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| Piles of burning wood and raw sausages? Let’s make bonfire night a national holiday | Piles of burning wood and raw sausages? Let’s make bonfire night a national holiday |
| (30 days later) | |
| In many ways, Britain lags behind the rest of the world when it comes to nation-specific holidays. We don’t have days to commemorate the passing of a beloved leader, for example, and we certainly don’t have an independence day – possibly because we’re usually the country that everywhere else wanted independence from. Similarly there’s no Thanksgiving here, because what on earth do we have to be thankful for? Twixes? Superdrug? It hardly seems worth it. | In many ways, Britain lags behind the rest of the world when it comes to nation-specific holidays. We don’t have days to commemorate the passing of a beloved leader, for example, and we certainly don’t have an independence day – possibly because we’re usually the country that everywhere else wanted independence from. Similarly there’s no Thanksgiving here, because what on earth do we have to be thankful for? Twixes? Superdrug? It hardly seems worth it. |
| Everywhere else does it so much better. Ukraine has a holiday to mark the Russian military intervention of 2014. Japan has different holidays for its mountains, oceans and shrubbery. Bhutan has a day off just so everyone can go out in the rain. But us? Just Christmas, Easter and a handful of badly defined days in the middle. It’s a legitimately dismal state of affairs. So let’s make a pact: next year, let’s make bonfire night a national holiday. | Everywhere else does it so much better. Ukraine has a holiday to mark the Russian military intervention of 2014. Japan has different holidays for its mountains, oceans and shrubbery. Bhutan has a day off just so everyone can go out in the rain. But us? Just Christmas, Easter and a handful of badly defined days in the middle. It’s a legitimately dismal state of affairs. So let’s make a pact: next year, let’s make bonfire night a national holiday. |
| It makes so much sense. What’s more British than bonfire night? Nothing, that’s what. It’s a glorious – and gloriously British – celebration of everything this country holds dear. It’s a chance for us to wrap up warm, huddle together, eat disappointing food and watch something ostensibly fun that’s never quite as good as it’s supposed to be. In short, it’s the most British thing ever. Forget St George’s Day or any of those ugly Brexit Day proposals. Bonfire night should become a formally observed celebration. We should all take the day off work for it. | It makes so much sense. What’s more British than bonfire night? Nothing, that’s what. It’s a glorious – and gloriously British – celebration of everything this country holds dear. It’s a chance for us to wrap up warm, huddle together, eat disappointing food and watch something ostensibly fun that’s never quite as good as it’s supposed to be. In short, it’s the most British thing ever. Forget St George’s Day or any of those ugly Brexit Day proposals. Bonfire night should become a formally observed celebration. We should all take the day off work for it. |
| Admittedly, it has problems that probably need to be addressed. It’s historically an aggressively Protestant celebration – the Observance of 5 November Act 1605, enforced with mandatory attendance of a church service for 250 years, required the reading of a text about “malignant and devilish Papists, Jesuits, and Seminary Priests” – and, to this day, it inspires behaviour that we could probably do without. Burning effigies of public hate figures is always a bit iffy, and the less said about the blacked-up children of Lewes the better. | Admittedly, it has problems that probably need to be addressed. It’s historically an aggressively Protestant celebration – the Observance of 5 November Act 1605, enforced with mandatory attendance of a church service for 250 years, required the reading of a text about “malignant and devilish Papists, Jesuits, and Seminary Priests” – and, to this day, it inspires behaviour that we could probably do without. Burning effigies of public hate figures is always a bit iffy, and the less said about the blacked-up children of Lewes the better. |
| Plastic surgeons call for cigarette-style warnings on fireworks | |
| But we can fix this. We can officially separate Guy Fawkes night and bonfire night. Guy Fawkes night is too knotty and political for everyone to get behind. But bonfire night? A night devoted to the twin spectacles of communal fire and magma-temperature baked potatoes? Who could possibly argue with that? | But we can fix this. We can officially separate Guy Fawkes night and bonfire night. Guy Fawkes night is too knotty and political for everyone to get behind. But bonfire night? A night devoted to the twin spectacles of communal fire and magma-temperature baked potatoes? Who could possibly argue with that? |
| And while we’re here, let’s get rid of the fireworks. The rest of the world has fireworks, and even here we’ve begun to smear our displays across the calendar so indiscriminately that 5 November fireworks aren’t even that special. Besides – and this is a truth that only the bravest among us will admit – fireworks are rubbish. They’re stupid and boring and only spectacular to people whose short-term memory loss is extensive enough that they forget they’re essentially just watching the same thing over and over again for 20 minutes. | And while we’re here, let’s get rid of the fireworks. The rest of the world has fireworks, and even here we’ve begun to smear our displays across the calendar so indiscriminately that 5 November fireworks aren’t even that special. Besides – and this is a truth that only the bravest among us will admit – fireworks are rubbish. They’re stupid and boring and only spectacular to people whose short-term memory loss is extensive enough that they forget they’re essentially just watching the same thing over and over again for 20 minutes. |
| In the entire history of the world, there has only been one decent firework display; the Oban community firework display of 2011, where someone pressed the wrong button and set all the fireworks off at once, and even that was 30 seconds too long. Apart from that, fireworks are terrible and only idiots like them. Sorry, I don’t make the rules. | In the entire history of the world, there has only been one decent firework display; the Oban community firework display of 2011, where someone pressed the wrong button and set all the fireworks off at once, and even that was 30 seconds too long. Apart from that, fireworks are terrible and only idiots like them. Sorry, I don’t make the rules. |
| So where does that leave bonfire night? It leaves it as a toothless holiday stripped of visual interest and historical context. It leaves it as a holiday where people just pile up a load of wood and set it alight while eating half-raw sausages off a stick. And, sure, that might not sound like very much to you, but it’d be a day off work, OK? Are you too good for a day off? You make me sick. | So where does that leave bonfire night? It leaves it as a toothless holiday stripped of visual interest and historical context. It leaves it as a holiday where people just pile up a load of wood and set it alight while eating half-raw sausages off a stick. And, sure, that might not sound like very much to you, but it’d be a day off work, OK? Are you too good for a day off? You make me sick. |
| • Stuart Heritage is a feature writer for the Guardian | • Stuart Heritage is a feature writer for the Guardian |
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