Living in London

Every country in which I have lived seems to have an annual fireworks celebration. In Canada we celebrated the queen's birthday with fireworks on the last Monday in May. In the US, of course, there is the 4th of July, and San Francisco even has KFOG's Kaboom concert in early May.

Here in London we have been hearing fireworks for a few nights now, but last night, Friday 5 November, it sounded like we were in a battle field. It’s Guy Fawkes day in England. Each year fireworks and bonfires are burned on November 5th to celebrate the Gunpowder Plot, in which a group of Catholic conspirators attempted to blow up the British Houses of Parliament on that date in 1605. The plot failed, and in their relief, the British have continued to commemorate the day for 400 years with explosives and fires of all kinds.

This event, and legend, is the source of the familiar rhyme begins ‘Remember, remember the fifth of November'.

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
gunpowder, treason and plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.

(The full text is available at this Wikipedia entry.)

-HrH