More on fireworks
Two years ago, in response to another Guy Fawkes night and its associated pathetic firework display in my back garden, I spoke of how annoying home fireworks were. Since then I have learned my lesson: go to a public fireworks display. Last night I visited Spooktactular at Himley Hall (warning: crap conversion of a PDF), which cost us a stupendous fifteen quid to get in (£6/adult and £3 for parking; Niamh was free), after queueing for half an hour in the car.
And it was bloody excellent.
The fair was rather packed. The bonfire was large, but had no Guy on top of it. And the firework display was superb. Long and strong and definitely worth it. They had music playing all through it, taking shameless advantage of how Hallowe‘en was a week ago; there were songs from The Lost Boys and The Addams Family and Ghostbusters. And there was Bring Me To Life by Evanescence, and a few others. Went well with the music: a touch of the dramatic, some big beats, that sort of thing. None of them, however, could hold a candle to the music that played over the huge sky-lighting rainbow-shaded crashing explosive finale of coloured lights in the sky, because that music was Orff’s Carmina Burana (well, O Fortuna from same, for pedants). It’s such a good bit of music for dramatic things. It is, in fact, one of the three best bits of classical music ever written, along with Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Bach (and even then only the beginning bit, and only if played on a really massive church organ) and the Dies Irae from Verdi’s Requiem, and that’s not only equally dramatic but also terrifying. Rodrigo’s Concierto d‘Aranjuéz gets an honourable mention at number four, but it is for guitar which is silly. Plus, Gladys once corrected me on the pronunciation of “Aranjuéz” in such a patronising way that I had to shoot him.
How did I get on to music? I was talking about fireworks.
If you even remotely like fireworks then you should go to a public display. If your gsrden ones disappoint you because they say “Global Thermonuclear War” on the wrapper and look more like “Light Green Ejaculation” once lit then go to a public fireworks display. Half the time they’re run by the local council anyway, so you’re helping them to get money to do useful things like fix roads and so on, which can’t be a bad thing.
What time did the display start?
We had a bit of a nightmare last night when we went to a public display and the fireworks didn’t start until 8:30. By this time, the children were tired, cold and rather unappreciative of the fireworks.
-3961 seconds later
I’m glad you had a bonfire. Over in Birmingham they’ve been banned for environmental reasons. Hopefully the kids won’t be so scared of fireworks next year and we can take a trip to Himley.
And thanks for the tip about Carmina Burana, it’s being downloaded from allofmp3.com as we speak/type.
-2701 seconds later
Paul: Ours started at 8.30, like yours. Fortunately, there was a great big funfair there as well, so we went on that first and so Niamh wasn’t bored. She’s also good at staying up late, which is useful, although it’s more useful that she doesn’t insist on doing so!
Ro(b): you will know Carmina Burana, or at least the first bit, O Fortuna. To people our age, it’s “the Old Spice music“. To those a bit older than us, it’s the music from The Omen.
-2281 seconds later
I thought I would, however I have this odd hole in my memory that makes me completely incapable of remembering the title of classical pieces. Doesn’t matter how many times I’ve heard it, I just can’t remember the composer for anything longer than about 60 seconds after it’s finished playing. Perhaps I should offer myself to medical science for examination.
-781 seconds later
I watched a (fascinating) programme about Beethoven on Friday night (Mark Steel is always good, despite his working-class-hero-is-something-to-be shtick) and noted that, although one of the bits of music playing was one I knew and had heard, I didn’t know its name. It turned out to be Ode To Joy, which (it was obviously assumed) everyone knows and therefore they didn’t need to specify. (This is, in a glorious turn of phrase by the French, a secret de Polichinelle , a “secret that everyone can know”: everyone assumes that you already know it and so no-one tells you.) Ode To Joy is probably in the running for “Most Famous Piece of Classical Music Ever“, so you’re not alone in your anauditopsial sufferings.
23 minutes later
Rodrigo’s Concierto d‘Aranjuéz gets an honourable mention at number four, but it is for guitar which is silly. Plus, Gladys once corrected me on the pronunciation of “Aranjuéz” in such a patronising way that I had to shoot him.
I did? Coo. I don’t remember. :)
People pronouncing Salvador Dalí’s name ‘Dah-li’ with the emphasis on the first syllable is my pet pronunciation peeve at the moment.
(P.S. ‘de Aranjuéz‘, by the way. :)
24 hours later
Bah. Your CMS hates accents…
Shush, Khendon. :)
24 hours later
That’s why I used an incorrect accent in the initial post, my man. :)
Yes, I should make this work better. Yes, I need to understand Unicode. No, I don’t yet. Bah.
25 hours later
Private fireworks should be banned: even if they didn’t keep my son awake for hours like they did last year, I at least worried that they would for three nights. Everything seems a lot quieter this year. I wondered why people were spending a fortune doing professional level displays when professional people were actually doing a professional display 10 minutes down the road.
Of course, Brahms’s Requiem is way better than Verdi’s. The latter’s Dies Irae is a bit scary but the rest of it is rubbish.
And if I said Da-LI everyone except Gladys would laugh at me. I think that covers everything.
27 hours later
Emilia is good at staying up. George isn’t. He packs so much energy into running around very fast during the day that come 7 he is either asleep in bed, or very groucy indeed.
This year has been quieter and blimey, has the Fireworks Bill done its job, or has everyone realised that private fireworks are a rip off. Sunday was really quiet, and we only had a couple of loud bangs at about 7:15, so Emilia was able to go to sleep without me going in every 5 minutes.
28 hours later
You guys are so damn boring
53 weeks later