Is this new- never got one before and never had an issue buying them!

When I were a lad, Hallowe'en was all about "guising". You get dressed up (not necessarily scary - most people just dressed up in their grandad's old clothes) and go round the houses. But you HAD to do a wee turn - a song or a poem or a dance. And then you'd get some sweeties or an apple or tangerine or a bag of crisps.

And we carved turnips, not pumpkins. Pumpkins didn't exist in 1970s/1980s Scotlnad. If you've never tried it, I can assure you that hollowing out and carving a turnip is a Herculean labour.

I like both. But the grump in me would prefer if Halloween in the UK didn't become as tacky and commercial as here. And I hate the fact that Halloween now seems to take over all of October.

Exactly what we are doing this year.

Fing hate Halloween with a passion..even though i have 3 kids...esp when told to dress up in the office..F..off!!

It just gets silly over here. As I sit here reading this thread the local news is broadcasting from the local Halloween store trying to flog crap costumes & whacking great animatronic halloween characters. Creepy life-size zombie child for your home & garden, anyone?!

I'm glad they don't do Bonfire Night over here, they'd only ruin it by placing animatronic Guy Fawkes on their front lawns that come out with some dodgy sounding cockerney phrase when you walk past, flanked by green strobe lighting. Keep it simple...bonfire, bbq, booze.

I don't know where all this Halloween crap in the stores goes. We have had precious few kids coming round here the last few years.

I loved bonfire night as a kid. I looked forward to it for weeks. It probably wouldn't go down a storm in Quebec, though. Burning catholics, which is what the bonfire is, might not be a terribly popular concept in these parts.

I love sparklers.

I hate scary costumes and the dark!

The permit isn't new. Worse, you can only set off fireworks on the 31st Oct - it's illegal to use personal fireworks at other times. It just goes to show the kind of cultural oppression that is so common in Canada; it's exactly this kind of thing that caused residential schools.

Actually, that's is one of things I prefer here, when compared to the UK. I had no issue with organised bonfires on November 5. I had huge issues with every f*&kwit and their dog letting off fireworks every night for 2 weeks prior and a week following November 5. Fine if you live in the middle of nowhere; inconsiderate if you live in a residential area.

My objection may be because, at the time, I had two young kids and a number of dogs that were either woken or driven crazy by the noise.

Are you sure that wasn’t something some local pervs came up with? I can just imagine some old Scottish bloke saying “Come on yer wee lad, put these clothes on and do a dance for me and I’ll give you some sweeties.”

Welcome to Vancouver. The bloody things have been going off since Saturday night and will continue until the middle of November or the scallies run out.

We had a handful of devout catholics amongst the crowd at our Guy Fawkes celebration last year, they gave me a "are you having me on" kind of look when I explained that basically it was all about a group of extreme catholics trying to blow up the protestant king! I think they thought it was my dry sense of humour....

Its about Roman Catholics? I thought it was all about school funding raising projects? Five years at our school we were trying to get enough for a mini bus. Never saw it my time there?

I'm sure that's exactly what it was all about. Things were different then, even being abused was more innocent. How do you think the term "pocket-money" came about? You had to rummage in old Uncle Albert's pockets until he gave a big sigh and then gave you 10p.

Hmm we had fireworks on 5 th last year - no issues and no permit ! Ooooopsy!