Fireworks and baked potatoes....

It is one of the peculiar perversities of the English national character that we choose to 'celebrate' a terrorist who tried to blow up the King and the government (um.... and to overlook the unfortunate fact that the origins of this dark festival were rooted in anti-Catholic paranoia....), but so it is. 

For people who grew up in England, November 5th - Guy Fawkes Day - is probably second only to Christmas in the emotional resonances it conjures from childhood. It is the only day of the year on which we let off fireworks, one of the few in which we may have a barbecue,... and probably the only occasion on which we'll have large outdoor parties at night and build BIG bonfires. The fact that it happens just as the days are getting short and the nights are getting chill, as autumn starts to transition into winter, adds to the special mystique of the event. I haven't actually been to a Bonfire Party for years, but the recollection of them still brings on a swoon of nostalgia.

I think I will try to buy myself some nice big potatoes for baking today, and cook up a pot of chilli con carne to pour over them. I might even brew up some mulled wine...

It is hard to celebrate the traditional holidays of home on the opposite side of globe. But these occasions are mostly about the emotions, the memories - a few little prompts like the smell of baking potatoes are all that's needed to bring on the feeling...

And if there is a Fantasy Football tie-in here, it's probably this: I do like to see myself as a constructive anarchist, an irreverent upsetter of apple-carts, a swashbuckling 'freedom fighter' - striving to blow up the corrupt edifice of FPL fetishism and superstition. Yes, I can find a metaphor anywhere!