Bonfire Night
Written at 12:20 p.m. on 2007-11-07

This year's bonfire night was spent on my own in a hotel in County Durham, waiting for a 4 hour conference on 'Site Waste Management' that I was going to the next morning. Can you imagine my excitement and joy? I'm sure you can. Sitting in a restaurant on my tod like a complete loser was a joyous experience, made even more enjoyable by the drunken advances of a group of pissed up sales reps who were also staying in the hotel. Roll on next bonfire night.

The good thing is that I did not entirely miss out on fireworks as bonfire night is not so much bonfire night as bonfire fortnight now. So the fireworks started a week or so ago and are still going on now. Sunday night was especially loud and the dog was so upset that we had to tranquilise him for the first time. Because it was the first time I wasn't entirely sure of the dosage so gave him 1 tablet. It would appear that he only requires half a tablet. The dog was as stoned as a weasel, he was cross eyed, he kept falling over things that were on the floor, he was weaving from side to side and I would swear he was grinning. Eventually he ate a large bowl of food before conking out on his bed and not even twitching till morning. Ah memories, we've all been there......My parent's dog was even more entertaining as whenever he walked anywhere he'd pick up each paw very carefully and slowly and deliberately put it down. He kept lifting up his front paw and gawping at it like he'd never seen it before, then snorting to himself and putting it down, all the while never taking his eyes off it. Lord knows what was going on in his head but it must have been odd.

It seems that the chavs next door have been raiding Navy ships this year. Either that or they've bought a cannon. Every night since Thursday the house has been rocked by a series of huge explosions from their garden, the kind that make the windows rattle, the ornaments fall off the mantlepiece and the dog dive for shelter under the dining room table. My mum assures me that they are not in fact launching an airstrike on Prestwich, they have 'acquired' a collection of commercial fireworks but I'm not convinced. If you see an area of North Manchester on the news, having been reduced to nothing more than a smoking crater you'll know I was right. I'm wondering if they are also responsible for the fact that our entire estate is covered, and I do mean covered, in little bits of shredded and singed bits of red paper. It's all very odd.

The local news has just been on the radio, there've been the usual spate of ludicrous bonfire night injuries but to mentioned I thought were particularly worthy of a Darwin award for Stupidity:

1 - The lad who is now in the burns unit after attempting to leapfrog the large burning heap of wood, without a great deal of success.

2- The Salford chav who found a firework on his way to school and decided to see what happened if he warmed it up with his cigarette lighter. Suprisingly enough, warming it up with a lighter ignited it and he is now also in hospital.

I sometimes wonder how people this stupid ever manage to reach their teens.

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