We're still burning Catholics

Only a few of our national rituals continue to escape the clutches of the PR industry and avoid political correctness. For example, since 1606 we have celebrated the death of Guy Fawkes, a Catholic in a Protestant country, who was discovered beneath the Palace of Westminster shortly before the opening of Parliament on 5 November, surrounded by barrels full of gunpowder. He was arrested, tortured and executed, in that order.

Of course we celebrate the man’s death – not his pragmatism, his enterprise, his derring-do, his chutzpah or his sense of proportion. And how do we do this?

We spend weeks building enormous bonfires, and construct, from old clothes, straw etc, an effigy of Guy Fawkes, known as a guy. As children, we stand on street corners with our guy slumped beside us hustling for money (“penny for the guy”, we bleat at returning commuters).

(Introduced to begging at such a young age we turn into soulless bastards later on, kicking our vagrants, shunning our bag-ladies and refusing to buy The Big Issue. We may still give a penny for the guy though – we were young once.)

We buy loads of fireworks, and bake parkin (a sort of ginger cake), make bonfire toffee (with black treacle) and soup.

On 5 November we put our guy on top of our pile of wood, spray the whole thing with petrol and set it alight, then stand around, consuming our bizarre refreshments. We might go so far as mulled wine, but we will certainly throw potatoes into the holocaust, ostensibly to bake them. Of course they are never seen again (and neither are any scruffy small people who look like guys).

We watch our guys engulfed by the flames. Young children have become emotionally attached to their guys over the weeks of course and the whole business becomes charged with despair as these cuddly effigies, wearing their cast-offs, burn horribly before their eyes.

We let off our fireworks, some of which are unpredictable, since you can get caught out by advances in firework design. In the old days you’d always launch your skyrockets by poking the stick in an empty milk bottle and lighting the blue touch-paper. Nowadays this is likely to result in high-velocity shards of glass taking everyone’s legs off at boot level, while the rocket fizzes round your garden, bouncing off fences, beer mugs, pets, neighbours and so on before exploding in the greenhouse.

We finally get the garden hose out when the flames have caught the fruit trees and almost reached the kitchen window.

The following day it’s cool to ask people how the injuries went at their bonfire, while the media feasts on mutilation horror stories and calls for fireworks to be banned from public sale. And then we forget the whole thing, as we become preoccupied with complaining about Christmas.

Interestingly, although this is a major national event, there are no dedicated greetings cards (except the Get Well Soon designs which become necessary on 6^th November).

So anyway, Merry Bonfire Night.