Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent
To blow up King and Parliament.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England’s overthrow;
By God’s providence he was catch’d
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Most Americans know this rhyme only vaguely from the movie V for Vendetta because, of course, we went through rather a rough patch with the British monarchy before our recent love affair with certain Royals and the fairly recent Special Relationship. It has a deep resonance in Britain to this day as an act that saved the monarchy from the evils of Popery and assorted other things, as this rhyme makes plain:
A penny loaf to feed the Pope
A farthing o’ cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we’ll say ol’ Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah hoorah!
Now, however, it seems that one of the quintessentially British holidays—the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot and Guy Fawkes, patsy, decidedly back-to-the-future jihadist, not-so-skilled master bomb maker, and symbol of Protestant hegemony in Merry Olde England—is possibly being regulated out of existence.
- Burn the Guy?
- Time to stop celebrating centuries of religious intolerance?
- Classic bureaucratic over-regulation?
- Parallels to the regulation of fireworks in the USA? (Lots of people do get hurt, start fires, etc.)
- Something else?
Have your say!
The 12 Angry Men Blog 
November 5, 2007 at 11:29 am
You know, if I thought for a minute that the holiday was disappearing because people didn’t want to hurt Catholic feelings, I’d…
…wait, nope, I’d still think it was silly. And I’d tell them that everybody likes a party, so just balance the tale with all the facts and let the cards fall.
But to watch a quintessentially British holiday choked to death by quintessentially British over-regulation is truly sad.
But what’s even sadder is this quote by the York town council:
So for want of $200,000, chump change for any mid-size American city, Guy goes unburnt…
You’d think they could recoup at least that amount through a surtax on food and drink at the party, parking fees, or even more creative things like supervised fireworks use by the visiting kids.
In the end, Guy Fawkes Day isn’t being ruined by stereotypical British over-regulation, but by equally stereotypical British frugality.
Truly penny wise and pound foolish.
November 5, 2007 at 11:52 am
Um…how about we get the name of the bloody holiday right for a start. It’s Guy Fawkes Night
November 5, 2007 at 11:58 am
Health & Safety has done a lot of dameage. They do the same with Christmas.
November 5, 2007 at 12:57 pm
PlumBob78 Says:
###Um…how about we get the name of the bloody holiday right for a start. It’s Guy Fawkes Night###
God I love Brits. You make New Yorkers look polite. 🙂 It’s fixed now.
November 5, 2007 at 1:22 pm
One thing I find interesting is the fact that a lot of “law and order” conservatives who are all for the “broken window” theory of crime are bigtime scofflaws on things like the fireworks issue. Say no to squeegee men but what’s the harm in blowing off some fireworks with the buds?
What gives?
November 5, 2007 at 2:20 pm
mildlypiquedacademician Says:
“God I love Brits. You make New Yorkers look polite.”
Wrong again. Born in Providence, RI. lived in Northern VA most of my life. Attended college time and space-coincident with Angry Midwesterner, and unless my who’s whom guessing is wrong, Angry New Mexican.
I am, however, a jerk.
November 5, 2007 at 2:27 pm
# PlumBob78 Says:
###Wrong again. [snip]###
My sincerest apologies… I was deluded by the use of “bloody” I guess.
###I am, however, a jerk.###
Oh, OK.
November 5, 2007 at 2:55 pm
no offense taken, really. I saw an opportunity to be a pill and took it. You should be there when one of my friends uses a similar-sounding but totally wrong word in a conversation. It’s fun.
November 5, 2007 at 3:00 pm
So is it ‘God Save the Queen’ or ‘Praise the Emperor’?
November 5, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Purge the Heretic!!!
November 5, 2007 at 10:51 pm
PlumBob78 Says:
###no offense taken, really.###
Actually I forgot to put the sarcasm tag on “mysincerest apologies.” 🙂
November 6, 2007 at 9:46 am
Say no to squeegee men but what’s the harm in blowing off some fireworks with the buds?
What gives?
Well, I don’t think I qualify as a “law and order conservative,” but, personally, I’d have to say that:
a. I like fireworks
b. I dislike squeegee men
🙂
Or—more seriously—I think you can draw a reasonable distinction between lawbreakers who are annoying others and lawbreakers who aren’t. Of course, I suppose that disqualifies me as a “law and order” type. 🙂
November 6, 2007 at 10:30 am
To think I might have gone through this entire day without remembering it was GFN. Once again, this site proves you are the Last Good Men Left. (Or right).
November 6, 2007 at 4:01 pm
AOC wrote:
###Or—more seriously—I think you can draw a reasonable distinction between lawbreakers who are annoying others and lawbreakers who aren’t. Of course, I suppose that disqualifies me as a “law and order” type.###
Yes, I suspect it probably does. Still I find it an interesting asymmetry.
November 6, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Wendy Says:
###To think I might have gone through this entire day without remembering it was GFN.###
Actually I was reminded of it because I bought a copy of The Economist to read on a flight this past Sunday. They had a special section on “The New Wars of Religion” where they noted how Guy Fawkes was kind of a back-to-the-future figure. So given that we had nothing else ready on Monday, it seemed appropriate for Guy Fawkes to be featured.
###Once again, this site proves you are the Last Good Men Left. (Or right).###
A little bit of both with a hefty dose of libertarianism of various strengths, I think. 🙂
One can discern my basic politics from the fact that I was reading The Economist rather than, say, National Review or The Nation. Other Angry Men differ, of course.
November 6, 2007 at 5:07 pm
I still say that I’m right and the reason “law and order” types use illegal fireworks is that they like fireworks. I bet they speed too. And I would suspect that many of them at least bend the law on lots of other things they like too.
On the other hand, they don’t like nuisances like the homeless, brash young inner city “youths”, loud parties, or smart-ass flag burners. So they’re all for enforcing the minor laws against them.
And while they go too far, they do have one point: minor laws are best enforced when their violation is pestering people. I call it the Chicago principle: would a Chicago cop actually bother to bust you? Chance goes up dramatically if you’re annoying (or odd looking—which is not so good, but hard to overcome). And well it should: people who don’t mind pestering armed cops probably make a habit out of pestering unarmed folks even more.
I’d just encourage MPA to remember his own “Oh crap, I’ve become an adult” moment involving thoughts of calling the police on annoyingly rowdy teenagers…
November 6, 2007 at 5:19 pm
AOC wrote:
###I still say that I’m right and the reason “law and order” types use illegal fireworks is that they like fireworks. I bet they speed too. And I would suspect that many of them at least bend the law on lots of other things they like too.###
I didn’t say I disagreed with your explanation—I think it’s correct—just that I find it an interesting asymmetry.
I once had a discussion with an anti-drug person who was busting with the hardcore law and order line about smoking a joint, essentially saying “You shouldn’t smoke joints because it’s against the law.” I asked her “Do you speed?” I can’t recall what her answer was but I think it was something like “That’s beside the point.” Which, of course, it isn’t, unless you are able to make a case—as she was trying to do by trotting out hard core sob stories—that smoking a joint was a Major Step on the Road To Perdition(tm). Naturally, I could trot out hard core sob stories about speeding, too. Now I personally find potheads annoying but think that some tolerance is in order.
November 7, 2007 at 6:36 pm
I always liked guy fawkes night, eating charred food and spelling my name with sparklers was great fun. But launching my home made wee guy onto the fire and watching him burn was the best thing of all.
Also i always thought using fawkes in the vendetta film was a weird choice as from reading some of the history he seemed a bit more like a suicide bomber than a freedom fighter.
November 7, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Dave C Says:
###Also i always thought using fawkes in the vendetta film was a weird choice as from reading some of the history he seemed a bit more like a suicide bomber than a freedom fighter.###
It’s a bit more apparent in the graphic novel (the movie made V into Batman to some degree), but nonetheless I think it is supposed to be ironic. It’s also probably an example of “reverse design” on Alan Moore’s part—he knew he wanted Parliament blown up and from there it’s not hard to figure out what mask V should wear.
Reverse design is often employed in writing: You know you want a certain endpoint to happen and figure out what has to come before. The most famous example of this is doubtless the end of Casablanca. Rick Blaine HAS to kill Major Strasser (or Conrad Veit would have been mad! :)). The script was, therefore, adapted to make sure that there was a confrontation in the airport. The rest was history.
I use the same principle in writing course material. I figure out what I want the students to be able to do in the assignments and figure out what I need to say or what they need to read to get to that point. Since the biggest problem in writing a course is figuring out what to leave out, reverse design is very helpful. I didn’t know the name until a colleague told me but I see it all over the place.
May 12, 2008 at 5:55 am
wow how cl i luv guy fawkes he helpd me in a history lesson yay
May 12, 2008 at 5:57 am
will u marry me
May 12, 2008 at 6:03 am
hello
i luv u guy fawkes
May 12, 2008 at 6:06 am
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May 12, 2008 at 6:07 am
this cud b the new Msn
May 12, 2008 at 6:08 am
hi bbe
May 12, 2008 at 6:08 am
hi
May 12, 2008 at 6:09 am
this is very good
May 12, 2008 at 6:16 am
yea cors im goin 2 people town
November 4, 2008 at 5:27 am
Guy Fawkes was a brave man.. To bad he failed, or else the 5th of November might have been a day of celebrating and not of mouring..
November 5, 2008 at 10:22 am
All hail the Brits.
It’s been a year since this was posted and this page gets more traffic on 12AngryMenBlog than the US presidential race.
November 5, 2008 at 6:57 pm
okay im trying to get this straight if Guy tried to blow up England then why do the British people celebrate november 5 ?
November 5, 2008 at 9:03 pm
tina sais:
okay im trying to get this straight if Guy tried to blow up England then why do the British people celebrate november 5 ?
The holiday is about the foiling of the gunpowder plot. It is also heavily wrapped up in Protestant/Catholic relations and the English Reformation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_fawkes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_Plot
May 19, 2009 at 3:25 am
crap