Today was Guy Fawkes day here in England. Basically, this is an example of a 400-year long grudge. Guy Fawkes was a member of a Catholic group who tried to assassinate the Protestant king James I in 1605 (the Gunpowder plot). They failed, were tortured and executed, and ever since then are remembered on every November 5. There are fireworks and a large bonfire in which Guy Fawkes, aka “the guy” is burned in effigy. There is a bit of a pagan air about the bonfire, but basically it is just an excuse to party! They have been setting off fireworks around town for the last 3 nights, and tonight was the big celebration on the Stray (our huge city park). There was a decent fireworks display, and a truly enormous bonfire. They fueled it with what appeared to be a bunch of wooden pallets, and the tops of IKEA desks. I got a couple of movies of it (sorry about the big file sizes):
Here, it is just starting to catch, and you can still see the guy at the top right (16MB)

Going a bit better now… (7MB)

Then the wind kicked up, and the lower stuff caught (9MB)

This is the maximum height, and it was almost too warm to stand where I was… (12MB)

It’s still pretty huge, even after 15 minutes and 100 yards away…
hehe, fire is cool..