Day 104 - Guy Fawkes (Bonfire) Night
Today was a big holiday here in England. If you're not familiar with Guy Fawkes Night (aka "Bonfire Night"), it's a holiday to commemorate the failed attempt of Guy Fawkes and others to blow up Parliament and kill the king in 1605.As a holiday, it's very much like the 4th of July. And it's every bit as big as the 4th of July. Most people attend some kind of fireworks show. These often include large bonfires.
Tonight I went to a Bonfire Night celebration sponsored by Carey Baptist Church. The event was located out in the country, about 20 minutes west of town. I don't know exactly how many people were there, but it must've been at least a few hundred. They had their own fireworks show and a huge bonfire, which started as a stack of stucks about 25 feet tall!
The bonfire thing probably wouldn't work in many parts of America, especially in July. Here it's damp enough that there's not much risk of the fire spreading -- which is ironic, considering the fact that I recently received two more letters about fire safety -- more mandatory fire safety talks, for which non-attendence results in a large fine! Crazy!
Fireworks are still going off as I write this. They seem to be much more sporadic than in America. There we have a few really big fireworks displays. Here there are a lot of small ones all over the place. The bigger ones have entrance fees (£7-10!!), or so I hear. How typically European to charge you money even to watch fireworks!!
It was a very fun night! But there's one thing I don't understand. Why name a holiday after someone who tried to blow up Parliament and kill your king?!? It seems like that would encourage that sort of thing. If I try to blow up Parliament will they start having a Matt Haugland Night?
4 Comments:
Its kinda celebrating that he didn't manage to do it. We brits give us a non-event and we'll celebrate it!
Personally interested to see the way he's being portrayed as some tragic hero by the pro-catholic anti-protestant media here at the moment.
The martyredom of true christian leaders (450 years ago last month) is much more worth cemmorating. See the martyrs memorial in Oxford...
A guy I used to work with would refer to 'Martin Luther King Jr. Day' as 'James Earl Ray Day' which similarly glorifies the bad guy. I'd say to forget about the 'Matt Haugland Day' idea.
Maybe they're making fun of him because it didn't work?
I wouldn't put it past you to do something like that Matt... *sigh*
/me begins preparing for the inetivable Matt Haugland day festivities... colours will be white and dove grey.
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