i just want to be your firecracker

We watched as fireworks zoomed up into the air over Stevenage Old Town.  Amongst the "oohs" and "aahs", I wondered why no one has ever written songs about Guy Fawke's Night.  I wasn't really thinking about all that  money going up in smoke - I quite liked it to be honest.  Maybe it's the beer, wine, baked potatoes and vegetable chilli that goes with it.  And the craic. After all we've been going to this particular do since last Century.


Now, I could be wrong and maybe someone is about to send me a list of songs I've missed (or ignored over the last 50+ years) but beyond light up the sky with Standard fireworks, I can't really think of any. No one else could either last night. I did think of a few American songs, most of which involve the Fourth of July.  Dave Alvin mentioned "Mexican kids are shooting fireworks below" and Ryan Adams provided the title of this blog, but I 'm racking* my brain for British November gunpowder references.  It all came down to the suggestion that I would have to write one. Oh alright then, watch this space . . .

It's weird going to your hometown for an evening and only dipping in and shooting out again the next day. To be perfectly honest, I only know a couple of places in the town - mostly the houses of my friends and the graveyard.  I feel no real attachment to the place - and why should I? I left it in 1982. Still, there is a sort of pull that I can't quite explain. A temporal ebb and flow, I guess.

On another note, dear reader, I seem to be under attack as far as personal emails are concerned.  All I can do - it seems to me - is to change my email account, so you may well get a new address to contact me.  120 junk emails yesterday - 237 today suggests that it's time I closed the current account.  I may be missing something here - I've done everything I've been told to to battle against it but I do feel totally fed up and hotmail don't seem too helpful about it. The small-minded criminals that rely on messing up our lives for whatever perverse pleasure they get from it may possibly be able to eloquently explian the point of what they do but it's beyond my comprehension.  At least another account may last for a few years as much as the last one did.

The end of an era, I suppose. 

*not exactly sure about the etymology here, but the popular vote is for this form as in "the rack" -  a popular torture instrument a few years back ( as in stre-e-e-tching . . .).