Religious fundamentalist attempts to blow up UK parliament

There, that got your attention. Of course, I’m referring to the fact that it’s Guy Fawkes Night in the UK, and in many parts of the British Commonwealth. No, this is not a public holiday, anymore than Halloween is in the US, but it is an excuse to let off fireworks – a lot of them – and for the really ardent, to burn an effigy at the stake.

This splendid event commemorates the attempt by a group of Catholic radicals to blow up the English King and Parliament, in the far-off days of 1605. The idea was to blow up parliament, while protestant King James I was present at its opening ceremony. The ringleader was one Robert Catesby, who died in a slow-motion shootout, presumably involving single-shot blunderbusses, a few days after the plot.

One Guido Fawkes was entrusted with its execution, but the plot was betrayed in an anonymous letter. Ergo, Fawkes was found skulking about in the cellars, with a suspicious amount of gunpowder on his person. He was tortured ‘lightly at first, then more severely’ just as King James I ordered, and then hung, drawn and quartered – not burned at the stake as you might suspect. That charming little tradition dates from an edict which encouraged Londoners to build bonfires to commemorate this er, happy occasion. 404 years later, and we’re still letting off fireworks and burning ‘Guys’ at the stake. Incidentally, it is from Guy Fawkes that the word ‘guy’ for man or person derives.

Soaking up London (left) with pal VJ Maury

A few years ago when I was freelancing around in British television, I slung my hook in the newly fashionable suburb of Hoxton. Now this is the real East End. The Kray brothers and Jack the Rippers’ old haunts were only stumbling distance away from our gaff which was, for a time, ‘party central’. Happy days. For two or three weeks before and after November 5, the explosions were loud, and constant. It was a bit like living in Baghdad. (‘Bit’ of course being the operative word.)

I don’t know how much of the historical significance of Guy Fawkes the skunk-smoking, Burberry leisure clothes wearing ‘CHAVs’ of Hoxton would’ve attached to their pyrotechnic activities, but they certainly meant something to the Jet-Set Hobo, and surely that’s reason enough to continue this fine tradition. That and the fact that it was easily my favourite day in the calendar growing up in a New Zealand that was once said to be ‘more English than the English.’ Still not convinced? Well, just to be plain, it certainly isn’t anti-Catholicism on my part. I like Guy Fawkes because it’s fun, and unlike Halloween, it is not a Disney confectionary, an ersatz tradition. It’s the real thing. Moreover it serves, as I see it, as a cautionary reminder of the folly of most best laid plans. It’s a link to the savagery of the past, one which we gloss over to our detriment.

But if I have my doubts that the Chavs of London knew exactly what they were commemorating, I’m even more doubtful that the ‘Kiwis’ of 2009 know or care much about Guy Fawkes night’s historical origins. After nine years of a Labour government that instilled the idea that anything at all to do with our British origins was shameful, kids don’t seem to be learning much at school these days except how to say ‘like, like, like’ all the time, and of course that the world owes them a living. Plus with Labour’s achingly PC and ‘safety first’ agenda, I’m surprised fireworks haven’t been banned, along with smoking and drinking in public, and cake at children’s kindergarden birthday parties. I kid you not.

Well, well. What do you know? There are fireworks crackling outside in the Auckland air, even as I write this piece. Perhaps there’s hope for this place after all.