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Remember, remember

popeanonymous

Happy November 5, y’all. As I’ve explained in years past, Sussex takes its Bonfire Night very, very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that a single night won’t do it. The villages across the county take turns hosting bonfires, parades and fireworks right through the Fall, from September to December.

Somebody out there observed it tonight, though. I’m not sure which village. ‘Twas a dark and stormy night and we thought at first we were hearing thunder, but we could just make out a flash of fireworks far away on the horizon. The finale, though — holy shit, that rumbled through the earth like the apocalypse. I hope nobody got blowed up for real.

It’s a hoot that Anonymous has adopted Guy Fawkes. It’s never smart to dabble in somebody else’s civil war, and Fawkes was all about knocking over the Protestant government and replacing it with a Catholic one. Bonfire Night is written into law as a celebration of hatin’ on the Catholics. Thusly:

‘An Acte for a publique Thancksgiving to Almighty God everie yeere of the Fifte day of November’ ‘be held in a perpetual Remembrance’ and that the day be ‘a holiday for ever in thankfulness to God for the deliverance and detestation of the Papists’.

Heh. Lub dat spellynge.

If you ever have the chance to interrogate a Fawkes-mask-wearing anarcho-trustafundian, ask him why he loves the Pope so.

p.s. The identity of the year’s effigies is always a closely guarded secret. Lewes (site of the largest celebration, as it was site of the most Protestant martyrs) has six of them. One is usually the Pope. Another this year looks to be David Cameron with a pig’s head.

Comments


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: November 6, 2015, 12:36 am

I wonder how many British movies and books have used Guy Fawkes night as a plot device or pivot point in the narrative. Must be lots of potential for mischief. All that fire and smoke 🙂


Comment from mojo
Time: November 6, 2015, 12:50 am

Is everybody drinking Bloody Marys?


Comment from AliceH
Time: November 6, 2015, 12:56 am

I happened to be at the Lewes bonfire in (thinking, thinking) 1981 and saw the Ronald Reagan effigy go up in flames. They even had fireworks rigged up to go off from his raised hand somehow. Vague memory that there was also one of Maggie, but not sure. Also vague memory I said this last year?

Anyway. Wish I could describe it better, but there was drinking involved.

I most clearly remember I bought my first ever roasted chestnuts from a street vendor and they were fantastic.


Comment from Can’t Hark My Cry
Time: November 6, 2015, 1:12 am

I wonder how many British movies and books have used Guy Fawkes night as a plot device or pivot point in the narrative.

Kicking it off–E. Nesbit’s The Phoenix and the Carpet starts off with an unexpected eruption from a Fifth of November rocket.
And Mary Poppins Comes Back opens with Mary Poppins arriving out of a rocket whose stars she has suppressed.

What? Well, yeah. Children’s book fan, here.

I’m pretty sure I could think of some others, but they aren’t springing to mind at the moment.


Comment from Nina
Time: November 6, 2015, 3:11 am

I had to edumacate my honors bio students about Guy today. They really truly think I’m a lunatic for knowing all this historical stuff.


Comment from P2
Time: November 6, 2015, 3:42 am

That law was written by the Ministry of Housinge…..


Comment from Ric Fan
Time: November 6, 2015, 2:37 pm

The Ipcress File(1965)

Saw it as a kid, had no idea why the brits celebrated the 4th of July in Nov, and what was so important about that filing cabinet.


Comment from Wolfus Aurelius
Time: November 6, 2015, 3:47 pm

In the first John Dickson Carr mystery I ever read, The Three Coffins, there was a Guy Fawkes reference. The dying man was overheard to say “Fox,” which made no sense to Dr. Fell and his fellow investigators. Until they realized the dying man had been referring to a mask worn by someone else — a Guy “Fawkes” mask. That was the first I’d heard of Guy Fawkes Day.

Gives you some idea of how the name is pronounced, too.


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: November 6, 2015, 5:49 pm

Ahh, The Ipcress File. I’ve seen part of the movie, but not all of it. Was too long ago but I’ll have to look for it. And I’ve read some Len Deighton, but not that one. Will look for The Three Coffins too. @Can’t Hark—I never knew Mary Poppins came back …


Comment from BJM
Time: November 6, 2015, 6:27 pm

If you ever have the chance to interrogate a Fawkes-mask-wearing anarcho-trustafundian, ask him why he loves the Pope so.

Reminds me of Brando’s infamous line from “The Wild One”

Mildred: Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?
Johnny: Whadda you got?

Speaking of skulls full of mush…didja see these dumb bints endorsing Sharia law in the US?


Comment from Can’t Hark My Cry
Time: November 6, 2015, 9:19 pm

Deborah HH: Oh, yes. And then she Opened the Door. Then Travers decided that there was a limit to how many return visits could be believed, so she stopped at the magical number three, but published one last book (Mary Poppins in the Park) of stories scattered throughout her three visits. I loved–and still love–all four books; with all due respect to Sweas, I HATED the movie.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: November 6, 2015, 9:50 pm

Oh, I was five when I loved the movie. It…doesn’t hold up.

The books, though, are weird and wonderful. I read them the first time as an adult and still love them.

Uncle B is a huge Len Deighton fan — and, I must say, I’ve really liked the ones he loaned me.


Comment from Ric Fan
Time: November 7, 2015, 12:32 am

Funeral In Berlin is one of my favorite movies.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: November 8, 2015, 7:35 pm

Yes, I do like Deighton, very much. Le Carre is the arty types’ favourite but I find him a bore – endlessly rehearsing his miserable childhood and scoring cheap, adolescent political shots.

Deighton, completely lacking Le Carre’s pretentiousness, captures the reality of the Cold War far better and his writing about Germany is superb.

I mean the books, BTW. It’s far too long since I have seen the films to comment.


Comment from Mrs. Peel
Time: November 9, 2015, 2:38 am

Nesbit’s short story “The Frost Dragon; or, Do As You Are Told” also starts off the plot with Fifth of November action.

I mentioned Guy Fawkes Day in a meeting at work and got strange looks. This happens every year. Eventually more people will get edumacated as they have meetings with me on 11/5, I mean 5/11.


Comment from Wolfus Aurelius
Time: November 9, 2015, 4:19 pm

Comment from Deborah HH
Time: November 6, 2015, 5:49 pm

Ahh, The Ipcress File. I’ve seen part of the movie, but not all of it. Was too long ago but I’ll have to look for it. And I’ve read some Len Deighton, but not that one. Will look for The Three Coffins too. @Can’t Hark—I never knew Mary Poppins came back …
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Deborah, Carr was the master of the Impossible Crime and the Locked-Room Mystery. Extraordinary puzzles, solutions dependent on a series of clues, a hint of the supernatural (of course you’d think that when someone is murdered in a field of snow with only his footprints around!), and some welcome humor.

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