Gunpowder, treason, bombs, PC's

Last night was Guy Fawkes night in UK. For those of you who come from civilised countries, this is an evening when everybody is allowed to set up an enormous fire, outside, stick a dummy figure on the top of it, set fire to the lot, and dance around eating baked potatoes, gingerbread stuff, occasionally firing off rockets and bangers (fireworks- otherwise knows as feu d'artifices) in the direction of nothing that belongs to yourself. If it doesn't rain, the evening is enhanced by the regular arrivals and departures of ambulances and fire brigades, the first to take away the younger members of the firework lighting group (you know, the ones who weren't allowed to buy fireworks 'cos they were too young!) and the second to put out the fires caused by "falling to earth burnt-out, but not quite dead yet rockets/fireworks."

As a kid, we used to take great pleasure in pinching sleepers from the local railway line, put them on the bonfire, cover them with twigs and boxes and stuff, and watch the "oh so clever adults" who had come just to burn off this pile of empty boxes - a question of minutes. They did wonder how it came about that it was still burning 3 days and two nights later! We didn't!!

So there we are - another little trip into the History of UK, just as un-understandable as all the others, but it is amusing to see Chippies and Tinkerbelles prancing around in the left-over Halloween costumes, singing:

"Remember, remember,

The 5th of November - Gunpowder - treason and plot! Poor old Guy Fawkes, burning merrily at the top of the thousands of bonfires country wide. All he wanted to do was what a lot of people would like to do today!!

And I would like to do it to my PC! A simple right click, all is well, but to find out that, 7 hours of studying forums on the Internet, and 1 hour to the emergency "hot-line" at 3,4 centimes a minute!

Is there any surprise that I suffer from high tension?