Why I dislike so-called Hallowe'en "celebrations"

If you ask people, "What is Hallowe'en about?", they'll start talking about trick-or-treating and dressing up in ghoulish [makaber] fancy dress costumes. As though that is the meaning of Hallowe'en. Most people have no clue of its origins and think it's just an excuse to dress up, play tricks on people and stuff one's face with sweets. 

When I was growing up in Wales, you didn't go out in the dark hours of the last day of October. No, you stayed firmly behind closed (or even locked) doors. And why did we not venture [wagen] outside? Because on that day, the dead rose up again and they, along with ghosts and ghouls, walked abroad. 

As History.com puts it: 

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on 1 November.

This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

Now, who in their right minds would 'celebrate' the dead coming back to earth? Not me.

At least we have the first of November to make us feel safer again. That day is know as All Saint's Day or Allerheiligen. The name 'Hallowe'en' comes from the term 'All Hallows Eve' or the day before All Saints' Day ('hallow' meaning 'saint'). 

Back to History.com

On May 13, A.D. 609, Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honour of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1.

By the 9th century, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted older Celtic rites. In A.D. 1000, the church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honour the dead. It’s widely believed today that the church was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, church-sanctioned holiday.

All Souls’ Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils. The All Saints’ Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-Hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.

So now you know all about these two special days: the last day of October, a scary time to go outside, and the first day of November, which commemorates all the Christian saints and martyrs. Yin and yang.

Here are some pumpkin lanterns to keep the evil spirits at bay:

Another moronic cyclist

Last Saturday, I walked to the English Library and decided to take the 'scenic route', along the small river. So I went through the large park nearby, crossed the wide road at the traffic lights, and walked so that I was on the right-hand side of a large group of shrubs and close to the wall around the football field. To the left of the large group of shrubs was the road, the cycle path and the main part of the pavement.

So there I am, walking through the narrow gap between the shrubs and the sports field wall. Two men are standing on either side of the gap. And what do I see coming towards me? A German man, in his 30s perhaps, probably middle class, and heading straight towards me. 

As he squeezed between me and one of the men, I say, in German, "Oh, yes. You have to squeeze past." And the man just gestured towards the sign he had seen. I walk a couple of steps so that I can turn round and see what he has seen. "Right," I say. "It says you have to go there" and point to the other side of the shrubs near the street and cycle path.

"Yeah," says the man near the sports field, "there." And he points, too. The young man backs his bike up, looks at the sign and sees that there is a massive, thick red line that shows that you should not proceed straight ahead but turn right sharply and go round the shrubs on the other side. I mean the line and arrowhead were at least 4 cm thick. In red. On a white background. Unmistakable.

And what did the young man on the bike do? Did he slap his forehead and say, "Oh, gosh. You're so right. My bad." Did he heck. He just grunted, slid off the bike and pushed his bike away.

Now this was a man who had probably done his Abitur (German A levels) and had very likely studied. Not stupid, apparently, but going by his inability to read a simple red and white sign with no words, just symbols and lines, a complete moron.

Just google the term 'moronic cyclists' and you'll find that I'm not alone in thinking this. 

A possible cause of the UK's low productivity?

I've not posted for quite a while and part of the reason for that is that I've been away on holiday. This year, I went on a very special holiday at that: Ecuador. Not that I wanted to see Ecuador per se. No, what I really wanted to see was the Amazon Rainforest, before it disappeared. (Let's hope that eventuality never comes to pass!)

So, I saved up over the years and when I wanted to go, I couldn't. The bloody virus stymied [hindern] that idea and I ended up going two years later than planned.

Anyway, I travelled with a UK company and there were 15 of us in the group: 11 women and 4 men. One man and one woman were a married couple originally from India; one man was the father of five who had brought one son and one daughter with him; then there was one English man and the rest were all single women (including me).

It was the third time I had travelled with Exodus Travels and I cannot praise them enough. The holidays I've had (Syria & Jordan in 2009, Mongolia and the Naadam Games in 2015 and now Ecuador in 2023) have been excellent, the organisation superb and the guides well informed. I cannot fault them. I'm even saving up for one more trip with the company. 

However, one thing that annoyed me on this trip were all the toilet stops we had to make. I think we had to stop every hour or so. It was SO frustrating. These women seemed to have no ability to stay away from a toilet for any length of time. I've never come across people like that - not on the previous trips with Exodus and not on my day-long walks with my walking group.

Imagine 40 women on a day-long walk having to disappear behind a tree every hour. There are so many walking groups in this area of Germany, the area would smell to high heaven!

Basically, all these toilet stops made us consistently late. Take the last full day, for example. Instead of having lunch at 1:30, we had lunch at 4:30 p.m. instead, much to the annoyance of one of of the two local guides with us. And this meant that we didn't get to arrive in the last town of the tour in daylight, so we didn't get to see it in all its glory. 

Now, if these women (one in her 20s, the rest in their 40s, 50s and early 60s) have such weak bladders, maybe this is why UK productivity is so low compared with the rest of Europe - even lower than the productivity of the French, with their 35-hour week. They are 17% more productive than the British.

It's no wonder, I suppose. If you spend 10 minutes every hour running to the toilet and then another 5 minutes getting back on the bus.. I mean... getting back to your desk, then your toilet breaks take up two hours of an 8-hour working day. Add to that tea and coffee breaks, chats with colleagues, cakes on people's birthdays, lunch breaks and 'meetings' in which nothing really ever gets decided or done, then there's not much time left to work before you're putting your coat on and wishing your colleagues a good evening.