Remember, remember the 6th of November means picking up all those bloody spent rocket sticks that have landed in your garden!

Although this will somewhat overlap the date of the previous Blog entry I want to report on the week's traditional events.

I really like Halloween and I like it a bit more every year that goes past. As was widely reported in the news this year, our spending on this event has gone up and up over recent years and certainly in my opinion it's taken over Bonfire Night as a more widely celebrated and recognised event. Firstly, despite what the so-called media would have us believe, I don't buy for one minute the idea that Halloween is an excuse for a gathering of the local Asbo holders to wreck havoc on unsuspecting neighbours' front lawns. I'm not naive enough to believe that certain acts of "over enthusiasm" don't go on but I think that in the main Halloween is celebrated by groups of kids, usually ranging from 8 years down, being escorted by parents round to friends and neighbours in various scary and spooky costumes. That's certainly what it's like for us anyway. We took the two youngest out for about 3/4 of an hour, which was by far long enough, seeing that the weather was bloody chilly, and each gathered a sizeable haul of sweets and stuff that should keep them going until Christmas, but will probably keep them going until the 1st of November. We were also visited by maybe 20 odd callers, as I say, the majority of whom were little kids with parents, generally having a good time. We did have a could of visits from teenagers, but seeing as one visit was a lad of about 14 dressed in a bikini I don't think we can really complain.

Mind you if you listened so some of the the popular media commentators you'd think that October the 31st had become a modern day "night of the long knives" with hooded yoofs roaming the streets demanding black jacks and rolls of refreshers with menaces. Michael Parkinson is one such grumpy old man who seems to have a such a strong personal aversion to Halloween you'd think the whole festival had been dreamt up just to annoy him. In fact, whilst I've got your attention I'd like to expand on the antics of the miserable Mr Parkinson.

As I'm very usually in the car on Sunday mornings, desperately trying to locate a Car Boot sale there's a very good chance I'll catch at least some of Parkinson's Sunday morning Radio 2 show. Admittedly it's something of a relief that this means the puerile drivel of Steve Wright's Sunday love Songs is finished but then you hear the dulcet tone of Parkinson's grating Northern bur kick in and suddenly you realise you can put up with 1001 more appeals for "lost loves" and still keep a fixed grin on your face.

Admittedly Parkinson's chat is generally intelligent but it's his glum faced mutterings that really put me off and his insistence that he only plays songs and records that he personally likes. He describes the show as "the best in chat and good music" and then subjects his listeners to 2 hours of Jazz, Big Band, Swing and American Songbook. Not really a very balanced selection, hey Michael?

But anyway back to his grumbles, the week before Halloween he had on his first guest which is always a newspaper columnist and almost certainly from the Mail, the Telegraph or the Express, so hey, go figure where his politics lie, and the two of them proceeded to carve into Halloween celebrations as if there were a Black Magic revolution sweeping the country. A lot of their prejudice against the event was based on the fact that they assumed it was based on American values, something which is Wikipedia article would seem to disprove, but even putting this aside, their main gripe was that it was something new and different.

Well how about this for a way of thinking Mr Holier than Thou? Presumably around this time of the year, as a young lad Michael roamed the streets of Barnsley with a Guy accosting the well heeled citizens of his home town demanding money? Well how come this "tradition" has all but died out then? Probably because for all their demands for British only traditions, these moany old gits have singularly failed to ensure their childhood activities have been passed from Father to Son, i.e. their fault, not the youngsters that are celebrating Halloween now. Secondly how is dressing up as a skeleton or a witch and then asking for sweeties any less dignified than making a Guy and then asking for money. At least I know what the kids I gave sweets to last week are going to do with them, whereas there were no doubt several hundred woodbines purchases with the ill gotten gains when Mr Parkinson was in short trousers.

Whilst making and begging with a Guy seems to have all buy died out, one thing that seems to be still well celebrated on the 5th of November is the Firework festival. I bought tickets this year for the "do" organised by my works and although, as usual, the main events of the actual fireworks, the bonfire and the food; hotdogs, burgers and hog roast, passed me by as they usually do I was impressed with the free Hook a Duck and subsidised Candy Floss. These are usually activities that the pikies running the stall can fleece at least 2 quid a go from the parents so it was quite nice to be able to tell the kids to hook as many ducks as they could. The other thing that took my notice was the little carousel thing they had there. It was your bog standard merry go round featuring three cars and three rockets which lifted into the air. The thing was that the stall holder had obviously tried to save a few bob by doing the decorations on the various vehicles themselves. Now the subject matter couldn't be faulted, it was your standard Disney characters, Action Man, Thunderbirds and The Incredibles. However the standard of the owners artistic talents were so blatantly limited that all his creations, whilst being recognisable as the persons they should be, were so grotesquely badly drawn I've no doubt that they were and probably still are giving the children who rode on the contraption nightmares. Here's a picture of the attempt that was trying to be passed off as Barbie!

Location:  Didcot Sport Centre - Male Showers.

Cast:        Naked Man 1 - The Beer Glass Collector

                Naked Man 2 - Unidentified Stranger

                Naked Man 3 - Unidentified Stranger

NM2 - "Did you hear about that bloke, Scuba Driver or something, was caught shagging a dolphin?

NM3 - "No, really?"

NM2 - "Yeah, his wife caught him and now she wants a divorce. Still the bloke said 'Sod it, there's plenty More fish in the sea!'"