Belated Bonfire night

We were invited to a bonfire party tonight. Not sure of the protocol, but thinking that perhaps it would be polite to turn up with a few additions to the fireworks supply as well as something to drink (I've been doing BYOB for years, so why not BYOF?), I stepped into a fireworks shop for the first time in over 30 years.

I say "fireworks shop" - in reality it was the first newsagents I drove past in Chorlton that sported a fireworks sign in the window. I'd just picked Natalie up from halls and, glad of the moral support and second opinion even though she's even more inexperienced at buying bangers than I am, we crossed the road and entered the establishment with some trepidation.

Being the weekend after bonfire night I wasn't really expecting to have much choice, but on the other hand I was fairly convinced there would still be a few stragglers in the bonfire party stakes this weekend, so there was a chance some stock would remain. I needn't have worried. The shopkeeper, an extremely friendly and helpful Asian guy, pulled out a bewildering array of boxes of various sizes and covered his counter-top with them.

Bear in mind that the last time I bought fireworks, roman candles came in ones. Single tubes about the diameter of two fingers held together and anything from 10cm to 60cm long. You stuck them in the earth, or a sand bucket, "lit the blue touchpaper and retired immediately." Now, the standard seems to be the size of at least twelve such tubes, all stuck together in a cube and wrapped in a free-standing package. Not only that, but "blue touchpaper" technology - always a bit hit-and-miss at the best of times - seems to have been uniformly replaced with proper fuses, protected from damage by being separately wrapped and taped to the side of the main "bomb".

One of the largest such packages we saw was a Screaming Demon. About 18" (45cm) long and 4" (10cm) wide, this held THREE HUNDRED fireworks and, we presumed, made a lot of noise! That was an easy choice, and we selected one other box-shaped thing and a packet of four rockets. These were a revelation too. Again the rockets I'm familiar with were just like roman candles on a stick. These were more like tins of baked beans on a stick, and came with their own launching tube.

When we arrived at the party (early, owing to a mix-up on their part with the invites) I was quite gratified to see that our firework offering made up about 25% of the total display. You never know exactly how much to bring to these things, do you? Well, I don't. It's a fine line between looking cheap and looking like Guy Fawkes' distant relation, but I think we hit that line dead on. Their firework pile was heavy on the rockets too, so we'd done well to bring two "boxes" and I think our offering was gratefully accepted (I didn't see anyone else bringing any contribution to the show).

The weather held off for the most part - we interrupted the show for a short sharp shower around 8pm but it wasn't enough to put the fire out. The Screaming Demon really did scream - three hundred times - especially near the end where about a quarter of the charges went off all at once. Great fun, and bonfire toffee to boot.