Britons Disdain US - Style Halloween...
Oct 31st 2006, 9:10 am
#1
Guest
Posts: n/a
Britons Disdain US - Style Halloween...
[x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
October 31, 2006
London Journal
Trick or Treat? For Many Britons, the Reply Is Neither
By SARAH LYALL
"LONDON, Oct. 30 - Living in an apartment here has many advantages, and one
of them, said Hilary Boyd, is the joy of not being accosted by marauding
bands of sugar-propelled, Americanized children every Oct. 31.
"All they want is sweets," said Ms. Boyd, a 57-year-old writer, sounding
genuinely surprised. "They're not scaring you, or singing to you, or
charming you - they're just grabbing it and going to the next house and then
going home to be sick."
Halloween is big business here now. According to The Observer of London,
Britons spend an estimated $228 million a year on Halloween-related items, a
tenfold increase from five years ago. Sainsbury's, one of Britain's largest
supermarket chains, has sold 450,000 pumpkins and 40,000 sets of
glow-in-the-dark fangs this year, not to mention items like fake cobwebs and
cookies that look like severed fingers. "It's a very important time for our
customers," said Melanie Etches, a spokeswoman.
But it is still a rude culture shock for a generation of older people whose
need for a macabre fall festival was traditionally satisfied by Bonfire
Night. That holiday is celebrated by building a fire around a homemade
effigy of Guy Fawkes, the Catholic perpetrator of the failed plot to blow up
Parliament in 1605, and shouting happily as it burns to a crisp. Fireworks
are set off, sausages are eaten, and some people toss effigies of unpopular
politicians on the fire for good measure.
But Bonfire Night tends not to be celebrated on Nov. 5, the day the plot was
discovered, but on the nearest convenient Saturday. And many local bonfires
have been canceled because of new safety regulations - requiring guardrails,
fire marshals and the like - that are proving prohibitively expensive to
meet.
This withering away of homegrown tradition makes people hate Halloween all
the more. What could be more unattractive, they argue, than a bunch of
rapacious, acquisitive children traipsing around the streets, demanding
candy in exchange for nothing?
"Trick or treat? I don't know about you, but my answer to this question, if
I'm honest, would be unprintable in a family newspaper," the critic A. N.
Wilson wrote recently in The Daily Mail. "Let's say it's stronger than 'push
off.' Yet the little beggars will soon be round, banging and ringing at our
doors with this irritating refrain."
Mr. Wilson blamed "the kitsch hotchpotch known as American Gothic."
Hugh O'Donnell, a professor of language and popular culture at Glasgow
Caledonian University, said in an interview that "the main complaint is that
it's just fun without any meaning behind it."
"It's no longer got any relationship to anything - not the old Celtic idea
of the living and the dead, or the Christian tradition of Allhallows Eve,"
said Mr. O'Donnell, who this week is the host of an academic conference at
the university examining Halloween. He plans to dress as Dracula for the
official dinner.
Mr. O'Donnell said that when he was a boy in Scotland, he and his friends
regularly went door to door, playing out an old Celtic tradition.
"It was called guising," he explained. "You put an old sheet over your head
and went to all the houses in the village, and you always had to do
something, like sing a song or tell a joke." The children did not receive
candy then - just apples and, maybe, peanuts, he said. Since there were no
pumpkins, they carved turnips.
They did not play tricks.
Fear of tricks - vandalism, really - drives much of the anti-Halloween
feeling here now. Many police forces around the country have added patrols
to deal with Halloween-instigated problems, including
egg-and-flour-throwing, attacks on fences and doors, menacing gatherings of
disaffected drunken youths and the theft of garden ornaments.
Like many other forces, the Cheshire police in northwestern Britain have
been distributing no-trick-or-treating posters for people to affix to their
windows. Fifty-eight percent of homeowners in a recent survey by the Norwich
Union insurance company said they had hidden in the back of their houses and
turned off all the lights on Halloween, pretending that no one was home.
A similar question came up last weekend, in a Halloween discussion group on
Mumsnet, a popular mothers' Web site here. The tips being traded were not
about how to make pumpkin soup, but about how to repel would-be
trick-or-treaters. "I've thought about removing the cover from my doorbell
so they electrocute themselves," one participant wrote.
But much as some Britons are angry at being co-opted in yet another realm by
the consumerist culture of the United States, some Americans living in
Britain are annoyed at Britons' failure to grasp correct Halloween protocol,
including the custom of raising money for Unicef. Many English children also
persist in saying "Happy Halloween" instead of "trick or treat."
Andrew Arends, an American businessman who lives in London, was horrified
over the weekend when, as he ate lunch at a restaurant, two children in
costume walked in, whipped out little boxes, and began trick-or-treating for
money for themselves. This could have been a throwback to the old Guy
Fawkes-related tradition in which children sat by the side of the road,
demanding "a penny for the Guy," but it did not seem that way. The children
were wearing Halloween outfits.
The weird thing, Mr. Arends said, was that the British patrons meekly handed
over the cash.
"You would never see American children hustling for money on the 29th of
October," he said."
</>
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
October 31, 2006
London Journal
Trick or Treat? For Many Britons, the Reply Is Neither
By SARAH LYALL
"LONDON, Oct. 30 - Living in an apartment here has many advantages, and one
of them, said Hilary Boyd, is the joy of not being accosted by marauding
bands of sugar-propelled, Americanized children every Oct. 31.
"All they want is sweets," said Ms. Boyd, a 57-year-old writer, sounding
genuinely surprised. "They're not scaring you, or singing to you, or
charming you - they're just grabbing it and going to the next house and then
going home to be sick."
Halloween is big business here now. According to The Observer of London,
Britons spend an estimated $228 million a year on Halloween-related items, a
tenfold increase from five years ago. Sainsbury's, one of Britain's largest
supermarket chains, has sold 450,000 pumpkins and 40,000 sets of
glow-in-the-dark fangs this year, not to mention items like fake cobwebs and
cookies that look like severed fingers. "It's a very important time for our
customers," said Melanie Etches, a spokeswoman.
But it is still a rude culture shock for a generation of older people whose
need for a macabre fall festival was traditionally satisfied by Bonfire
Night. That holiday is celebrated by building a fire around a homemade
effigy of Guy Fawkes, the Catholic perpetrator of the failed plot to blow up
Parliament in 1605, and shouting happily as it burns to a crisp. Fireworks
are set off, sausages are eaten, and some people toss effigies of unpopular
politicians on the fire for good measure.
But Bonfire Night tends not to be celebrated on Nov. 5, the day the plot was
discovered, but on the nearest convenient Saturday. And many local bonfires
have been canceled because of new safety regulations - requiring guardrails,
fire marshals and the like - that are proving prohibitively expensive to
meet.
This withering away of homegrown tradition makes people hate Halloween all
the more. What could be more unattractive, they argue, than a bunch of
rapacious, acquisitive children traipsing around the streets, demanding
candy in exchange for nothing?
"Trick or treat? I don't know about you, but my answer to this question, if
I'm honest, would be unprintable in a family newspaper," the critic A. N.
Wilson wrote recently in The Daily Mail. "Let's say it's stronger than 'push
off.' Yet the little beggars will soon be round, banging and ringing at our
doors with this irritating refrain."
Mr. Wilson blamed "the kitsch hotchpotch known as American Gothic."
Hugh O'Donnell, a professor of language and popular culture at Glasgow
Caledonian University, said in an interview that "the main complaint is that
it's just fun without any meaning behind it."
"It's no longer got any relationship to anything - not the old Celtic idea
of the living and the dead, or the Christian tradition of Allhallows Eve,"
said Mr. O'Donnell, who this week is the host of an academic conference at
the university examining Halloween. He plans to dress as Dracula for the
official dinner.
Mr. O'Donnell said that when he was a boy in Scotland, he and his friends
regularly went door to door, playing out an old Celtic tradition.
"It was called guising," he explained. "You put an old sheet over your head
and went to all the houses in the village, and you always had to do
something, like sing a song or tell a joke." The children did not receive
candy then - just apples and, maybe, peanuts, he said. Since there were no
pumpkins, they carved turnips.
They did not play tricks.
Fear of tricks - vandalism, really - drives much of the anti-Halloween
feeling here now. Many police forces around the country have added patrols
to deal with Halloween-instigated problems, including
egg-and-flour-throwing, attacks on fences and doors, menacing gatherings of
disaffected drunken youths and the theft of garden ornaments.
Like many other forces, the Cheshire police in northwestern Britain have
been distributing no-trick-or-treating posters for people to affix to their
windows. Fifty-eight percent of homeowners in a recent survey by the Norwich
Union insurance company said they had hidden in the back of their houses and
turned off all the lights on Halloween, pretending that no one was home.
A similar question came up last weekend, in a Halloween discussion group on
Mumsnet, a popular mothers' Web site here. The tips being traded were not
about how to make pumpkin soup, but about how to repel would-be
trick-or-treaters. "I've thought about removing the cover from my doorbell
so they electrocute themselves," one participant wrote.
But much as some Britons are angry at being co-opted in yet another realm by
the consumerist culture of the United States, some Americans living in
Britain are annoyed at Britons' failure to grasp correct Halloween protocol,
including the custom of raising money for Unicef. Many English children also
persist in saying "Happy Halloween" instead of "trick or treat."
Andrew Arends, an American businessman who lives in London, was horrified
over the weekend when, as he ate lunch at a restaurant, two children in
costume walked in, whipped out little boxes, and began trick-or-treating for
money for themselves. This could have been a throwback to the old Guy
Fawkes-related tradition in which children sat by the side of the road,
demanding "a penny for the Guy," but it did not seem that way. The children
were wearing Halloween outfits.
The weird thing, Mr. Arends said, was that the British patrons meekly handed
over the cash.
"You would never see American children hustling for money on the 29th of
October," he said."
</>
Oct 31st 2006, 9:36 am
#2
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Britons Disdain US - Style Halloween...
"Gregory Morrow" <gregorymorrowONACLEARDAYYOUCANSEEALOAFHEAD@earthl ink.net>
wrote in message news:[email protected] k.net...
> [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
And the French are rejecting it, sensible lot!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6103436.stm
wrote in message news:[email protected] k.net...
> [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
And the French are rejecting it, sensible lot!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6103436.stm
Oct 31st 2006, 9:54 am
#3
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Britons Disdain US - Style Halloween...
graham wrote:
> "Gregory Morrow" <gregorymorrowONACLEARDAYYOUCANSEEALOAFHEAD@earthl ink.net>
> wrote in message news:[email protected] k.net...
> > [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
> >
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
> >
> >
> And the French are rejecting it, sensible lot!!
Good for them! I remember about ten years ago reading how popular
Halloween was becoming in some parts of France, e.g. jack - o -
lanterns lining some of the Paris boulevards, etc...
Here in the States it's become a purely commercial enterprise, it's who
has the most expensive and elaborate costume and who can get the
biggest haul of sweets...pure marketing hype.
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6103436.stm
French shun Halloween 'gimmicks'
"Halloween is seen as "too American" by some
Halloween is said to be dying in France after a short-lived bonanza,
according to media reports.
It seems the festival, which came to prominence in the late 1990s, is
in decline because it is perceived as "too American".
An association called No to Halloween - which was set up to combat the
trend - has now wound down as a result of the festival's waning appeal.
It said Halloween was artificially inflated to serve commercial
interests.
"There was no need for the group to exist any more," former president
Arnaud Guyot-Jeannin told Reuters news agency.
"Halloween was a marketing gimmick aimed mainly at children. It's a big
festival of consumption selling outfits, masks, gadgets and it couldn't
last forever," he added.
As a result, supermarkets are reported have lost interest in the
festival this year.
"Apart from a few local celebrations, Halloween is no longer taken into
account by our stores," Thierry Desouches of Systeme U supermarket told
Catholic newspaper La Croix.
"This lack of interest is real in all big-name supermarkets," he added.
"Our Halloween sales have been falling by half every year since 2002,"
Franck Mathais of toy retailer La Grande Recre told Le Monde newspaper.
'Anti-Americanism'
Benoit Pousset, head of costume company Cesar, attributed the
festival's demise to "a cultural reaction linked to the rise of
anti-Americanism".
The company itself is thriving in the US where - through its division
Disguise - it provides one-third of all the Halloween costumes sold in
the country.
Opposition to the festival is especially strong in French religious
quarters, with the Catholic church seeking to promote All Saints' Day
as the celebration of choice at this time of year.
Halloween grew alongside other "Anglo-Saxon" imports such as
Valentine's Day or the stag or hen party which have become increasingly
popular in recent years, correspondents say."
</>
> "Gregory Morrow" <gregorymorrowONACLEARDAYYOUCANSEEALOAFHEAD@earthl ink.net>
> wrote in message news:[email protected] k.net...
> > [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
> >
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
> >
> >
> And the French are rejecting it, sensible lot!!
Good for them! I remember about ten years ago reading how popular
Halloween was becoming in some parts of France, e.g. jack - o -
lanterns lining some of the Paris boulevards, etc...
Here in the States it's become a purely commercial enterprise, it's who
has the most expensive and elaborate costume and who can get the
biggest haul of sweets...pure marketing hype.
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6103436.stm
French shun Halloween 'gimmicks'
"Halloween is seen as "too American" by some
Halloween is said to be dying in France after a short-lived bonanza,
according to media reports.
It seems the festival, which came to prominence in the late 1990s, is
in decline because it is perceived as "too American".
An association called No to Halloween - which was set up to combat the
trend - has now wound down as a result of the festival's waning appeal.
It said Halloween was artificially inflated to serve commercial
interests.
"There was no need for the group to exist any more," former president
Arnaud Guyot-Jeannin told Reuters news agency.
"Halloween was a marketing gimmick aimed mainly at children. It's a big
festival of consumption selling outfits, masks, gadgets and it couldn't
last forever," he added.
As a result, supermarkets are reported have lost interest in the
festival this year.
"Apart from a few local celebrations, Halloween is no longer taken into
account by our stores," Thierry Desouches of Systeme U supermarket told
Catholic newspaper La Croix.
"This lack of interest is real in all big-name supermarkets," he added.
"Our Halloween sales have been falling by half every year since 2002,"
Franck Mathais of toy retailer La Grande Recre told Le Monde newspaper.
'Anti-Americanism'
Benoit Pousset, head of costume company Cesar, attributed the
festival's demise to "a cultural reaction linked to the rise of
anti-Americanism".
The company itself is thriving in the US where - through its division
Disguise - it provides one-third of all the Halloween costumes sold in
the country.
Opposition to the festival is especially strong in French religious
quarters, with the Catholic church seeking to promote All Saints' Day
as the celebration of choice at this time of year.
Halloween grew alongside other "Anglo-Saxon" imports such as
Valentine's Day or the stag or hen party which have become increasingly
popular in recent years, correspondents say."
</>
Oct 31st 2006, 10:17 am
#4
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Britons Disdain US - Style Halloween...
On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 22:10:57 GMT, "Gregory Morrow"
<gregorymorrowONACLEARDAYYOUCANSEEALOAFHEAD@earthl ink.net> wrote:
>[x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
>October 31, 2006
>London Journal
>Trick or Treat? For Many Britons, the Reply Is Neither
I went to a halloween party tonight. It was actually the lamest thing
I have ever seen, and everyone was glad when it was over. There's
something about getting adults to do a treasure hunt that just doesn't
seem to work. I tried making a hole in my head with a biro to release
the boredom.
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--
<gregorymorrowONACLEARDAYYOUCANSEEALOAFHEAD@earthl ink.net> wrote:
>[x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
>October 31, 2006
>London Journal
>Trick or Treat? For Many Britons, the Reply Is Neither
I went to a halloween party tonight. It was actually the lamest thing
I have ever seen, and everyone was glad when it was over. There's
something about getting adults to do a treasure hunt that just doesn't
seem to work. I tried making a hole in my head with a biro to release
the boredom.
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--
Oct 31st 2006, 10:26 am
#5
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Britons Disdain US - Style Halloween...
graham wrote:
> "Gregory Morrow" <gregorymorrowONACLEARDAYYOUCANSEEALOAFHEAD@earthl ink.net>
> wrote in message news:[email protected] k.net...
> > [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
> >
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
> >
> >
> And the French are rejecting it, sensible lot!!
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6103436.stm
Works out just about as well as their rejection of McDonald's and
Disneyland.
> "Gregory Morrow" <gregorymorrowONACLEARDAYYOUCANSEEALOAFHEAD@earthl ink.net>
> wrote in message news:[email protected] k.net...
> > [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
> >
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
> >
> >
> And the French are rejecting it, sensible lot!!
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6103436.stm
Works out just about as well as their rejection of McDonald's and
Disneyland.
Oct 31st 2006, 10:28 am
#6
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Britons Disdain US - Style Halloween...
Gregory Morrow wrote:
> graham wrote:
> > "Gregory Morrow" <gregorymorrowONACLEARDAYYOUCANSEEALOAFHEAD@earthl ink.net>
> > wrote in message news:[email protected] k.net...
> > > [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
> > >
> > > http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
> > >
> > >
> > And the French are rejecting it, sensible lot!!
> Good for them! I remember about ten years ago reading how popular
> Halloween was becoming in some parts of France, e.g. jack - o -
> lanterns lining some of the Paris boulevards, etc...
> Here in the States it's become a purely commercial enterprise, it's who
> has the most expensive and elaborate costume and who can get the
> biggest haul of sweets...pure marketing hype.
Kind of like Christmas and New Years and Thanksgiving and Labor Day and
Memorial Day, etc.
> graham wrote:
> > "Gregory Morrow" <gregorymorrowONACLEARDAYYOUCANSEEALOAFHEAD@earthl ink.net>
> > wrote in message news:[email protected] k.net...
> > > [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
> > >
> > > http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
> > >
> > >
> > And the French are rejecting it, sensible lot!!
> Good for them! I remember about ten years ago reading how popular
> Halloween was becoming in some parts of France, e.g. jack - o -
> lanterns lining some of the Paris boulevards, etc...
> Here in the States it's become a purely commercial enterprise, it's who
> has the most expensive and elaborate costume and who can get the
> biggest haul of sweets...pure marketing hype.
Kind of like Christmas and New Years and Thanksgiving and Labor Day and
Memorial Day, etc.
Oct 31st 2006, 10:29 am
#7
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Britons Disdain US - Style Halloween...
Dave Frightens Me wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 22:10:57 GMT, "Gregory Morrow"
> <gregorymorrowONACLEARDAYYOUCANSEEALOAFHEAD@earthl ink.net> wrote:
> >[x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
> >
> >http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
> >
> >
> >October 31, 2006
> >London Journal
> >
> >Trick or Treat? For Many Britons, the Reply Is Neither
> I went to a halloween party tonight. It was actually the lamest thing
> I have ever seen, and everyone was glad when it was over. There's
> something about getting adults to do a treasure hunt that just doesn't
> seem to work. I tried making a hole in my head with a biro to release
> the boredom.
Lol..."treasure hunts" I put into the tiresome realm of "Murder
Mystery" parties or weekends or playing charades or whatever on Boxing
Day (I've done this a few times with Brit friends here; I like the
civilised idear of having 26 December as a holiday but the game shite
can go...).
But of course for a treasure hunt it depends on *what* the "treasure"
is, eh DFM...???
Italy could be a neat place to celebrate Halloween, all those old
churches and such around...
--
Best
Greg
> On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 22:10:57 GMT, "Gregory Morrow"
> <gregorymorrowONACLEARDAYYOUCANSEEALOAFHEAD@earthl ink.net> wrote:
> >[x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
> >
> >http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
> >
> >
> >October 31, 2006
> >London Journal
> >
> >Trick or Treat? For Many Britons, the Reply Is Neither
> I went to a halloween party tonight. It was actually the lamest thing
> I have ever seen, and everyone was glad when it was over. There's
> something about getting adults to do a treasure hunt that just doesn't
> seem to work. I tried making a hole in my head with a biro to release
> the boredom.
Lol..."treasure hunts" I put into the tiresome realm of "Murder
Mystery" parties or weekends or playing charades or whatever on Boxing
Day (I've done this a few times with Brit friends here; I like the
civilised idear of having 26 December as a holiday but the game shite
can go...).
But of course for a treasure hunt it depends on *what* the "treasure"
is, eh DFM...???
Italy could be a neat place to celebrate Halloween, all those old
churches and such around...
--
Best
Greg
Oct 31st 2006, 12:24 pm
#8
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Britons Disdain US - Style Halloween...
Gee 100 million pounds of disdain.
Gregory Morrow wrote:
> [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
>
>
> October 31, 2006
> London Journal
>
> Trick or Treat? For Many Britons, the Reply Is Neither
>
> By SARAH LYALL
>
> "LONDON, Oct. 30 - Living in an apartment here has many advantages, and one
> of them, said Hilary Boyd, is the joy of not being accosted by marauding
> bands of sugar-propelled, Americanized children every Oct. 31.
>
> "All they want is sweets," said Ms. Boyd, a 57-year-old writer, sounding
> genuinely surprised. "They're not scaring you, or singing to you, or
> charming you - they're just grabbing it and going to the next house and then
> going home to be sick."
>
> Halloween is big business here now. According to The Observer of London,
> Britons spend an estimated $228 million a year on Halloween-related items, a
> tenfold increase from five years ago. Sainsbury's, one of Britain's largest
> supermarket chains, has sold 450,000 pumpkins and 40,000 sets of
> glow-in-the-dark fangs this year, not to mention items like fake cobwebs and
> cookies that look like severed fingers. "It's a very important time for our
> customers," said Melanie Etches, a spokeswoman.
>
> But it is still a rude culture shock for a generation of older people whose
> need for a macabre fall festival was traditionally satisfied by Bonfire
> Night. That holiday is celebrated by building a fire around a homemade
> effigy of Guy Fawkes, the Catholic perpetrator of the failed plot to blow up
> Parliament in 1605, and shouting happily as it burns to a crisp. Fireworks
> are set off, sausages are eaten, and some people toss effigies of unpopular
> politicians on the fire for good measure.
>
> But Bonfire Night tends not to be celebrated on Nov. 5, the day the plot was
> discovered, but on the nearest convenient Saturday. And many local bonfires
> have been canceled because of new safety regulations - requiring guardrails,
> fire marshals and the like - that are proving prohibitively expensive to
> meet.
>
> This withering away of homegrown tradition makes people hate Halloween all
> the more. What could be more unattractive, they argue, than a bunch of
> rapacious, acquisitive children traipsing around the streets, demanding
> candy in exchange for nothing?
>
> "Trick or treat? I don't know about you, but my answer to this question, if
> I'm honest, would be unprintable in a family newspaper," the critic A. N.
> Wilson wrote recently in The Daily Mail. "Let's say it's stronger than 'push
> off.' Yet the little beggars will soon be round, banging and ringing at our
> doors with this irritating refrain."
>
> Mr. Wilson blamed "the kitsch hotchpotch known as American Gothic."
>
> Hugh O'Donnell, a professor of language and popular culture at Glasgow
> Caledonian University, said in an interview that "the main complaint is that
> it's just fun without any meaning behind it."
>
> "It's no longer got any relationship to anything - not the old Celtic idea
> of the living and the dead, or the Christian tradition of Allhallows Eve,"
> said Mr. O'Donnell, who this week is the host of an academic conference at
> the university examining Halloween. He plans to dress as Dracula for the
> official dinner.
>
> Mr. O'Donnell said that when he was a boy in Scotland, he and his friends
> regularly went door to door, playing out an old Celtic tradition.
>
> "It was called guising," he explained. "You put an old sheet over your head
> and went to all the houses in the village, and you always had to do
> something, like sing a song or tell a joke." The children did not receive
> candy then - just apples and, maybe, peanuts, he said. Since there were no
> pumpkins, they carved turnips.
>
> They did not play tricks.
>
> Fear of tricks - vandalism, really - drives much of the anti-Halloween
> feeling here now. Many police forces around the country have added patrols
> to deal with Halloween-instigated problems, including
> egg-and-flour-throwing, attacks on fences and doors, menacing gatherings of
> disaffected drunken youths and the theft of garden ornaments.
>
> Like many other forces, the Cheshire police in northwestern Britain have
> been distributing no-trick-or-treating posters for people to affix to their
> windows. Fifty-eight percent of homeowners in a recent survey by the Norwich
> Union insurance company said they had hidden in the back of their houses and
> turned off all the lights on Halloween, pretending that no one was home.
>
> A similar question came up last weekend, in a Halloween discussion group on
> Mumsnet, a popular mothers' Web site here. The tips being traded were not
> about how to make pumpkin soup, but about how to repel would-be
> trick-or-treaters. "I've thought about removing the cover from my doorbell
> so they electrocute themselves," one participant wrote.
>
> But much as some Britons are angry at being co-opted in yet another realm by
> the consumerist culture of the United States, some Americans living in
> Britain are annoyed at Britons' failure to grasp correct Halloween protocol,
> including the custom of raising money for Unicef. Many English children also
> persist in saying "Happy Halloween" instead of "trick or treat."
>
> Andrew Arends, an American businessman who lives in London, was horrified
> over the weekend when, as he ate lunch at a restaurant, two children in
> costume walked in, whipped out little boxes, and began trick-or-treating for
> money for themselves. This could have been a throwback to the old Guy
> Fawkes-related tradition in which children sat by the side of the road,
> demanding "a penny for the Guy," but it did not seem that way. The children
> were wearing Halloween outfits.
>
> The weird thing, Mr. Arends said, was that the British patrons meekly handed
> over the cash.
>
> "You would never see American children hustling for money on the 29th of
> October," he said."
>
>
> </>
>
>
Gregory Morrow wrote:
> [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
>
>
> October 31, 2006
> London Journal
>
> Trick or Treat? For Many Britons, the Reply Is Neither
>
> By SARAH LYALL
>
> "LONDON, Oct. 30 - Living in an apartment here has many advantages, and one
> of them, said Hilary Boyd, is the joy of not being accosted by marauding
> bands of sugar-propelled, Americanized children every Oct. 31.
>
> "All they want is sweets," said Ms. Boyd, a 57-year-old writer, sounding
> genuinely surprised. "They're not scaring you, or singing to you, or
> charming you - they're just grabbing it and going to the next house and then
> going home to be sick."
>
> Halloween is big business here now. According to The Observer of London,
> Britons spend an estimated $228 million a year on Halloween-related items, a
> tenfold increase from five years ago. Sainsbury's, one of Britain's largest
> supermarket chains, has sold 450,000 pumpkins and 40,000 sets of
> glow-in-the-dark fangs this year, not to mention items like fake cobwebs and
> cookies that look like severed fingers. "It's a very important time for our
> customers," said Melanie Etches, a spokeswoman.
>
> But it is still a rude culture shock for a generation of older people whose
> need for a macabre fall festival was traditionally satisfied by Bonfire
> Night. That holiday is celebrated by building a fire around a homemade
> effigy of Guy Fawkes, the Catholic perpetrator of the failed plot to blow up
> Parliament in 1605, and shouting happily as it burns to a crisp. Fireworks
> are set off, sausages are eaten, and some people toss effigies of unpopular
> politicians on the fire for good measure.
>
> But Bonfire Night tends not to be celebrated on Nov. 5, the day the plot was
> discovered, but on the nearest convenient Saturday. And many local bonfires
> have been canceled because of new safety regulations - requiring guardrails,
> fire marshals and the like - that are proving prohibitively expensive to
> meet.
>
> This withering away of homegrown tradition makes people hate Halloween all
> the more. What could be more unattractive, they argue, than a bunch of
> rapacious, acquisitive children traipsing around the streets, demanding
> candy in exchange for nothing?
>
> "Trick or treat? I don't know about you, but my answer to this question, if
> I'm honest, would be unprintable in a family newspaper," the critic A. N.
> Wilson wrote recently in The Daily Mail. "Let's say it's stronger than 'push
> off.' Yet the little beggars will soon be round, banging and ringing at our
> doors with this irritating refrain."
>
> Mr. Wilson blamed "the kitsch hotchpotch known as American Gothic."
>
> Hugh O'Donnell, a professor of language and popular culture at Glasgow
> Caledonian University, said in an interview that "the main complaint is that
> it's just fun without any meaning behind it."
>
> "It's no longer got any relationship to anything - not the old Celtic idea
> of the living and the dead, or the Christian tradition of Allhallows Eve,"
> said Mr. O'Donnell, who this week is the host of an academic conference at
> the university examining Halloween. He plans to dress as Dracula for the
> official dinner.
>
> Mr. O'Donnell said that when he was a boy in Scotland, he and his friends
> regularly went door to door, playing out an old Celtic tradition.
>
> "It was called guising," he explained. "You put an old sheet over your head
> and went to all the houses in the village, and you always had to do
> something, like sing a song or tell a joke." The children did not receive
> candy then - just apples and, maybe, peanuts, he said. Since there were no
> pumpkins, they carved turnips.
>
> They did not play tricks.
>
> Fear of tricks - vandalism, really - drives much of the anti-Halloween
> feeling here now. Many police forces around the country have added patrols
> to deal with Halloween-instigated problems, including
> egg-and-flour-throwing, attacks on fences and doors, menacing gatherings of
> disaffected drunken youths and the theft of garden ornaments.
>
> Like many other forces, the Cheshire police in northwestern Britain have
> been distributing no-trick-or-treating posters for people to affix to their
> windows. Fifty-eight percent of homeowners in a recent survey by the Norwich
> Union insurance company said they had hidden in the back of their houses and
> turned off all the lights on Halloween, pretending that no one was home.
>
> A similar question came up last weekend, in a Halloween discussion group on
> Mumsnet, a popular mothers' Web site here. The tips being traded were not
> about how to make pumpkin soup, but about how to repel would-be
> trick-or-treaters. "I've thought about removing the cover from my doorbell
> so they electrocute themselves," one participant wrote.
>
> But much as some Britons are angry at being co-opted in yet another realm by
> the consumerist culture of the United States, some Americans living in
> Britain are annoyed at Britons' failure to grasp correct Halloween protocol,
> including the custom of raising money for Unicef. Many English children also
> persist in saying "Happy Halloween" instead of "trick or treat."
>
> Andrew Arends, an American businessman who lives in London, was horrified
> over the weekend when, as he ate lunch at a restaurant, two children in
> costume walked in, whipped out little boxes, and began trick-or-treating for
> money for themselves. This could have been a throwback to the old Guy
> Fawkes-related tradition in which children sat by the side of the road,
> demanding "a penny for the Guy," but it did not seem that way. The children
> were wearing Halloween outfits.
>
> The weird thing, Mr. Arends said, was that the British patrons meekly handed
> over the cash.
>
> "You would never see American children hustling for money on the 29th of
> October," he said."
>
>
> </>
>
>
Oct 31st 2006, 12:46 pm
#9
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Britons Disdain US - Style Halloween...
On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 01:24:07 GMT, in rec.travel.europe, "Frank F. Matthews"
<[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this:
... Gee 100 million pounds of disdain.
The purity of Halloween is compromised... Horrors!!
... Gregory Morrow wrote:
...
... > [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
... >
... > http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
... >
... >
... > October 31, 2006
... > London Journal
... >
... > Trick or Treat? For Many Britons, the Reply Is Neither
... >
... > By SARAH LYALL
... >
... > "LONDON, Oct. 30 - Living in an apartment here has many advantages, and one
... > of them, said Hilary Boyd, is the joy of not being accosted by marauding
... > bands of sugar-propelled, Americanized children every Oct. 31.
... >
... > "All they want is sweets," said Ms. Boyd, a 57-year-old writer, sounding
... > genuinely surprised. "They're not scaring you, or singing to you, or
... > charming you - they're just grabbing it and going to the next house and then
... > going home to be sick."
... >
... > Halloween is big business here now. According to The Observer of London,
... > Britons spend an estimated $228 million a year on Halloween-related items, a
... > tenfold increase from five years ago. Sainsbury's, one of Britain's largest
... > supermarket chains, has sold 450,000 pumpkins and 40,000 sets of
... > glow-in-the-dark fangs this year, not to mention items like fake cobwebs and
... > cookies that look like severed fingers. "It's a very important time for our
... > customers," said Melanie Etches, a spokeswoman.
... >
... > But it is still a rude culture shock for a generation of older people whose
... > need for a macabre fall festival was traditionally satisfied by Bonfire
... > Night. That holiday is celebrated by building a fire around a homemade
... > effigy of Guy Fawkes, the Catholic perpetrator of the failed plot to blow up
... > Parliament in 1605, and shouting happily as it burns to a crisp. Fireworks
... > are set off, sausages are eaten, and some people toss effigies of unpopular
... > politicians on the fire for good measure.
... >
... > But Bonfire Night tends not to be celebrated on Nov. 5, the day the plot was
... > discovered, but on the nearest convenient Saturday. And many local bonfires
... > have been canceled because of new safety regulations - requiring guardrails,
... > fire marshals and the like - that are proving prohibitively expensive to
... > meet.
... >
... > This withering away of homegrown tradition makes people hate Halloween all
... > the more. What could be more unattractive, they argue, than a bunch of
... > rapacious, acquisitive children traipsing around the streets, demanding
... > candy in exchange for nothing?
... >
... > "Trick or treat? I don't know about you, but my answer to this question, if
... > I'm honest, would be unprintable in a family newspaper," the critic A. N.
... > Wilson wrote recently in The Daily Mail. "Let's say it's stronger than 'push
... > off.' Yet the little beggars will soon be round, banging and ringing at our
... > doors with this irritating refrain."
... >
... > Mr. Wilson blamed "the kitsch hotchpotch known as American Gothic."
... >
... > Hugh O'Donnell, a professor of language and popular culture at Glasgow
... > Caledonian University, said in an interview that "the main complaint is that
... > it's just fun without any meaning behind it."
... >
... > "It's no longer got any relationship to anything - not the old Celtic idea
... > of the living and the dead, or the Christian tradition of Allhallows Eve,"
... > said Mr. O'Donnell, who this week is the host of an academic conference at
... > the university examining Halloween. He plans to dress as Dracula for the
... > official dinner.
... >
... > Mr. O'Donnell said that when he was a boy in Scotland, he and his friends
... > regularly went door to door, playing out an old Celtic tradition.
... >
... > "It was called guising," he explained. "You put an old sheet over your head
... > and went to all the houses in the village, and you always had to do
... > something, like sing a song or tell a joke." The children did not receive
... > candy then - just apples and, maybe, peanuts, he said. Since there were no
... > pumpkins, they carved turnips.
... >
... > They did not play tricks.
... >
... > Fear of tricks - vandalism, really - drives much of the anti-Halloween
... > feeling here now. Many police forces around the country have added patrols
... > to deal with Halloween-instigated problems, including
... > egg-and-flour-throwing, attacks on fences and doors, menacing gatherings of
... > disaffected drunken youths and the theft of garden ornaments.
... >
... > Like many other forces, the Cheshire police in northwestern Britain have
... > been distributing no-trick-or-treating posters for people to affix to their
... > windows. Fifty-eight percent of homeowners in a recent survey by the Norwich
... > Union insurance company said they had hidden in the back of their houses and
... > turned off all the lights on Halloween, pretending that no one was home.
... >
... > A similar question came up last weekend, in a Halloween discussion group on
... > Mumsnet, a popular mothers' Web site here. The tips being traded were not
... > about how to make pumpkin soup, but about how to repel would-be
... > trick-or-treaters. "I've thought about removing the cover from my doorbell
... > so they electrocute themselves," one participant wrote.
... >
... > But much as some Britons are angry at being co-opted in yet another realm by
... > the consumerist culture of the United States, some Americans living in
... > Britain are annoyed at Britons' failure to grasp correct Halloween protocol,
... > including the custom of raising money for Unicef. Many English children also
... > persist in saying "Happy Halloween" instead of "trick or treat."
... >
... > Andrew Arends, an American businessman who lives in London, was horrified
... > over the weekend when, as he ate lunch at a restaurant, two children in
... > costume walked in, whipped out little boxes, and began trick-or-treating for
... > money for themselves. This could have been a throwback to the old Guy
... > Fawkes-related tradition in which children sat by the side of the road,
... > demanding "a penny for the Guy," but it did not seem that way. The children
... > were wearing Halloween outfits.
... >
... > The weird thing, Mr. Arends said, was that the British patrons meekly handed
... > over the cash.
... >
... > "You would never see American children hustling for money on the 29th of
... > October," he said."
... >
... >
... > </>
... >
... >
<[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this:
... Gee 100 million pounds of disdain.
The purity of Halloween is compromised... Horrors!!
... Gregory Morrow wrote:
...
... > [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
... >
... > http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
... >
... >
... > October 31, 2006
... > London Journal
... >
... > Trick or Treat? For Many Britons, the Reply Is Neither
... >
... > By SARAH LYALL
... >
... > "LONDON, Oct. 30 - Living in an apartment here has many advantages, and one
... > of them, said Hilary Boyd, is the joy of not being accosted by marauding
... > bands of sugar-propelled, Americanized children every Oct. 31.
... >
... > "All they want is sweets," said Ms. Boyd, a 57-year-old writer, sounding
... > genuinely surprised. "They're not scaring you, or singing to you, or
... > charming you - they're just grabbing it and going to the next house and then
... > going home to be sick."
... >
... > Halloween is big business here now. According to The Observer of London,
... > Britons spend an estimated $228 million a year on Halloween-related items, a
... > tenfold increase from five years ago. Sainsbury's, one of Britain's largest
... > supermarket chains, has sold 450,000 pumpkins and 40,000 sets of
... > glow-in-the-dark fangs this year, not to mention items like fake cobwebs and
... > cookies that look like severed fingers. "It's a very important time for our
... > customers," said Melanie Etches, a spokeswoman.
... >
... > But it is still a rude culture shock for a generation of older people whose
... > need for a macabre fall festival was traditionally satisfied by Bonfire
... > Night. That holiday is celebrated by building a fire around a homemade
... > effigy of Guy Fawkes, the Catholic perpetrator of the failed plot to blow up
... > Parliament in 1605, and shouting happily as it burns to a crisp. Fireworks
... > are set off, sausages are eaten, and some people toss effigies of unpopular
... > politicians on the fire for good measure.
... >
... > But Bonfire Night tends not to be celebrated on Nov. 5, the day the plot was
... > discovered, but on the nearest convenient Saturday. And many local bonfires
... > have been canceled because of new safety regulations - requiring guardrails,
... > fire marshals and the like - that are proving prohibitively expensive to
... > meet.
... >
... > This withering away of homegrown tradition makes people hate Halloween all
... > the more. What could be more unattractive, they argue, than a bunch of
... > rapacious, acquisitive children traipsing around the streets, demanding
... > candy in exchange for nothing?
... >
... > "Trick or treat? I don't know about you, but my answer to this question, if
... > I'm honest, would be unprintable in a family newspaper," the critic A. N.
... > Wilson wrote recently in The Daily Mail. "Let's say it's stronger than 'push
... > off.' Yet the little beggars will soon be round, banging and ringing at our
... > doors with this irritating refrain."
... >
... > Mr. Wilson blamed "the kitsch hotchpotch known as American Gothic."
... >
... > Hugh O'Donnell, a professor of language and popular culture at Glasgow
... > Caledonian University, said in an interview that "the main complaint is that
... > it's just fun without any meaning behind it."
... >
... > "It's no longer got any relationship to anything - not the old Celtic idea
... > of the living and the dead, or the Christian tradition of Allhallows Eve,"
... > said Mr. O'Donnell, who this week is the host of an academic conference at
... > the university examining Halloween. He plans to dress as Dracula for the
... > official dinner.
... >
... > Mr. O'Donnell said that when he was a boy in Scotland, he and his friends
... > regularly went door to door, playing out an old Celtic tradition.
... >
... > "It was called guising," he explained. "You put an old sheet over your head
... > and went to all the houses in the village, and you always had to do
... > something, like sing a song or tell a joke." The children did not receive
... > candy then - just apples and, maybe, peanuts, he said. Since there were no
... > pumpkins, they carved turnips.
... >
... > They did not play tricks.
... >
... > Fear of tricks - vandalism, really - drives much of the anti-Halloween
... > feeling here now. Many police forces around the country have added patrols
... > to deal with Halloween-instigated problems, including
... > egg-and-flour-throwing, attacks on fences and doors, menacing gatherings of
... > disaffected drunken youths and the theft of garden ornaments.
... >
... > Like many other forces, the Cheshire police in northwestern Britain have
... > been distributing no-trick-or-treating posters for people to affix to their
... > windows. Fifty-eight percent of homeowners in a recent survey by the Norwich
... > Union insurance company said they had hidden in the back of their houses and
... > turned off all the lights on Halloween, pretending that no one was home.
... >
... > A similar question came up last weekend, in a Halloween discussion group on
... > Mumsnet, a popular mothers' Web site here. The tips being traded were not
... > about how to make pumpkin soup, but about how to repel would-be
... > trick-or-treaters. "I've thought about removing the cover from my doorbell
... > so they electrocute themselves," one participant wrote.
... >
... > But much as some Britons are angry at being co-opted in yet another realm by
... > the consumerist culture of the United States, some Americans living in
... > Britain are annoyed at Britons' failure to grasp correct Halloween protocol,
... > including the custom of raising money for Unicef. Many English children also
... > persist in saying "Happy Halloween" instead of "trick or treat."
... >
... > Andrew Arends, an American businessman who lives in London, was horrified
... > over the weekend when, as he ate lunch at a restaurant, two children in
... > costume walked in, whipped out little boxes, and began trick-or-treating for
... > money for themselves. This could have been a throwback to the old Guy
... > Fawkes-related tradition in which children sat by the side of the road,
... > demanding "a penny for the Guy," but it did not seem that way. The children
... > were wearing Halloween outfits.
... >
... > The weird thing, Mr. Arends said, was that the British patrons meekly handed
... > over the cash.
... >
... > "You would never see American children hustling for money on the 29th of
... > October," he said."
... >
... >
... > </>
... >
... >
Oct 31st 2006, 2:00 pm
#10
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Britons Disdain US - Style Halloween...
Gregory Morrow wrote:
> [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
> October 31, 2006
> London Journal
> Trick or Treat? For Many Britons, the Reply Is Neither
> By SARAH LYALL
> "LONDON, Oct. 30 - Living in an apartment here has many advantages,
> and one of them, said Hilary Boyd, is the joy of not being accosted
> by marauding bands of sugar-propelled, Americanized children every
> Oct. 31.
> "All they want is sweets," said Ms. Boyd, a 57-year-old writer,
> sounding genuinely surprised. "They're not scaring you, or singing to
> you, or charming you - they're just grabbing it and going to the next
> house and then going home to be sick."
This UK person obviously has no sense of fun. And (at least when I was a
child) we weren't allowed to grab candy and run, then go home to be sick.
We put some thought into our costumes, unlike today when they go buy a $19
costume of SpongeBob Squarepants or whatever. And the candy was rationed
out by my parents... sometimes lasting until next Easter. LOL
Jill
> [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
> October 31, 2006
> London Journal
> Trick or Treat? For Many Britons, the Reply Is Neither
> By SARAH LYALL
> "LONDON, Oct. 30 - Living in an apartment here has many advantages,
> and one of them, said Hilary Boyd, is the joy of not being accosted
> by marauding bands of sugar-propelled, Americanized children every
> Oct. 31.
> "All they want is sweets," said Ms. Boyd, a 57-year-old writer,
> sounding genuinely surprised. "They're not scaring you, or singing to
> you, or charming you - they're just grabbing it and going to the next
> house and then going home to be sick."
This UK person obviously has no sense of fun. And (at least when I was a
child) we weren't allowed to grab candy and run, then go home to be sick.
We put some thought into our costumes, unlike today when they go buy a $19
costume of SpongeBob Squarepants or whatever. And the candy was rationed
out by my parents... sometimes lasting until next Easter. LOL
Jill
Oct 31st 2006, 2:25 pm
#11
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Britons Disdain US - Style Halloween...
"Gregory Morrow" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected] ups.com...
> graham wrote:
>> "Gregory Morrow"
>> <gregorymorrowONACLEARDAYYOUCANSEEALOAFHEAD@earthl ink.net>
>> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected] k.net...
>> > [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
>> >
>> > http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
>> >
>> >
>> And the French are rejecting it, sensible lot!!
> Good for them! I remember about ten years ago reading how popular
> Halloween was becoming in some parts of France, e.g. jack - o -
> lanterns lining some of the Paris boulevards, etc...
> Here in the States it's become a purely commercial enterprise, it's who
> has the most expensive and elaborate costume and who can get the
> biggest haul of sweets...pure marketing hype.
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6103436.stm
> French shun Halloween 'gimmicks'
> "Halloween is seen as "too American" by some
> Halloween is said to be dying in France after a short-lived bonanza,
> according to media reports.
> It seems the festival, which came to prominence in the late 1990s, is
> in decline because it is perceived as "too American".
> An association called No to Halloween - which was set up to combat the
> trend - has now wound down as a result of the festival's waning appeal.
> It said Halloween was artificially inflated to serve commercial
> interests.
> "There was no need for the group to exist any more," former president
> Arnaud Guyot-Jeannin told Reuters news agency.
> "Halloween was a marketing gimmick aimed mainly at children. It's a big
> festival of consumption selling outfits, masks, gadgets and it couldn't
> last forever," he added.
> As a result, supermarkets are reported have lost interest in the
> festival this year.
> "Apart from a few local celebrations, Halloween is no longer taken into
> account by our stores," Thierry Desouches of Systeme U supermarket told
> Catholic newspaper La Croix.
> "This lack of interest is real in all big-name supermarkets," he added.
> "Our Halloween sales have been falling by half every year since 2002,"
> Franck Mathais of toy retailer La Grande Recre told Le Monde newspaper.
> 'Anti-Americanism'
> Benoit Pousset, head of costume company Cesar, attributed the
> festival's demise to "a cultural reaction linked to the rise of
> anti-Americanism".
> The company itself is thriving in the US where - through its division
> Disguise - it provides one-third of all the Halloween costumes sold in
> the country.
> Opposition to the festival is especially strong in French religious
> quarters, with the Catholic church seeking to promote All Saints' Day
> as the celebration of choice at this time of year.
> Halloween grew alongside other "Anglo-Saxon" imports such as
> Valentine's Day or the stag or hen party which have become increasingly
> popular in recent years, correspondents say."
> </>
55 years ago it was still all about how much candy you could score.
news:[email protected] ups.com...
> graham wrote:
>> "Gregory Morrow"
>> <gregorymorrowONACLEARDAYYOUCANSEEALOAFHEAD@earthl ink.net>
>> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected] k.net...
>> > [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
>> >
>> > http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
>> >
>> >
>> And the French are rejecting it, sensible lot!!
> Good for them! I remember about ten years ago reading how popular
> Halloween was becoming in some parts of France, e.g. jack - o -
> lanterns lining some of the Paris boulevards, etc...
> Here in the States it's become a purely commercial enterprise, it's who
> has the most expensive and elaborate costume and who can get the
> biggest haul of sweets...pure marketing hype.
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6103436.stm
> French shun Halloween 'gimmicks'
> "Halloween is seen as "too American" by some
> Halloween is said to be dying in France after a short-lived bonanza,
> according to media reports.
> It seems the festival, which came to prominence in the late 1990s, is
> in decline because it is perceived as "too American".
> An association called No to Halloween - which was set up to combat the
> trend - has now wound down as a result of the festival's waning appeal.
> It said Halloween was artificially inflated to serve commercial
> interests.
> "There was no need for the group to exist any more," former president
> Arnaud Guyot-Jeannin told Reuters news agency.
> "Halloween was a marketing gimmick aimed mainly at children. It's a big
> festival of consumption selling outfits, masks, gadgets and it couldn't
> last forever," he added.
> As a result, supermarkets are reported have lost interest in the
> festival this year.
> "Apart from a few local celebrations, Halloween is no longer taken into
> account by our stores," Thierry Desouches of Systeme U supermarket told
> Catholic newspaper La Croix.
> "This lack of interest is real in all big-name supermarkets," he added.
> "Our Halloween sales have been falling by half every year since 2002,"
> Franck Mathais of toy retailer La Grande Recre told Le Monde newspaper.
> 'Anti-Americanism'
> Benoit Pousset, head of costume company Cesar, attributed the
> festival's demise to "a cultural reaction linked to the rise of
> anti-Americanism".
> The company itself is thriving in the US where - through its division
> Disguise - it provides one-third of all the Halloween costumes sold in
> the country.
> Opposition to the festival is especially strong in French religious
> quarters, with the Catholic church seeking to promote All Saints' Day
> as the celebration of choice at this time of year.
> Halloween grew alongside other "Anglo-Saxon" imports such as
> Valentine's Day or the stag or hen party which have become increasingly
> popular in recent years, correspondents say."
> </>
55 years ago it was still all about how much candy you could score.
Oct 31st 2006, 3:13 pm
#12
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Britons Disdain US - Style Halloween...
Hello, jmcquown!
You wrote on Tue, 31 Oct 2006 21:00:20 -0600:
j> Gregory Morrow wrote:
??>> [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
??>>
??>>
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
??>>
??>> October 31, 2006
??>> London Journal
??>>
??>> Trick or Treat? For Many Britons, the Reply Is Neither
??>>
??>> By SARAH LYALL
??>>
??>> "LONDON, Oct. 30 - Living in an apartment here has many
??>> advantages, and one of them, said Hilary Boyd, is the joy
??>> of not being accosted by marauding bands of
??>> sugar-propelled, Americanized children every Oct. 31.
??>>
??>> "All they want is sweets," said Ms. Boyd, a 57-year-old
??>> writer, sounding genuinely surprised. "They're not scaring
??>> you, or singing to you, or charming you - they're just
??>> grabbing it and going to the next house and then going
??>> home to be sick."
??>>
j> This UK person obviously has no sense of fun. And (at least
j> when I was a child) we weren't allowed to grab candy and
j> run, then go home to be sick. We put some thought into our
j> costumes, unlike today when they go buy a $19 costume of
j> SpongeBob Squarepants or whatever. And the candy was
j> rationed out by my parents... sometimes lasting until next
j> Easter. LOL
I am glad to be told that the UK disdains Halloween! Typical
English parochialism and generalization; isn't Scotland still
part of the UK?
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not
You wrote on Tue, 31 Oct 2006 21:00:20 -0600:
j> Gregory Morrow wrote:
??>> [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
??>>
??>>
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
??>>
??>> October 31, 2006
??>> London Journal
??>>
??>> Trick or Treat? For Many Britons, the Reply Is Neither
??>>
??>> By SARAH LYALL
??>>
??>> "LONDON, Oct. 30 - Living in an apartment here has many
??>> advantages, and one of them, said Hilary Boyd, is the joy
??>> of not being accosted by marauding bands of
??>> sugar-propelled, Americanized children every Oct. 31.
??>>
??>> "All they want is sweets," said Ms. Boyd, a 57-year-old
??>> writer, sounding genuinely surprised. "They're not scaring
??>> you, or singing to you, or charming you - they're just
??>> grabbing it and going to the next house and then going
??>> home to be sick."
??>>
j> This UK person obviously has no sense of fun. And (at least
j> when I was a child) we weren't allowed to grab candy and
j> run, then go home to be sick. We put some thought into our
j> costumes, unlike today when they go buy a $19 costume of
j> SpongeBob Squarepants or whatever. And the candy was
j> rationed out by my parents... sometimes lasting until next
j> Easter. LOL
I am glad to be told that the UK disdains Halloween! Typical
English parochialism and generalization; isn't Scotland still
part of the UK?
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not
Oct 31st 2006, 6:35 pm
#13
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Britons Disdain US - Style Halloween...
On 31 Oct 2006 15:29:51 -0800, "Gregory Morrow"
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Dave Frightens Me wrote:
>> I went to a halloween party tonight. It was actually the lamest thing
>> I have ever seen, and everyone was glad when it was over. There's
>> something about getting adults to do a treasure hunt that just doesn't
>> seem to work. I tried making a hole in my head with a biro to release
>> the boredom.
>Lol..."treasure hunts" I put into the tiresome realm of "Murder
>Mystery" parties or weekends or playing charades or whatever on Boxing
>Day (I've done this a few times with Brit friends here; I like the
>civilised idear of having 26 December as a holiday but the game shite
>can go...).
>But of course for a treasure hunt it depends on *what* the "treasure"
>is, eh DFM...???
It was 3 pieces of candy. My sugar levels runneth over.
>Italy could be a neat place to celebrate Halloween, all those old
>churches and such around...
I like those churches. It's where I go if I need a snooze on a hot
day!
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Dave Frightens Me wrote:
>> I went to a halloween party tonight. It was actually the lamest thing
>> I have ever seen, and everyone was glad when it was over. There's
>> something about getting adults to do a treasure hunt that just doesn't
>> seem to work. I tried making a hole in my head with a biro to release
>> the boredom.
>Lol..."treasure hunts" I put into the tiresome realm of "Murder
>Mystery" parties or weekends or playing charades or whatever on Boxing
>Day (I've done this a few times with Brit friends here; I like the
>civilised idear of having 26 December as a holiday but the game shite
>can go...).
>But of course for a treasure hunt it depends on *what* the "treasure"
>is, eh DFM...???
It was 3 pieces of candy. My sugar levels runneth over.
>Italy could be a neat place to celebrate Halloween, all those old
>churches and such around...
I like those churches. It's where I go if I need a snooze on a hot
day!
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--
Oct 31st 2006, 6:42 pm
#14
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Britons Disdain US - Style Halloween...
x-no-archive: yes
i guess the Brits have moved on from high street begging (with menaces?). in
the name of 'tradition'.. you can never tell who will answer the door, and
what their intentions may be.
i saw one small group of kids (with an adult), though they seemed to know
everyone they 'knocked up'!
i guess the Brits have moved on from high street begging (with menaces?). in
the name of 'tradition'.. you can never tell who will answer the door, and
what their intentions may be.
i saw one small group of kids (with an adult), though they seemed to know
everyone they 'knocked up'!
Oct 31st 2006, 9:12 pm
#15
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Britons Disdain US - Style Halloween...
Gregory Morrow schrieb:
> graham wrote:
>
>> "Gregory Morrow" <gregorymorrowONACLEARDAYYOUCANSEEALOAFHEAD@earthl ink.net>
>> wrote in message news:[email protected] k.net...
>>> [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
>> And the French are rejecting it, sensible lot!!
>
>
> Good for them! I remember about ten years ago reading how popular
> Halloween was becoming in some parts of France, e.g. jack - o -
> lanterns lining some of the Paris boulevards, etc...
>
> Here in the States it's become a purely commercial enterprise, it's who
> has the most expensive and elaborate costume and who can get the
> biggest haul of sweets...pure marketing hype.
>
>
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6103436.stm
Here in Germany I saw some kids for the first time last night trying
"trick or cheat". I don't know how they got on, because next week is the
much more traditional St. Martin festival, where children go from house
to house singing St. Martin carols and being rewarded with sweets.
We've had "Halloween Parties" for adults advertised in cafes and
discos for the past few years of course.
Traditionally, All Hallows/All Saints is a public holiday to allow
people to tend the graves of their departed loved ones.
T.
> graham wrote:
>
>> "Gregory Morrow" <gregorymorrowONACLEARDAYYOUCANSEEALOAFHEAD@earthl ink.net>
>> wrote in message news:[email protected] k.net...
>>> [x-posted rec.food.cooking,rec.travel.europe]
>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/wo...halloween.html
>> And the French are rejecting it, sensible lot!!
>
>
> Good for them! I remember about ten years ago reading how popular
> Halloween was becoming in some parts of France, e.g. jack - o -
> lanterns lining some of the Paris boulevards, etc...
>
> Here in the States it's become a purely commercial enterprise, it's who
> has the most expensive and elaborate costume and who can get the
> biggest haul of sweets...pure marketing hype.
>
>
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6103436.stm
Here in Germany I saw some kids for the first time last night trying
"trick or cheat". I don't know how they got on, because next week is the
much more traditional St. Martin festival, where children go from house
to house singing St. Martin carols and being rewarded with sweets.
We've had "Halloween Parties" for adults advertised in cafes and
discos for the past few years of course.
Traditionally, All Hallows/All Saints is a public holiday to allow
people to tend the graves of their departed loved ones.
T.
