Gunpower, Treason, and Plot - Oh my!

Well, I guess first I have to start off by wishing everyone a happy fifth of Novemeber. For anyone who has a passing familiarity with sentience, you'll know that the fifth of November is bonfire night in Britain, during which we come together as a nation to burn effigies of foreigners who were fighting religious descrimination. Got that Friday feeling yet?

Like most things, bonfire night can be romaticised to a certain extent. What we have is a cautionary tale about overbearing government, the spirit of resistance, a stark warning about international terrorism, government accountability and superheroes all thrown in to one big fire. To more frequent readers of this blog, you'll notice that apart from a lasting fascination with the word 'psychopath', another semi-constant theme of this blog is the idea of burning down Parliament. So you'll understand me when I say I get a bit starry-eyed over imagining the House of Commons on fire. Perhaps I'm celebrating tonight for all the wrong reasons. Which are obviously the right ones, except you don't agree with me. Because you're wrong.

Anyway, I was going to write something really dramatic and thought provoking, pseudo-intellectual and undoubtedly rather boring about the importance of The Gunpowder Plot and how it ties in with previously hyperlinked dystopian comic 'V for Vendetta', and rather unfortunately, the world as a whole. But in light of yesterday's lengthy and somewhat harrowing scribblings of despair, I've decided to leave it for tonight, because I couldn't possibly do it well, and to be honest, I'm in a carnival mood despite a concerning lack of bonfires in the Calderdale region.

So good people, I bid thee a very happy "Kill all the Politicians" day. As you drink down a few bottles of  wine and reflect the light of exploding fireworks in your large, happy, saucer-shaped eyes, spare a thought for old Fawkes and his ilk. There are lots of ways to interprete bonfire night, and in its most literal I guess it means domestic terrorism for the sake changing a spoilt monarch's religion to benefit the aristocracy and people who were most in a position to care. So maybe his motivations weren't fantastic, but personally I prefer the more idealistic version put forward by Alan Moore anyway.

Remember! Remember!
The fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot!
I see no reason,
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

For the ethically concerned bonfire night celebrators, I suggest that to avoid innocent small animals being trapped in a firey hell-hole, you build your bonfire minutes before lighting it. Those who are unable to procure enough flamable material or not wishing to engage in the spirit of Capitalism should try ram raiding bookstores for Tony Blair's memoirs which I am told - rather reliably - burn well. The effigy should be of your choosing, but generally I think anything wrapped in a suit does a fair imitation of our manevolent overseers and other generally well-off parasites.