Fires and fireworks

In an nontraditional way my block of flats celebrated bonfire night a day early.  We have a bin cupboard on the outside of the block, last night some of the local kids decided it would be fun to set fire to our bin.  I was in my front room at the other side of the building, when I went to take the dogs out the rest of my flat smelled of smoke.  Leaving my flat and heading down the stairs it was definitely smokey.  Once outside the cause was obvious as the bin had been half pulled out of the cupboard and was full of flames.

In normal emergency mode I stood like a muppet (probably Ralph the dog) and stared at it for a while before I knocked on my neighbours door and they put it out.  No real damage other than to the rubbish.  Oh and the fact that the dogs now have a smoked smell.

So tonight is bonfire night for real, no pretend bin fires, real inferno type fires are alight all over the country.  To remember what it's all about here is the poem:

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent
To blow up the King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence [or By God's mercy] he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Hulloa boys, Hulloa boys, let the bells ring.
Hulloa boys, hulloa boys, God save the King!

If you don't know or remember the Guy Fawkes story I think it's the Die Hard movie where Bruce Willis travels back to the year 1605 and stops a terrorist from blowing up a government building.  What you missed that one?
 
The girls and I are cuddled up on the sofa watching fireworks out of the window.  They are totally undisturbed by the fact that outside sounds like a war zone.  I was remembering November the fifth when I was young.  We used to get dressed up in our wellington boots, coats, scarves, hats and gloves.  So wrapped up you could barely move your arms.  We'd get taken to a local bonfire and fireworks display.  I mostly remember that your front would be roasting hot from the fire but your back would be freezing.  You had to pick your spot so that you didn't get a face full of smoke.  There would be hot potatoes and soup to help keep warm and then the high point of the fireworks.  All the oohs and aahs.  You'd go home freezing cold and have to get warmed by the fire or radiator.
 
I was wondering how many other countries celebrate a 400 year old attempt at terrorism?

Ghostly Goings On V

Haunted Houses

I've stayed in a few places that are supposed to be haunted so I thought I'd tell you the tales. 

First there was Beamish Hall:

It is now a hotel, looks nice if you are ever in the North East of England it is worth checking out there and Beamish museum - Link

I stayed there twice while I was at college.  It was an optional part of our English course and was great fun, groups of 16 to 18 year olds away from home in a haunted house!  The house at that time wasn't a hotel but hosted residential courses, it was quite basic with a lot of the house unmodernised.  At might it was very spooky and there were a lot of unexplained noises but nothing to prove haunting.

Beamish Hall allegedly has a few ghosts, the most famous is the Grey Lady:
"Legend has it that the grey lady was in love with Mr Shafto, but was promised to another by her father.  On the day of her wedding, she ran to Beamish Hall to escape from her appointed suitor and hid in a casket in the lowest cellars within the hall.  Unfortunately, the lady locked herself in and suffocated to death, being found some months later.  Her restless spirit wanders the hall today, her wedding dress-grey with age, rustling as she moves."

Others include a man in a tweed suit patrolling the corridors, this is thought to be Mr Shafto.  A lady in pink sitting in the Eden room with her companions including a cat and a parrot.   Amongst the others are children in the attic and a nasty spirit in the kitchen.   It would seem the kitchen spirit had an adverse effect on the food, it was pretty bad, we ordered pizza.

So we are there for a weekend do lots of interesting team building exercises and bits of drama.  One of the things our artistic English teacher decided we should do was scream.  As in arrrrrrgh.  Just as a release.  So there we are taking turns to scream when a blood curdling scream comes from elsewhere in the building.  The screaming increased from there and that was the end of that session.  No idea if it was an echo, the staff joining in or the sound of a tortured soul.

Years later I stayed in Chillingham Castle:

This is a lovely place to stay, check it out - Link the website includes details of the many ghosts, it is allegedly very very haunted and has been on many TV shows.  I went with a large group of friends for a weekend that included a murder mystery evening hosted in the coaching rooms. 

The group I was part of stayed in the landseer rooms,  I shared my time little room with a gay guy and we had a great laugh.  I woke up the first morning and was reading when he woke up and said "shit, this is like a prison cell."  That was before he knew we were locked in!

The downside of the weekend was that I had just split up with a guy I'd lived with for 7 years, he was there too.  I had a great time but there were some tense moments.  At one point I had to escape a, and crept into the next suite where I say on my own and had a good cry.  Other guest may have heard the wailing and thought it was a ghost, sorry guys just me.

The couple staying upstairs from us had a massive fight one night leading to a lot of bumps and bangs which again other guests could be forgiven for assuming it was the blue boy having a party. 

I had to go and collect my dog before we went home.  I was very naughty and let her have a sniff round.  Little Looby didn't notice anything strange so I'm not convinced by the Chillingham ghosts.  Lovely, interesting place though.

Finally at the suggestion of Dan I have added another haunted place that I have stayed.  Edinburgh is allegedly one of the most haunted cities in the world.  I've been here nearly 10 years so I've obviously visited less tourist attractions than the average American would do in a weekend but let me try to summarise out ghostly residents. 



Looking at my fantastic picture of Edinburgh you can see the castle on top of the volcano.  The streets running down from the castle are the old town and this is where most of our ghosties live.  From the Royal Mile you can take a few different ghost tours.  I've done most of them now, the most famous is Mary Kings Close.  When I first visited this tour was very rough and ready, done by student guides.  It was great.  This is a narrow street (or close) that used to run from the Royal Mile to the Nor Loch.  They built new buildings on the Royal mile but left this street underneath.  The story goes that during a plague they walled it up and left everyone there.  The horrible history aside it is really interesting to visit.  They have now done this up to make it a proper visitors attraction, it had taken away some of the character but is still worth a look.  They just did their first public over night stay for Halloween, wish I'd known I might have joined.

The one I like best is the Vaults, Edinburgh's underground city.  This is basically a bridge where they have built both sides and the arches have been filled with vaults.  A quick pic:

You enter the vaults through various buildings, some of the buildings are using parts of the vaults as store rooms.  Some of the pubs are actually in vaults.  I've been down here a few times and it is always different.  They definitely have a spooky feel, you are under the city so there are strange noises.  They have odd temperatures with hot and cold patches.  In addition there are dark doorways and random little storage areas.  There are definitely rats in the vaults so you do hear them.  It's history is nasty too (a pattern forming here), Edinburgh's poor and criminals used to live in the vaults.  I think the famous Burke and Hare stayed in the vaults at some stage (might be wrong).  I'm sure they were dark, smelly and unpleasant then, they still are.

The first visit I did was with work, it's hard to scare a group of 40+ people so it wasn't very creepy.  The second time I was with 2 friends and the total tour group was 6.  The thing I noticed was the temperature changes, very obvious when you take one step from warm to cold.  The best bit was one of the girls on the tour who claimed to be psychic.  She kept describing the spirits she was seeing.  Old women sitting knitting in one vault.  A man running down the centre corridor shouting at us to get out.  She seemed genuinely scared and wanted to leave.  We had been drinking so we were equally but very differently affected by spirits, I've not often laughed that much while trying hard not too.

One of the bars that backs on to the vaults is Whistle Binkies, very popular as it often has a late licence.  This bar has it's own spirit in the form of a long haired 17th century man who sits at the end of the bar, he's called The Watcher, because he watches (see what they did there).  Apparently he has been mistaken for a tour guide in the vaults, not sure how interesting he would have been as I don't believe he speaks?  A lot of people have seen him.  I'm not one of them, I don't drink much, I'm not sure if there is a connection between these things.  They have a second unseen ghost called The Imp which stops clocks and locks doors, more scary than the Watcher.

There are a huge number of ghosts around Edinburgh's old town.  A lot of the bars, hotels and theatres have ghosts, just have a flick through the list on this interesting paranormal site - Link.  I suppose since history says there has been settlements in Edinburgh since it was a hill fort in the 1st century.  Yep a lot of people must have died here so even if only a tiny, tiny percentage hang around we would have a lot of ghosts.  We've also had a lot of influential and famous residents who may have left a residual influence.  I'm particularly looking forward to the first sitings of Dolly the sheep's ghost, she now lives in the national museum.

I think my favourite ghostie is Deacon Brodie (also a great pub on the Royal Mile) he was the inspiration for the Jekyll and Hyde story, a respected business man by day but a criminal by night.  Apparently he was hung using the gallows he designed.  He is said to still walk around The Royal Miles carrying a lantern, with all the strange things on the Royal Mile I'm surprised anyone notices.  In August all the ghosts in Edinburgh could parade up and down the Royal Mile and no one would bat an eyelid, they'd be lucky to sell any tickets for their show.

Get your thieving hands off our elephant!

It appears England are trying to steal one of Scotland's biggest tourist attractions.  I understand they considered taking Edinburgh Castle (too heavy), Loch Lommond (too wet), Glasgow (too scary), kilts (a wee bit drafty) so they decided on something easier to transport:

Search for England's Loch Ness Monster

I trust you see why they have targeted Nessie.  Very easy to steal, you don't even have to go to Loch Ness to pick her up.   But you see their error, the "Loch Ness" Monster obviously lives in Loch Ness so England can't have a Loch Ness Monster.  The best they can hope for is that Nessie as a fine wee Scottish lassie might head down to England for her holidays. 

But with the options available, cheap flights and all that Nessie would be off to the US to introduce herself to all those Americans whose ancestors she knew.  She might head out to other parts of Scotland to do a bit of Haggis hunting or perhaps nip over to Ireland to visit her pal the giant's causeway.

So what they are really talking about is the creation of the Lake Windermere Monster,a young pretender if you will.  Bonnie Monster Winnie!  Well I don't like their chances, Nessie has been around Loch Ness since 565AD (source) and has built up an extensive record of sightings.  What has this newcomer got, some ripples in the water and the ramblings of a hotel owner.

I suggest the monster hunters of Windermere find themselves their own idea and keep their hands off Scotland's elephant.

Scotland vs England

The World Cup has provided the opportunity for the Scottish at work to increase their light hearted abuse of the English.  Although I am mixed race (English and Scottish) I am classed as English because I grew up south of the border and therefore have been included in the comments.

Work has decorated the canteen with a banner holding all the flags of the Word Cup teams, the English flag (The St George's Cross) has been removed.  Offices have been decorated with the USA, Algeria and Slovenia flags to show the Scottish support for the rest of group C.  Any English person displaying their support for the home team is just asking for trouble.

The majority of Scottish people who join in with this acceptable form of racism are just having a joke.  Obviously there is a long history of the English and Scottish fighting and the border moving up and down through the north east of England.  At times the border was so far south that I would have been 100% Scottish.  The joking can get a bit annoying, the Scottish hate to see England win and it can get a bit out of hand.  There are parts of the south of England where this situation is reversed but the majority of England likes to see Scotland do well, if they were in the World Cup I think most of England would support them. 

Listening to the banter at work on Friday made me think about racism and what that actually means.

The UN definition of  the term racial discrimination:

shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.

Obviously real racism is a problem, if you don't get a job because of the colour of your skin that is clearly racism. If you have to sit in a different area because you are a different colour it's wrong in the same way as it would be wrong to segregate people based on sex or age.  I think it is quite clear that this is unacceptable and would be covered by the UN racial discrimination definition.

But the type of light hearted ribbing that we have between the Scottish and English, is that racism? I don't think it really is, there is no intent to disadvantage anyone with these comments.

But what does it mean for everyone else?  The majority of people are not racist but I think that a lot of people are frightened to say anything that highlights any differences in case they are seen as racist.  There are words that are not used because they have racist connections.  And yet many of these things are contradictory so that you can end up walking in a minefield of political correctness.

There are times when I know I have said things that people think are racist, I've seen the look on their faces when I've made a comment.  They are just so sensitive about the risk of offending someone that they wouldn't say things about another race that they wouldn't think twice about saying to an English person.  They avoid making jokes about appearance or culture, just in case.

I think this is crazy, we should be able to aknowledge and celebrate our differences rather than fear mentioning then in case we cause offence.