Remember, remember...

It's Bonfire Night tonight. In practice, all this means is that for the last week or so, kids have been dicing with life and limb playing with fireworks, and tonight otherwise right-thinking people will indulge an atavistic pagan impulse to cheer on a ritual effigy-burning while eating hotdogs.

For a brief moment there it crossed my mind to ask whether they celebrate this festival in any other countries. It took me a second or two to realize how stupid that question would have been. (Although, having said that, I've just looked it up and it seems they do celebrate it in New Zealand and other former colonies.)

Of course, to call this celebration 'pagan' in origin is not at all accurate, given that it marks an important event in the history of English Protestantism - the thwarting of the plot by Catholic 'fundamentalists' to overthrow James I by blowing up Parliament. How do we celebrate this great day of narrowly averted slaughter and destruction? By setting fires, blowing stuff up, and tormenting domestic animals, naturally.

Remember, remember the fifth of November. I remember being taught this rhyme at school, which strikes me as slightly odd today given that I attended Catholic school. Does anyone really 'remember' what we're supposed to be commemorating here? The defeat of a terrorist plot? Hardly. The birth of freedom of conscience and the death of tyranny? The Civil War was only a generation later, for crying out loud! The chance to get drunk and set things on fire? That's more like it. We're basically marking the crushing of a small uprising by an authoritarian power by crying havoc and loosing mere anarchy upon the world for one night, giving free rein to that pyromaniac drive to destroy private property and burn all dissenters.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some drinking to do. I don't want to be sober tonight: it would only provoke the mob.

P.S. It would be in poor taste to draw a comparison between tonight's festivities and what's going down in Paris at the moment; so I won't.

Written any good books lately?

There are far too many writers in the world and not nearly enough readers.

In my vision of the ideal republic, things are quite different. Unsanctioned attempts to write imaginative literature will be punishable by death. A licence to write (incorporating poetic licence, renewable each quarter) will be granted only at the discretion of two consuls, to be elected annually from among the senatorial élite, which will in turn be appointed by me, the Emperor. In order to qualify for consideration, all aspiring writers will be compelled to meet a reading quota - provisionally 75 percent of the canon issued by the Ministry. The most stringent restrictions will be placed on the writing of poetry and novels; excise duties only will be levied on non-fictional writing; blogging will be tax-deductible. The exception will be made for literary genuises (again, to be judged by an appointed panel, and ultimately answerable to the Emperor), who will be allowed to wander the streets like cows in Hindu towns, writing with impunity, blackening municipal property with their scribblings.

This is my vision. Together we can make it happen.

The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite and builds a road into Chaos and old Night, and is followed by those who hear him with something of wild creative delight.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his Journal for 1834.