Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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This weekend, the clocks went back in Britain. A nightmare reminder that winter is well and truly on its way.
And you know what else is on its way?
Only the return of the feature the whole world is talking about.
And what are they saying?
They're saying, "I've never heard of it."
Yes, it's that fearless feature in which the first person to comment below gets to decide just what the subject for debate is going to be.
I have no idea what that subject will be. And, so, all I can do is sit here, like everyone else, in the gloom - brooding, majestic - and pondering just what might be about to be unleashed upon this dark and autumnal evening.
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26 comments:
Minor question, happy to be brushed aside if a better or more popular question comes up.
Do you like fireworks?
Do you like them more or less than you used to when you were a kid?
Sorry, this was me.
Charlie loved fireworks!
He used to make with a friend in the basement until his father saw all the gunpowder laying around on a table, but a few feet away from the natural gas powered furnace!
Charlie also had to spend some time in the police station when arrested for his pyrotechnic passion being indulged in the streets of the town.
And of course, while in the army, Charlie loved watching 50 caliber tracer rounds, fly down range hitting targets, watching 105 mm tank rounds explode against targets he was aiming at, and shooting light antitank weapons at various other targets.
Nowadays, fireworks don’t really do much for him. He thinks about the air pollution, the poor animals, being disturbed or killed, people being injured by them…
Charlie “Buzzkill “horse 47
FWIW - Charlie would still ignite pieces of magnesium if he could find them! A piece as big as a thumb nail will lite up 50 yards!
Man does Mg burn!!! Burn baby burn!!!
And of course Charlie’s hometown Army would configure metal electrical conduit, by attaching crude sighting mechanisms and handles for launching bottle rockets. The accuracy was really really good.
And for sure, we tinkered with the Estes Rockets by replacing the parachutes with copper bb’s. Thus when the engine triggered the expulsion of the parachute our rockets would spray bb’s all over the neighborhood from a height of several hundred feet.
Oddly (?) we felt very proud of ourselves as if we are accomplishing some thing of significance!
Thanks for the topic, Matthew.
I definitely like them less than I did when I was young because they're a lot noisier than they were back then. If they reduced the noise levels back to what they used to be, I'd be very pleased.
My wife tells me Asda sell noiseless fireworks now. They would seem to be a win.
I never really enjoyed fireworks or looked forward to bonfire night. And that is/was despite everyone telling me it was great and that I would enjoy myself. Go on, have a sparkler, wave it about, see all the pretty sparks. But once it's all done, drop it on the floor and don‘t touch it because it will burn your fingers off.
Nah, not for me. Still, it worked as a dress rehearsal for office team building days and other enforced fun events.
I can't work out whether I'm just a grump or whether there's a lot of groupthink going on with everyone pretending to enjoy fireworks when they really don't.
I loved fireworks when I was a carefree child — I didn’t even mind the noise. As an adult homeowner in dry, drought-stricken Southern California, I hate them SO much.
b.t.
I was never a big fan of fireworks or fireworks night. Guy Fawkes night always seemed to be cold and/or wet when I was a kid. I always considered fireworks night the poor relation to Halloween, Hogmanay and the main holiday, Christmas. Bah humbug.
Well… let charlie POSE A TANGENTIAL QUESTION? Did / do any of you enjoy “staying up all night” for any reason (see sun rise, kust because… whatever).
Never in my life did I ever look forward to a proposal to “let’s stay up all night!” I was always gassed by 1-2 AM and just wanted to hit the hay!
And though “60 may be the new 40 “… “9 PM is the new midnight” in Charlie’s household, lol.
I feel more and more connected to many of the lyrics in Lennon’s song from REVOLVER “I’m only sleeping!”
Charlie, I'm Only Sleeping was also a UK hit for Suggs (from Madness) in 1995.
I love fireworks as long as they are confined to Guy Fawkes Night. I'm rather less keen when some selfish moron sets off a firework at 2am in the middle of September.
I have a couple of fond memories of fireworks nights from childhood but a switch flipped when I was 30 and I cannot stand them now.
Probably having two cats who are terrified and hide under the sofa is a big part of it, as well as living in Greater London where they’re a component of various religious or cultural traditions which means someone nearby is setting off fireworks every night from the middle of September through to the middle of November. Oh, and then for several nights after New Year.
Charlie’s hi-jinks sound fun though.
I have quite liked staying up ‘til sunrise in the past, especially where all-night drinking is involved. These days I tend to see the sun come up anyway because thanks to the cats, my sleep patterns have shifted to a kind of extreme version of ‘Early To Bed, Early To Rise’, so I’m awake at dawn.
I concur with Matthew. Decades ago, fireworks got a dog of ours extremely agitated. With his nose, he nudged objects in the hearth, and showed other obvious signs of distress. 'Bangers' make human beings jump, but dogs and cats' hearing's acuteness far exceeds ours. And what about animals outside, like squirrels, foxes, hedgehogs, stoats, etc? I loved fireworks as a child, but had no empathy for animals then. It's nice having a get together, to watch fireworks, eating parkin, etc - but if silent fireworks are available, those are better, for our furry friends' sake.
Charlie - In my youth, I used to stay up late (reading), because I couldn't get to sleep. With middle-age, however, the problem isn't getting to sleep, but waking up during the night.
Phillip
Firework exploding/'banging' noises also trigger combat veterans' PTSD. So another reason for silent fireworks.
Phillip
Now I feel guilty for saying I like fireworks.
Colin - The fireworks when we were kids weren't so bad. A pretty roman candle, or Catherine wheel, followed by a mild pop. Today's industrial level fireworks are completely different. They sound like a bomb detonating!
Phillip
Phillip:
Seriously, I don’t know how vets suffering PTSD can stand it. On the 4th of July, the pops and bangs are going non-stop from 7pm until well after Midnight . So many that they overlap and almost syncopate — it literally sounds like a running gun battle. Not exaggerating.
Matthew:
Having a pet definitely changes one’s perspective. On the 4th, our cat runs and hides in the darkest, tightest spot she can find at the first loud bang she hears and we don’t see her again until morning. During the first few years of the Covid pandemic, people in our area were setting off fireworks almost year-round, not just on 4th of July and New Year’s — out of boredom or something. The fireworks started to taper off a year or two ago, but we’ll still hear the occasional explosion in the evenings.
b.t.
In the UK fireworks were confined to Guy Fawkes Night until the Millennium celebrations which changed everything. Now there are fireworks every New Year's Eve and during the weeks leading up to Guy Fawkes Night though I've hardly heard any this year...so far.
Colin, nothing wrong with liking fireworks! I still think fireworks displays put on by trained professionals can be fun and beautiful. My personal dislike of them is all about the unauthorized (and illegal) fireworks set off by careless amateurs.
b.t.
I don’t know if it is the same on your UK island, but the problem in the United States is that many of the states have banned exploding fireworks. Forest since they are illegal in my state of Illinois. However, the much more redneck states Bordering us like Indiana Missouri Made them legal a few decades ago, and there are no border controls.
Indeed, when I was a kid growing up in the 1960s only the state of Tennessee and I think Hawaii sold fireworks. So when we made the pilgrimage down to Florida around 1972 Driving Down Highway 65, which was not yet complete at the time, we had to go through the back hills of Tennessee and boy did We load up on fireworks, lol.
And it is the same with guns… most of the guns used in crime in Chicago come from Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, and Mississippi. The state of Illinois has no way to stop those guns from coming in because there are no border controls allowed.
Charlie - I've googled Highway 65, but am confused, as it seems west of Chicago, & - going down - it's west of Tennessee, too (?) Looking at Highway 61, however ( a road which I know because of the movie, with Pokey Jones!), that does go through Memphis, Tennessee. Please explain for clueless Brits.
Phillip
Interstate 65, simply known as I – 65, was, IIRC, the last of Eisenhower‘s great highway building project to be completed. It’s stretched from Chicago all the way down to Mobile, Alabama cutting Tennessee in half.
To be sure, we had to take a different highway somewhere in Tennessee to then head south east towards Fort Lauderdale Florida.
Put the construction started in Chicago going south and mobile going north and it was concluding in Tennessee in the middle. At that time you had to exit 65 go through butt-fudge Tennessee and then pick it up again. It was in the middle of butt-fudge that one could find an unlimited stream, miles, and miles, firecracker stores.
Thanks, Charlie - I've found it. That's clear now.
Phillip
A little more trivia, lol. Just prior to World War II the United States had major wargames in the Midwest. Patton, going Westward, I think in Kansas, literally ran out of roads to move his tanks And brought the wargames to a screeching halt. The US country was simply vast and unpopulated, perhaps like the Soviet union. And with all things in the United States, it became a matter of “national defense “to be able to move the military from East to west and north to south perhaps like a bit of the theory behind Hitler’s auto bahns. And eventually, Eisenhower’s great high project was born a decade later.
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