor people and therefore a lot of people with something to celebrate.
Watchman, your first guess was also mine, but I was looking for an informed answer rather than a guess 🙂 I do hope that your second guess is correct though.
That’s a fascinating question. When I was just a little kid, an hour or two of ‘penny for the Guy’ would yield enough coppers to invest in some fairly awesome explosives. Brock’s Bangers did what it said on the tin, and for just a few coppers more, you could upgrade to Brock’s Cannons, which absolutely did what it said on the tin. The things they’d sell to grubby little kids with a handful of loose change . . . . .
With India and China the main sources for mass-produced low-grade fireworks, and with trade with both places so much more open than it was back in the day, you’d think that they would be cheaper than dirt, and yet I note that here in the US, similar to what is being said about the UK, fireworks are really quite expensive. I too would like an informed answer about why that is. I’ll bet that state intervention is part of the answer.
llater,
llamas
Indeed, that’s along the lines of Watchman’s and my first guess.
For EU nations, the CE Mark process is incredibly expensive for fireworks and other explosive substances.
Home-grade fireworks aren’t all that expensive in parts of the USA. I can pop over the South Dakota border and pick up enough for a rather impressive home show for less than $100.00. But most standard commercial insurers won’t touch a retailer of fireworks, so we tend to get seasonal fireworks-only stands that sell nothing else and run uninsured.
And, boy, are they ever impressive when someone drops the stray cig!
Nicholas Gray
‘It’s a good thing you’re leaving the EU- no doubt all fireworks will be outlawed soon…’
And when did you last try to buy fireworks in Oz?
Not for years, but you aint us! Perhaps you can insist on a right to buy fireworks!