Confederacy of a Dunce - Trick or treat

Monday, October 31, 2005

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Hallowe'en in London is a strange sort of holiday, as it's taken on certain elements of US Halloween (trick-or-treating, casual vandalism), merged with elements of Guy Fawkes Night ("penny for the guy", fireworks). Despite Halloween-themed displays in all sorts of shops, plenty of pumpkins for sale, etc. it doesn't seem to have caught on so well (I've certainly not seen many jack-o-lanterns, for example.). As far as I can see, it's celebrated only by:

1. A very small number of parents of very small children, who take them on the London version of trick-or-treating (for comparison, my brother's account of the Young Bee's first Halloween can be found HERE). Unlike the typical US home on Halloween, no one is equipped with bags of candy for such visitors, so they have to make do with the modern version of the "penny for the guy" (minus the effigy, plus a 2000%+ markup as to give only a penny would be an insult). And due to the unwillingness of city dwellers to open their doors to strangers at nights (and also perhaps to maximize the reward:effort ratio), they tend to visit public locations such as shopping centres, train stations and pubs. Mrs. Dunce and I saw two such trick-or-treaters at the Local last night (where I appear to have earned the nickname "Spartan" due to my preference for Milton's Sparta, a very tasty [hoppy] beer in the Ancient Cities series). They looked to be in the under-eight age group and were wearing costumes (well, masks at least) and wandered around the regulars at the front of the pub, shaking them down for cold hard cash. I prepared to make our own donation (20p each) but they didn't make it back to our section. They may have been thrown out of the pub (after all, children shouldn't be in a pub at that hour), they may have gathered too much money to be able to carry any more, or they may have been children of another regular (and thus only administered the trick-or-treat shakedown to known individuals).

Halloween:
+ Wear costumes
+ Say "trick or treat"
- Collect money not candy
- Unlikely to "trick" if treats are not given
- Not scary

Guy Fawkes:
+ "Penny for the guy"
- No fire
- No effigy
- No explosives

2. Feral teenagers, who also participate in a trick-or-treat-like activity. In this instance they dispense with the costumes (or rather, they wear the year-round costume of hooded sweatshirts), but they do go door-to-door, shouting "Trick or treat" and demanding "treats". But more like "Give us 20 quid" than leaving it to the trick-or-treat-ee's discretion. Failure to give them the money? Who knows, it's better not to risk answering the door, although the door/entry/front garden may suffer somewhat. Other activities include throwing fireworks at cycles, cars, trains, basically anything that moves; burning things that will burn (and trying to burn things that will not); drinking alcohol; loitering. Pretty much like any other day, then, with slightly more door-to-door activity.

Halloween:
+ Say "trick or treat"
+ If you don't give a "treat" you may be "tricked"
+ Scary
- They collect money not candy
- Really too old to be trick-or-treating
- No costumes

Guy Fawkes:
+ Demand money
+ May use fire
+ May use explosives
+ Teenagers are thought by many to be plotting the downfall of society
- No effigy

3. University students, who wear costumes to participate in fancy-dress activities such as drunken pub crawls, drunken club nights, drunken scavenger hunts, and drunken drinking. The amount of effort made on male costumes seems to be in direct proportion to the quantity of science-fiction/fantasy material consumed on a regular basis, with a few specific exceptions: Any male may dress in drag regardless of s-f/fantasy tendencies. In such circumstances "comedy drag" (i.e. giant balloon breasts, extreme makeup, etc.) may be employed to prevent passersby from drawing mistaken (?) conclusions about the wearer's sexuality. Also, only members of the royal family (or outlaw bikers, or goths, or Nazis) should wear Nazi regalia. As far as female costumes, the guide from the Onion (2001) still holds: (jpg image)

. Halloween:
+ Full costumes
- No trick-or-treating of any kind
- No vandalism
- Not very scary

Guy Fawkes:
- Spend money not collect it
- No effigy (unless it's a particularly impressive and unusual costume)
- No fire
- No explosives

All in all, I think the feral teenagers are the closest to the (midwestern) spirit of Halloween, AND to the legacy of Guy Fawkes at the same time. Well done to the yoof.

consume

Monday, October 31, 2005 2:01:32 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)