I remember November 5, for lots of reasons, every year since 1974. Fun that November 5 is also a big celebration somewhere in our little world:
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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, but also inerstwhile British Protectorates 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, (but it was held on the Queen's Birthday long weekend in June).
It celebrates the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, in which a group of Catholic conspirators. led by one Guido (Guy) Fawkes, 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.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: --Kate,
--------------------------------------------------------------- "if you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got." ---------------------------------------------------------------
Posts: 6804 | Location: usa | Registered: 09 February 2006
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.
Lol, a kind of celebrating of the early rise of modern day terrorism, thanks to discovery of various chemicals that explode -- or didn't in this case. Needless to say, Islamo-fascists aren't the originators of the concept.
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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.
Ren, I followed your link to Evans Pritchard, and found it mildly interesting that he was influenced by Charles Gabriel Seligman, the founding ethnographer of the Sudan.
"ritual of inversion" ... hmmm.
--------------------------------------------------------------- "The hand that erases writes the true thing." ~Meister Eckhart ---------------------------------------------------------------
Posts: 60 | Location: USA | Registered: 01 November 2006
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! Hip hip hoorah!
The following verses, though originally part of the rhyme, are usually left out of modern day recitations for the inflammatory anti-Catholic remarks:
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!
Now, why would anyone find that inflammatory? I mean it's not as if it were a cartoon, or novel.
Blaise Pascal Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. Pensees
Posts: 2917 | Location: Sverige | Registered: 21 June 2005
The Twenty First chapter, never published in the U.S. until 1987... The publisher didn't like it.
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There was something happening inside me, and I wondered if it was like some disease or if it was what they had done to me that time upsetting my gulliver and perhaps going to make me real bezoomny.
--------------------------------------------------------------- "if you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got." ---------------------------------------------------------------
Posts: 6804 | Location: usa | Registered: 09 February 2006
I've got a special place reserved for the UK gang, even a sign-on with a play on UK slang. I learned about Guy Fawkes on November 5, 2003, as I recall; so I've got a bit of a learning curve going on. But, you can bet I'll be celebrating Guy Fawkes Night from here on out.
--------------------------------------------------------------- "if you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got." ---------------------------------------------------------------
Posts: 6804 | Location: usa | Registered: 09 February 2006
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