Coming down and Over-Excited 2 - Fireworks and Bonfire Night

Coming down....

Holiday over {sniff}, fun week had by all. we visited are usual haunts in cornwall...Crealy, Tintagel on a very very foggy day, trips to the beach for rock-pooling where we found a few lungfish and lots of limpets.

Mrs A and the Aginothlings on Watergate Bay Beach, Sunday....was very foggy until tuesday when the weather turned to the most brilliant crisp set of autumn days possible allowing a full day trip to Newquay Zoo.

I have more photo's I'll pop them on next week :o)


Over-Excited ....

Guy Fawkes/Bonfire night tomorrow, but we celebrated a day early as saturday is a bit more conveinient for school and work sleep, just launched £50 of fireworks from the backgarden, we usually go to an organised display, but I had permission to play with high explosives from Mrs.A this year.

Anyway now we are sat indoors in front of a blazing log fire in lieu of a bonfire....here's the full version of the traditional rememberence ryhme


Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,'twas his intent
to blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow:

By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
A farthing o' cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.

Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.

Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah!

Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Bonfire Night and Fireworks Night, is an annual celebration (but not a public holiday) on the evening of the 5th of November primarily in the United Kingdom (especially in Lewes), but also in New Zealand, South Africa, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador (Canada), parts of the British Caribbean, and to some extent by their nationals abroad. Bonfire night was common in Australia until the 1980s.

It celebrates the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, in which a group of Catholic conspirators attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London on the evening of 5 November 1605, when the Protestant King James I (James VI of Scotland) was within its walls.

The celebrations, which in the United Kingdom take place in towns and villages across the country, involve fireworks displays and the building of bonfires, traditionally on which "guys", or dummies, representing Guy Fawkes, the most famous of the conspirators are burnt. Before the fifth, children use the "guys" to beg for money with the chant "Penny for the guy".

The evening of November 5th is known as Guy Fawkes Night, but the day itself is not known as Guy Fawkes Day

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was a failed attempt by a group of provincial English Catholics to kill King James I of England, his family, and most of the Protestant aristocracy in a single attack by blowing up the Houses of Parliament during the State Opening. The conspirators had then planned to abduct the royal children, not present in Parliament, and incite a revolt in the Midlands.

The Gunpowder Plot was one of a series of unsuccessful assassination attempts against James I, and followed the Main Plot and Bye Plot of 1603. Many believe the Gunpowder Plot to have been part of the Counter-Reformation.

The aims of the conspirators are frequently compared to modern terrorists; however, their actions were not designed to merely influence government policy by evoking terror: their real aims were nothing short of a total revolution in the government of England and the installation of a Catholic monarch. So the retrospective application of "terrorist" is likely a political dysphemism.

At the time, the word "terrorist" was not in common use; the plot would have been regarded as a treasonous act of regicide. Far from helping their fellow Catholics avoid religious persecution, the plotters put many loyal Catholics in a difficult position. Before this period Catholicism had been associated with Spain and the Inquisition but after the plot it also became thought of as treasonous to be Catholic.


Our local celebrations continue on 13th November with the Weston-super-Mare Guy Fawkes Carnival part of a series of a dozen or so illuminated Guy Fawkes carnivals that take place in somerset every year....and it passes down the road at the end of our street...about 40 yards away.

Oh and Happy Birthday Craziequeen :o)