Festival Fireworks

As a finale for the festival, fireworks explode over Edinburgh Castle. I try to take photographs, which is very tricky without a tripod to hold the camera steady and not knowing exactly when they will ignite the sky with brilliance - it is pitch black a fraction of a second beforehand. I like the colours and the flashes of light.
 
I also like the way they trail off leaving streaks of flaming cordite against the night sky. We have been drinking whisky as part of our tourist activities, so perhaps I am just seeing stars anyway. Here are some examples of my work. Any tips on how to photograph fireworks would be greatly appreciated.

Guy Fawkes' Night

I interrupt the Italy reminisces because it’s time for another festival – this time it’s Guy Fawkes’ Night or Bonfire Night if you prefer.

I remember these as kids with the fireworks, toffee apples, bonfires and treacle toffee that went with it. I remember being bundled up in coats and hats, scarves and mittens, holding jacket potatoes and waving sparklers. We ooh-ed and ah-ed at the fireworks as only those bright explosion things in the sky can make you.

There used to be public announcements warning people to check their bonfires for hedgehogs as they were wont to climb in among the wood and leaves and make a cosy burrow, which got a bit too cosy when the flames started, and we ensured that all our pets were safely locked indoors.

For weeks before the event, there were collections for firewood and a penny for the guy – dad’s ‘old’ clothes were ransacked, usually with mum’s tacit consent. Him Outdoors tells me there used to be skirmishes round his way when raiding parties went out at night to nick each others wood. But then, he did live ‘up north’ where it’s grim, apparently.

Bonfire Night is celebrated in New Zealand too, although there are a myriad of heath and safety legislations about what to do with your Golden Rain (is it just me, or does that sound rude?) and where you can stick your Roman candles. It kind of surprises me that the festival is held here at all because it seems particularly British.

It was instigated to celebrate the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot of the 5th of November 1605 in which a number of Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament and assassinate King James I. It was compulsory, by Royal Decree, to celebrate the deliverance of the King in the UK until 1859. I have heard people lament the failure of the plot and in fact, celebrate Guy Fawkes as something of an anti-hero.

The conspirators behind the Gunpowder Plot intended to indiscriminately kill everyone in the vicinity of Parliament which, being in the centre of London, would have been quite a lot of people. Since many of the neighbouring buildings were made of wood, they would have caught fire and much of the city would have been destroyed (as it actually was 60 years later, but by accident). This makes him a terrorist in my book, but then I’ve always been interested to see how one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

And then there’s the weather. Guy Fawkes’ Night is just that – it takes place at night when the skies are dark so you can see the fireworks and the flames. You have to wrap up warm and roasting chestnuts is not just a pleasant pastime; it’s a necessity. Here you have to wait until it’s dark, by which time the kids have been kept up for several hours past their bedtime, so are even more whiny and petulant than usual. Plus they’re generally high on sugar.

And we haven’t even mentioned the wind. The fireworks displays in Wellington all have disclaimers that they will be ‘weather permitting’, which means the winds can’t be too strong. Ha! Expect to see that fireworks display sometime next February when the gale force winds subside for an hour or two. But don’t hold your breath.

Individual Olympics

The Olympics have begun, with an opening ceremony that him indoors described as, ‘Thousands of people doing synchronized running around. It’s not my sort of thing at all, but they’re very good at it.’ They also wafted about on aerial hoists and let off numerous fireworks, which must have done wonders for the smog situation in Beijing.

I’m not particularly fussed for the opening ceremony – it’s a fantastic waste of money as far as I can see (although I love the fireworks and think it is weird how the athletes all come out with their camcorders filming the crowd as though they were the celebrities), but now the games begin properly and the sporting types are out in earnest.

Certain things have always blighted the Olympics, and I’m not even going to touch upon the politics. There is no way that politics can be kept out of sport and anyone who suggests they should be (the ‘keepoos’ – KEEP Politics Out Of Sport – as Tim Shadboldt calls them) is evidently deluded.

My qualms centre on what sports are included and which are overlooked. Whether I like synchronized swimming, BMX jumping or rhythm gymnastics or not (I don’t) is not the point. Beach volleyball is also besides the point as it is simply ridiculous and not a real sport – any discipline that has regulations about how skimpy your clothing must be makes a mockery of the athleticism of the games.

I don’t think team sports should be included. I don’t believe football (which only America and New Zealand insist on calling soccer) should be included. This is not just because it would be the only time we play this game under the guise of Great Britain. Similarly, hockey, basketball, handball and waterpolo should be ousted from the tournament.

The Olympics are about the strength, speed and skill of the individual. Team games are fantastic to watch and have an entirely different dynamic from individual sporting endeavours, but they do not embody the principles of faster, higher, stronger which the Olympic Games represent.

Because I am completely arbitrary and this is my opinion, I will allow relay teams in running and swimming, and teams in cycling (pursuit and madison) and rowing (pairs, fours and eights, coxless or otherwise). I’m not entirely sure why, but these things seem right whereas baseball and softball don’t. Actually, softball never seems right (you might as well have underarm cricket), but that is another issue

I have heard the argument that no sport should be included if it has another and greater sporting stage – such as tennis or road race cycling. Does anyone who has just watched Wimbledon or the Tour de France really care who wins the medals for these competitions? I agree with this, but it is not the issue under discussion here.

I feel that these team sports remove the gloss and the prestige from the real medal winners – I mean, in a team sport you can have a stinker of a game and your team still wins. Do you deserve an Olympic Gold medal? I think not. If there is any doubt, ask Lay Down Sally.