fireworks

[H48HPE]

I think they should be banned or at least made so only registed people i.e. those that run community events etc. can have them,
im sick of hearing about young dogs, rabits and hamsters etc, being strapped to fireworks and then being launched or attempted to be launched, almost certainly leading to the death of a defenceless animal. the usual suspect are thouse young thugs and tearaways that are into vandalising cars and general crimes against normal people. its really p:censored: ing me off this, what do other people think?

i think the only answer is to reduce access to fireworks to everyone. Is it really acceptable to be selling small bombs that can cause death serious injury and start fires to iresponsable idiots

andy

[Liam]

I'm not in favour of banning fireworks but I'd love to get hold of those people who strap fireworks to animals and I'd strap several large rockets to them and see how they like it!

[Alan the Vanner]

I was wandering when someone might bring this subject up.
Ah, October, when we sing along to the christmas adverts on TV thanks to Argos et al, and fireworks go on sale so anybody and everybody snap them up and we have to suffer loud bangs from now until the new year, driving all the local dogs nuts up intil the early hours of the morning!:rage:
Personally, I don't think there should be an outright ban, but they should only be put on sale a bit nearer to the event(!)
Also, the vendors should show a bit more discretion to who they sell them to. After all, there's only young yobs that will use them irresponsibly.:(

[Rich]

They should only be allowed to be let off on the 5th of November, or at an organised event. For a good week prior to the 5th the dam things have been going off here, and especially tonight. Then again, I don't take kindly to launching my money into the air and watching it go bang, so I never buy them, or at least never have done.

Dont even get me started on the commericalised con of xmas........grrrrr, lets decorate our house with plastic cr:censored: p made in a sweat shop in hong kong and put as many lights over our house as possible shortly before felling an evergreen to go in the lounge (or another plastic variety), which we put items under to give other people they dont nessaceraly want but we have bought for them for the sake of it. Fair enough its good for the kids, and there was once a time about 10 years ago I enjoyed it, but when you see the stuff on sale in early October it really gets to me.

[Austin-Rover]

I think fireworks should definatley be left to organised displays. Round here they start at about three in the afternoon right through the evening. It so totally pointless - especially with the 'small flash and loud bang' varitey that seem to get into the hands of idiots all too easy. Organised displays should be encouraged more so people can go and see some 'real' fireworks. It would certainly stop so many injuries and cases of animal cruelty. (And save my dog's nerves.)

As for Christmas starting in about mid October - i heard on the Radio this afternoon of a Politician pushing for a ban on Chrismas Songs until 1st December every year to 'Save the spirit of Christmas' and to stop 'Over Commercialisation'. I think he's onto a good idea! My Tesco's already has its Christmas Tree up and tinsel strung up everywhere....

:rolleyes:

[F690OTF(RIP)]

House of Fraser in Reading had Christmas trees up before I left for University at the end of September! :eek: It does seem rather excessive to spend a whole quarter of the year focussing all our retail energy on Christmas! It's one of the contexts in which I might actually feel justified in using the contraction 'xmas', actually, since this kind of 'Christmas' has absolutely nothing to do with Christ. Mind you, it was a pagan ceremony before the Christians took it over when we arrived anyway. There's no more evidence that Christ's birth was in December than in any other month of the year!

[Jonathan]

I get really annoyed with loud fireworks too. Sitting here trying to recover quietly from a day at work I don't take kindly to being disturbed at 11pm by a series of bright flashes and sudden loud bangs that have me jumping out of my skin (so I hate to think what the pets go through). And it's never just the odd one, it goes on, and on, and on for hours... night after night this time of year. I used to enjoy it but what's the fascination with all the loud bangs? This is one thing over which there ought to be tighter controls imposed.

Come to think of it, can anyone explain why we celebrate what to me seems to be essentially nothing more than a failed historical terrorist act against our own parliament? Will the Americans blow up replica office towers every year on September 11th in years to come? My guess is probably not, but it'd be about as daft.

Funny how Christmas becomes nothing special as you get older isn't it, possibly because the commercialisation has reached such an extent that it's effectively the festive season for about 1/4 of the year so it doesn't feel like anything special by the end of December. Far too much emphasis on materialism which, of course, isn't really what it's all about (although you have to remember that not everyone celebrates Christmas for the same reasons). etc... etc..

[H48HPE]

at the risk of sounding like a rite grandad, i also cant stand haloween, fair enough its not too bad when a small group of kids come to the door with a parent stood at the botom of the drive cos u offer em each a few penny sweets and they go off happy, but this year we had lads in their late teens bigger than me and im nearly 6 foot banging on the door shouting trick or treat (effectivly asking for protection money). my mum genuinely worried that our cars may get damaged didnt give them money but instead offered them the sweets she had been giving the 5 year olds, they took them and were on their way. If i had answred to door which i wish i had of done id have told them where to get off before walking them back down the drive, perhaps its a good job i didnt though because if i had i might be forking out for car repairs now.

andy (grandad andy)

[Rich]

Halloween? Whats that?

Even as a child halloween was frowned upon in my familly, so its never done anything for me, besides, how can you find anything halloween, when its buried in xmas decorations by the time you get to the end of October?

The trick or treaters didnt bother coming this year, after last year, a rather convienient window is right above the front door in this house!:laugh:

It would be different if it was a group of young kids, still in single figures, accompanied by a parent. Lets face it, who would send there kids out on there own to knock on peoples doors?

Rich

[Dave]

Eric Idle: Very fussable, isn't it? Very fussable.
All: Right, all right.
Graham Chapman: Good glass of Chƒteau de Chasselas, ain't just that, sire?
Terry Jones: Oh, you're right there, Obadiah.
Graham Chapman: Right.
Eric Idle: Who would have thought, thirty years ago, we'd all be sitting here drinking Chateau de Chaselet, eh?
All: Aye, aye.
Michael Palin: Them days we were glad to have the price of a cup of tea.
Graham Chapman: Right! A cup of cold tea!
Michael Palin: Right!
Eric Idle: Without milk or sugar!
Terry Jones: Or tea!
Michael Palin: In a cracked cup and all.
Eric Idle: Oh, we never used to have a cup! We used to have to drink out of a rolled-up newspaper!
Graham Chapman: The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
Terry Jones: But you know, we were happy in those days, although we were poor.
Michael Palin: Because we were poor!
Terry Jones: Right!
Michael Palin: My old dad used to say to me: "Money doesn't bring you happiness, son!"
Eric Idle: He was right!
Michael Palin: Right!
Eric Idle: I was happier then and I had nothing! We used to live in this tiny old tumbled-down house with great big holes in the roof.
Graham Chapman: House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twentysix of us, no furniture, half the floor was missing, we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
Terry Jones: You were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in the corridor!
Michael Palin: Oh, we used to dream of living in a corridor! Would have been a palace to us! We used to live in an old watertank on a rubbish tip. We'd all woke up every morning by having a load of rotten fish dumped all over us! House, huh!
Eric Idle: Well, when I say a house, it was just a hole in the ground, covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us!
Graham Chapman:We were evicted from our hole in the ground. We had to go and live in a lake!
Terry Jones: You were lucky to have a lake! There were 150 of us living in a shoebox in the middle of the road!
Michael Palin: A cardboard box?
Terry Jones: Aye!
Michael Palin: You were lucky! We lived for three months in a rolled-up newspaper in a septic tank! We used to have to go up every morning, at six o'clock and clean the newspaper, go to work down the mill, fourteen hours a day, week in, week out, for six pence a week, and when we got home, our dad would slash us to sleep with his belt!
Graham Chapman: Luxury! We used to have to get up out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot grubble, work twenty hours a day at mill, for two pence a month, come home, and dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
Terry Jones: Well, of course, we had it tough! We used to have to get up out of the shoebox in the middle of the night, and lick the road clean with our tongues! We had to eat half a handful of freezing cold grubble, work twenty-four hours a day at mill for four pence every six years, and when we got home, our dad would slice us in two with a breadknife!
Eric Idle: Right! I had to get up in the morning, at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill and pay millowner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our dad would kill us and dance about on our graves, singing Hallelujah!
Michael Palin: Aah. Are you trying to tell the young people of today that, and they won't believe you!
All: No, no they won't!

[Alan the Vanner]

Well, if I had my way, (only it's the parent's house) when trick-or-treaters - or even carol singers come to think of it - came to the door, I'd have to do my Jethro act:
(Cornish accent) What the bloody 'ell are you b:censored: s doing knocking on my door at this time of night?! Why don't you p:censored: off you little b:censored: s before I get my 12-bore you b:censored: s!!!
:laugh:

[Beaker]

So you good at cornish accent then? :D

[Alan the Vanner]

Well, Denzil Pemburthy thinks so, mmm!:laugh:

[Beaker]

Who the heck is Denzil Pemburthy? Or have i missed watching some critical tv program again to find out?

Well hopefully I will meet you at the christmas do and we'll see who has the best cornish accent.

Lindz :)

[Alan the Vanner]

You've not seen anything of Jethro then? He's got a new video out now, and he will be at the Appollo theatre in Oxford next february. Very funny.:) ;)

[MGTurbo]

Whilst i agree with most of the comments here, it does seem that some of you need to lighten up, some of you young lads on here are sounding older than me! Could be something to do with owning a Maestro i guess?

Gareth ;)