I'll hold my hands up! I don't 'get' Hallowe'en! I have no idea why so many people get so much fun from it! Brought up as a Catholic, I only ever really knew the end of October as All Souls', the time when - get this - the veil between earth and purgatory grows thinner so that we can get a glimpse of all the poor sinners stuck over there! That's who we prayed for on Hallowe'en, see? And somehow now there's a big party night out of it!? So, in our over-commercialised world, that means all I see is shop after shop selling ton after ton of tacky, plastic crap that people will wear once and throw away. Like Christmas, with corpses.
Bah, humbug .. or whatever the Hallowe'en equivalent is ..
When I was growing up it was all about Bonfire Night. Never mind dressing up as a zombie - all we could think about was getting a big pile of scrap wood together to build a bonfire in our back garden. Then it was Catherine wheels, bangers, rip-raps and sparklers waved in each others' faces as a huge pile of timber blazed away just feet from our houses! What's not to love?..
In a way I suppose it's sensible that we don't have all of that health and safety nightmare anymore. Kids today will just have to make do with thinking that dressing up in fake blood is exciting. Scary..
Ps: Sorry, a picture of Black Flag's Henry Rollins was about as ghoulish as I could get for today's photo...
