Another Guy Fawkes night...

Another mask, another Guy Fawkes night tomorrow.

The fireworks have been going off for days and as I write this yet more bangs and screeches shatter the peace outside. Now don’t get me wrong, I love fireworks and always have; but I still believe that Bonfire Night should be celebrated on just that – Bonfire Night, November the 5^th.

Tonight I wasn’t going to blog about how now would be a good time for a new Guido Fawkes to appear on the scene, what with this mess of a bunch of political idiots of all parties we have at the minute. Of course if a new G.F. were to appear the Special Forces would get him before he’d even chance to even order his gunpowder or semtex or whatever; they have intelligence you see.

Yes, he’d be branded a terrorist and locked away forever. I doubt that they’d hang, draw and quarter him though – just why do we burn poor Guy on the bonfire, shouldn’t we dangle him from a rope, drag out his stuffing, and pull him to pieces instead? And just how would he get in? It isn’t as if the cellars under the Houses of Parliament are accessible these days, not like back then when you could rent them as storage or warehousing.

When I was a child the story of Guy Fawkes was shown on Blue Peter every year it seemed; nice black and white drawings of men in big hats and John Noakes telling the tale. I think GF came across as a hero; at least he did to me. I wonder if he was meant to, I wonder if today they’d tell the tale of an anti-government terrorist intent on bring down the government, a murderer with no conscience. I rather think that they would.

No, I wasn’t going to blog about Guido tonight but the fireworks outside meant that I couldn’t stop myself - filling my head with Blue Peter drawings and Guy Fawkes masks cut from comics and pasted to card.  How I enjoyed stuffing dad’s old clothes full of newspapers and balancing the Guy, resplendent in comic mask, on top of a far too big bonfire in a far too small back garden.

Does anyone still do that I wonder?

Anyway, I’ll be celebrating tomorrow, November 5^th. I have some sparklers and a nice hot punch to toast old Guido. I won’t be burning him though, or hanging, drawing and quartering him; to me he will always be a hero.