Every Guy Fawkes Night excited man-children light up much of Britain with their Intergalactic Megaboxes. And we just trust them not to make a hash of it
Near my house, there are some incredible firework enthusiasts. In November 2020, when I’d just moved in, I thought it was an optical illusion created by lockdown; there were no municipal displays, no bonfires. Obviously a few catherine wheels coming out of a garden was going to look spectacular. OK, it looked more like a thousand catherine wheels, then 15 minutes straight of sky-filling light cascades, like beautiful waterfalls, that have technical firework names such as Whistling Palms, but that couldn’t be right: how much would that cost? Even if everyone on the block chipped in, they couldn’t have had a bigger budget than the London mayor Sadiq Khan.
In 2021, civic life had almost returned to normal, firework-wise, and amateur-hour across the road still looked pretty professional. That year, I ran over the road to say thanks. And the year after, feeling like a freeloader, I gave them £20. Both times they looked puzzled, like, “What’s the big deal? We are merely lighting up our neighbourhood like the Commonwealth, which is what any normal person would do.”
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