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There is much gnashing of teeth in the UK about this American Halloween import of "trick or treating" many like me pretend to be out.

We have the arsonists free for all of Guy Fawkes night on the 5th.. so the two "celebrations" have become linked. If you don't give the mainly teenage thugs some "sweeties".. they are quite likely to burn you out ! The government encourage all this by putting the clocks back an hour the last weekend of October.. so they can cause mayhem under the cover of darkness.

This "celebration" is quickly followed by "the penny for the Guy" extortion racket.. where youths will position themselves at a busy local point and demand money from passers-by for the stuffed figures they have on the floor... usually featuring the now redundant Halloween mask. and the money used to buy incendiaries. This figure "the Guy" is then ritually burned on the night of the 5th.. In many cases they have now dispensed with the inconvenience of putting together a Guy.. and simply demand money.

On November 5th we "celebrate" a failed attempt to overthrow Parliament (shame) around the time America was discovered by encouraging kids to set off industrial incendiaries.. and also set fire to anything they feel like...just about anywhere. Its the UK's contribution to the "undermine attempts to prevent global warming" initiative.. we burn enough rubbish in one night to make up for all the rest of the "smokeless" year.. if we are lucky the day after the wind blows it all across the North Sea onto Norway.. if we aren't lucky the whole country smells like a 90 a day smoker for about week.

A couple of years ago my daughter was in Uni in Liverpool and was put on danger of her life by a lovely gang of Halloweeners pushing fireworks through their letterbox into the hall ! After several nights.. they were forced out.

When I was a nipper Halloween was simply another night.. now its a excuse for every reprobate to knock on your door demanding favors with menace.

In a recent incident a person walked into a shop with a box of industrial fireworks and the calmly walked out.. leaving staff and customers to deal with explosions and shooters around the shop.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/h i/england/sussex/7068103.stm
ht tp://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/ search/results.pl?scope=all&ed ition=d&q=arson&go=Search

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