It’s That Time Of Year Again
I’ve ranted about this before. But like a poo that just won’t flush away it keeps coming back.
Fireworks.
I’m not trying to ban them. I’m not trying to make them Public Enemy no. 1. But I would, if I’m honest, like to see them more strictly controlled.
Now, I’m not a fun-puritan or a celebration-Nazi but it seems bizarre to me that a shop needs a license to sell fireworks but any idiot with a debit card or the cash can buy them.
Absolutely any idiot. Any idiot at all.
And they do. In droves. (Actually what is the collective noun for idiots? A pranite? A trough? A smear?)
We’re only half way through October but already we’ve had our evenings disturbed by the war in Afghanistan being reenacted outside and this nightly barrage will continue well into November as the shops who greedily stockpiled their weapons of mass disruption continue to offload them onto pyromaniacal youths with expensive Nike’s and cheap cigarette lighters in order to recoup their initial expenditure.
Where do these youths get the money from to buy all this gunpowder? I’m not talking about the odd bang every hour (hey – sounds like a great night in) but a whole orchestra of explosions and aerial eruptions. A veritable symphony of aural fire and destruction. And I’m not talking about little fizzes and popping noises either; I’m talking about the kind of detonations that could dissolve kidney stones if the sufferer was standing close enough.
The windows shake. The cable TV connection twitches. Pacemakers pause (literally) for a heartbeat.
The kids are disturbed. I’m disturbed. The TV is disturbed. And animals... well, animals just become disturbed.
And for what? Some pretty coloured lights in the sky. And that’s before we get onto the subject of burns, accidents, malicious damage (great name for a record company) and the number of deaths caused by unregulated firework usage in the UK alone.
I have personally witnessed youths launching fireworks horizontally down the middle of the road in a bid to prove how dumb and dumberer (great name for a film) they really are. Or worse still, throwing them – ignited – across a road. And then you read about the ones that launch fireworks through people’s letterboxes or light them inside a house or tie them to the tail of someone’s pet... on and on it goes. People who can’t be trusted with a bottle of Clearasil are being allowed to play with gunpowder at night on our own streets! It’s positively insane!
In my opinion it’s criminal.
So. I’m not saying “let’s ban fireworks”.
I’m saying let’s ban the sale of fireworks to individuals. Let’s have properly organized displays only. They’re safer. They’re more cost effective. They’re more entertaining. And, even better, they’re confined to a single night of the year.
Sorted.
So am I making sense? Or am I just an older banger with a short fuse?
Answers on a rocket to the usual address please...
Labels: anger, antisocial, bonfirenight, danger, fears, fire, fireworks, idiocy, safety, teenage




