http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_peas

I refer mi learned friend to the paragraph entitled ‘Availability’ which advises that said peas can be found in pet shops (wtf??) as they are good carp bait! Make of that what you will. Am I some day to discover that what my mum assured me was ‘reet posh muesli’ was actually Trill or that my Sunday roast was actually a tin of Bounce Superchunks??

Oh, and ‘am I going to hell?’ Indubitably in a handcart, my good fellow!! – But not for laughing at people with melty faces

First off: black peas and vinegar sound exactly like the kind of thing that you dirty, disreputable swines from t’other side o’ t’hills would get up to.

Secondly, how very dare you accuse me of financial extravagance! Believe me – my bonfire nights are cheap… CHEAP I tells ya…

Finally, people with melted faces are intrinsically funny. Don’t tell me you didn’t tell Nikki Lauda/Simon Weston jokes at school

Am I going to hell?
xxx

I can’t be the only kid of my era who grew up terrorised every year by Fire Safety Officers bearing video tapes showing some kid whose parka hood had ignited and melted their face, rendering them something akin to the lovechild of ‘The Scream’ and John Merrick?

And as if that wasn’t bad enough Bonfire Night was the one night of the year when I was forced to wear 14 layers of clothing and stand around in the cold (and we had proper cold back in the 70s, right?) and was force-fed black peas with vinegar – a food of the devil which no other person alive seems even to have heard of!!

These days, free from the evil clutches of Fire Safety Officers and black peas, I just hate the waste of it – the idiocy of literally sending money up in flames (I still don’t understand how you Yorkshirites reconcile that one).

…and breathe.

Nice blog post, made me laugh a number of times

Bonfire toffee is one of the greatest foods known to man. My mum would make it every year – I’d look forward to it for months, then watch with awe as the various sugars and treacles that lived in the back of the cupboard were added to a dangerously boiling cauldron. The suspense as I waited for the mixture to be ready was terrible – you have to dribble it into a cup of cold water to see if it sets, and when it does, you take it off the heat and pour it into a dish. Then comes an agonising wait as it cools, and some four hours later you put some cling film over it and smash it with a rolling pin so it breaks into pieces.

After eating two bits and feeling a bit sick, the toffee would be left on the sideboard, or perhaps in the fridge, where it slowly disintegrated into a sticky mess.

We would still offer it to trick or treaters.

What I find sad is that my nephew cannot contain his excitment about Halloween, and yet shows zero enthusiasm for Bonfire Night.

When I was his age I literally pissed myself with excitement just waiting for that glorious moment of lighting the first sparkler and ultimatley watching a tepid display of disappointing fireworks – the little puff is, dare i say it, a bit scared of fireworks! For shame!