7 Reasons

Tag: bonfire

  • 7 Reasons to Love Snovember

    7 Reasons to Love Snovember

    It’s Snovember!  Here are seven reasons to love it.

    A road covered in snow in Snovember

    1.  The Title.  As a portmanteau word combining both weather and a month, Snovember works better than almost any other.  In snow terms, its closest rivals are Snarch, Snuly and Snebruary, and although other weather events/months exist; Sune, Haily and Thunduary don’t even come close to Snovember for catchy, popular appeal and ease of pronunciation.

    2.  Effect.  The snow buries things, which is excellent.  Today it’s burying ongoing news stories such as the Irish financial crisis, higher rail ticket prices and other depressing news that we now have no chance whatsoever of hearing from the other side of the world, leaving us only with a vague sense that Ian Bell was very good and that there’s snow outside.  Look!  Snow!  See the snow!  Touch the snow!  Smell the snow!  Think only of the snow!  It’s THE SNOW!!!

    3.  Thanksgiving.  That’s right, it’s Thanksgiving day in the U.S. but now you won’t have to read about that here, because we’re far too excited by the snow to write about it.  We don’t even know what they’re giving thanks for: Turkeys?  Football?  Macy’s?  We don’t know, and we don’t care.  Because it’s Snovember; we can see actual snow and because of that we won’t be hearing about turkeys on the evening news or anything else related to pilgrims or thankfulness that we don’t understand.

    4.  Safety. Councils in the UK tend to stockpile their grit in time for December and could potentially get caught out by the early snowfall but fortunately, as the wintry weather has come in Snovember, we have plenty of ashes* left over from bonfire night to spread on it.  If the snow occurred in other months, we’d have had to cover it in tinsel, chocolate eggs or pumpkins; and falling over a pumpkin on your way to work is not the best start to the day.**

    5.  Indolence.  The early snowfall gives everyone the excuse to do what they’ve really wanted to do since October and give up all outdoor exercise until the Spring.  No rational person wants to go out running, cycling or canoeing during the cold half of the year and the snow is our opportunity to stop doing those things and concentrate on what we really want to spend the winter doing; which is eating our own bodyweight in Twiglets and drinking ourselves into a mulled-wine and sloe-gin induced stupor.  We may all become hideously fat as a result, but the extra weight will just make us more stable in the snow and better protected when we fall over.  Which will help offset the effect of the glühwein.  And the winter Pimm’s.

    6.  Shopping.  It’s Snovember!  And rather than the snow reminding people that it’s Christmas soon and they need to go and do their shopping, it will prevent them from going out and buying Yule-related things.  This means that we won’t have to devote as much time to arranging Christmas as usual and, even though we’ll now have less time to organise it, it will turn out exactly the same as every other year.  And somehow, somewhere, it might just enter our thick skulls that we don’t need to devote a quarter of the year to organising bloody Christmas and it will happen anyway, regardless.

    7.  Preparedness.  The trial run in Snovember will prepare us for winter proper.  We’ll be able to get the annual bout of complaining that; our cars won’t work in un-driveable conditions, that the local council haven’t magicked the snow away, and that the entirely predictable snow in Sweden doesn’t cause chaos, out of the way and then get on with our lives as usual.  Or we’ll just use it as an excuse to get in some extra complaining.  Either way, we’re all benefiting from Snovember.  In fact, we’re off to play in the snow right now.  We’ve never even heard of cricket.  It’s Snovember everybody!  Look!  Snow!

    *We can’t emphasise enough how lower-case that entire word is.

    **We’re not entirely certain about that, it might be bloomin’ marvellous, but we rather suspect that it may be a little undignified.  Not to mention painful.

  • 7 Reasons Bonfire Night Is Traumatic For Adults

    7 Reasons Bonfire Night Is Traumatic For Adults

    After the success of last week”s joint post (it was on Thursday if you missed it) we have decided to produce another. Once again we”ve gone for that topical/helpful format. Here it is:

    Jon Didn’t Mean To Burn Down His Girlfriend’s Shed. It Was Just In The Way.

    1.  Anxiety. Because your neighbours let off fireworks. And your neighbours are idiots. They can’t be trusted to close their own garden gate properly, let alone to discharge pyrotechnics with any degree of responsibility. And, when their rockets are bouncing off your roof and crashing into your shed, you’ll find yourself thinking: “Where’s our bucket?”; “is the house insurance up to date?“; “I hope that the cat’s inside“;”I’m going to put a fish through their letter-box when they go away on holiday“.

    2.  Guy Fawkes. It seems somewhat ironic to celebrate the failure of the mission to burn the House of Lords to the ground by creating a massive bonfire, but that’s how it is. And who would have it any other way? Well, probably adults. Especially those with children. Because as well as having a traditional bonfire, there is also the traditional Guy Fawkes effigy that is chucked atop the flames. The effigy is usually made by the children using old clothes. Unfortunately, the children also like dressing up in old clothes. So by the time the effigy is due to be burnt, adults are terrified. ”Is that definitely the Guy or is that my son?’‘ And, more importantly, ”Is that my Hugo Boss suit?”

    3.  The Inner Child. Once you’ve seen about five bonfire nights, you have seen them all. In theory, as adults, we should all find them terribly boring and treat the event as something for the children. The trauma begins though, because bonfire night is epic. Rockets banging and then flashing in the sky. Photographs of your wife’s ex on the bonfire. It’s really rather exciting. Admittedly the excitement is nearly always alcohol induced, but it is there. And this is when all adults look at the children pretending to be Red Indians running around the bonfire and wish they could join in. But you can’t. Because you are an adult. And adults must be adult-like. Oh, the agony

    4.  Food. On the one night when burning is the order of the day, it seems odd that, having been put in charge of the food, you are absolutely determined not to burn the baked potatoes. And this really is a mission. While preventing the potatoes becoming charcoal, you also have to drink, pay attention to the fireworks, check your son hasn’t crawled under the bonfire and pay an interest in your neighbour”s annoying five year-old daughter who has shoved yet another sparkler up your nose. Sometimes, you wonder why you bother.

    5.  Men. As a man you”re in charge of the fireworks.  They’re your responsibility and it”s unmanly to get the launching of them wrong or show any fear of them.  And you know it can go wrong, because you”ve seen Youtube.  And you also know that any idiot can set them off, because you’ve seen Youtube.  Even though you know it’s not compulsory to insert the rocket into your bottom before lighting it, being in charge of the fireworks is an onerous responsibility.  You don’t want to be the one that lights the blue touch-paper and runs away screaming like a girl, do you?  Unless you are a girl, in which case it would probably be quite fun; and a nice change from all those anxious men setting them off.

    6.  Firemen. This year – due to the strikes – there won’t be any available. That means you are going to have to douse the flames flying up from your garden shed yourself. And the only way you can do this is by dressing up in protective clothing. Sadly, the only protective clothing you have are your wife’s gardening gloves, your leaky wellington boots, waterproofs that aren’t actually waterproof and a pith helmet. It might be dark out there, but you’re still going to look like an idiot. Oh, and the sprinkler attachment on the hose is stuck too.

    7.  Hedgehogs. It”s the nagging doubt that near-paralyses every right-thinking person hosting an event: What if there’s a hedgehog in the bonfire? What if I accidentally burn one to death? What if the children attending the bonfire see me light it only for a phalanx of flaming hedgehogs to scuttle out of it squealing, half a minute later? They’ll probably need several years of therapy and I’ll be forever known as Uncle Marc the Hedgehog Killer. Bonfires are a minefield. But with blazing hedgehogs instead of mines. Seriously, check for hedgehogs.