The last light of the sun

Hi there, readers

First, many thanks to all those who commented on my last post. I have responded there with some further thoughts of my own, some general and some specific to individual commenters.

I picked the (perhaps depressing) title because yesterday was the last day of the year when I can go home from work in daylight. To explain:
- British Summer Time (our name for daylight saving time) finishes tonight.
- Sunset is currently at a little after 5.30pm (BST); as of tomorrow it will be just after 4.30 (GMT). It will of course get steadily earlier as the year progresses towards the winter solstice.
- I finish work at 5.30, and leave the office somewhat later to catch a (nominally) 6pm bus home.
So for the last few days, the last light of sunset has been in the sky while I have been waiting for my bus. As of Monday, that will not be the case, and it will remain so until the days have lengthened enough, some time in March. The effect is worse now, of course, because it's sudden - over one weekend. The change the other way is much less perceptible, because it happens by a few minutes a day over a period of several weeks.

Meanwhile, the next fortnight sees a trio of shared, but very different, elements of British culture. My British readers probably don't need me to tell them about it all, but I thought people overseas might be interested.

31 October: Hallowe'en
For this one, the UK seems to have imported, wholesale, most of the American features of this occasion: trick & treating, carved pumpkins and all the rest of it. I don't think we used to do this; I'm fairly sure that forty or fifty years ago Hallowe'en in Britain was treated quite differently. I should ask my parents about this sometime...

5 November: Guy Fawkes' Night, or Bonfire Night
This one is a very English event: we are (at least theoretically) celebrating the failure of what might now be regarded as the world's first terrorist attack. In 1605, Guy Fawkes and others plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament when the king would be giving a speech there (at the State Opening of Parliament), thereby killing most of the country's leaders. He and the others were caught, tried and executed. In celebration, bonfires were and are lit, on which an effigy ("the guy") is burnt, usually these days accompanied by fireworks. In practice, it's now an excuse for a big outdoor party with fireworks - Cambridge usually has a good display, with a huge bonfire and a funfair. Incidentally, if Wikipedia is to be believed, this use of "guy" is the origin of its current usage in American English.

11 November: Remembrance Day
This one is very different. 11 November was the date on which World War I ended (strictly, the date on which the armistice was signed, ceasing hostilities at 11am), and this day is now marked with communal remembrance of those killed in that and more recent wars. Artificial poppies are worn as a mark of remembrance for a week or two, up to and including the day itself, and there are ceremonies at war memorials all over the country, particularly the Cenotaph in central London. The traditional two-minute silence at 11am seems once again quite widely observed, after a period when it was less popular.

So we go from supernatural revelry (with some very deep historical roots), to a four-hundred-year-old celebration of the survival of the state, to national mourning for those killed serving the state. It's a strange time...

Take care

Mark