FIREWORKS

This evening my peace has been interrupted by loud bangs as the sky has been lit up by fireworks. At first I thought we could actually see and hear the celebrations on the other side of the Atlantic; congratulations America, by the way, on your electoral outcome. It has however now dawned on me that tonight is of course the evening that we celebrate the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot and the foiling of the plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament way back in 1605. Now of course in those days this could hardly be described as a victory for democracy when there were no elections anyway and the plot was hatched with the sole aim of killing the King when he visited Parliament for the state opening along with as many members of his family and the Protestant aristocracy as possible. Still it provides this country with a cause to celebrate with pyrotechnics and as result there cannot be a man, woman or child in the UK today who does not know what a firework looks and sounds like when it explodes in the sky. So much so that clients regularly use such terminology to describe the behaviour of their spouses: light the touch paper and he goes off like a rocket; she just explodes like a Roman Candle; she’s a right little firecracker when she starts; or, and I never did understand this, it’s as though he spins round and round like a Catherine Wheel!