Bonfire Night At Ally Pally

Now whilst at first glance a post about fireworks might seem a little bit incongruous on what is to all intents and purposes a music blog (if it's anything), but it's not. Honest. (It is, though, going to be more of a random collection of thoughts and observations than is perhaps my norm.)

First off, Ally Pally is a great venue . If you haven't been, you should.

Secondly - and this is the crux of the matter - it is no longer possible to watch fireworks without a soundtrack. The key point here is that fireworks are AMAZING. They're as close to dragons as we're ever going to get, and that's something you can't say about many forms of entertainment. Whoever decided that they weren't exciting enough, and that they would really benefit from the addition of the Gladiator soundtrack or the music from the sodding X Factor is an utter tit.

The very nature of this blog should demonstrate pretty quickly that I'm not averse to music (Snow Patrol is not music, and never will be) - rather I firmly believe that life is better with a soundtrack. But fireworks already have a soundtrack - excited people going 'ooh' and 'aaah' to the backing of a series of explosions. What they don't need is Robert Elms talking for TWO HOURS BEFOREHAND about how we were about to witness 'London's biggest and brightest fireworks display' (a lovely turn of phrase from one of London's biggest and dimmest tits), and demonstrating an almost preternatural inability to say 'ladies' without saying 'LAYDEEZ'. I tended to think of him as the sand that ends up in your swimming costume when you go to the beach, or the insects you have to put up with if you want to enjoy a picnic. Well, I actually spent most of the time working out whether it would be possible to kill him using his own voice. Grr.

(I should point out at this point that I'm not 100% certain that it was Robert Elms - he could have been another generic radio buffoon, so apologies if I'm unfairly maligning him on this occasion. He's still an arse though.)

The other thing I noticed was a disturbing lack of sparklers - instead, kids were waving glowsticks around above their heads, as if they'd got mashed up on smarties some kind of kindergarten rave. Again, I shouldn't have to say this, but sparklers are brilliant, and they should be compulsory. COI advertising from the 80s means that I know absolutely that if I'm not responsible with them, they will melt my hands and my face, and that just makes them all the more exciting. You can force me to listen to BLOODY Nessun Dorma if you like, but you can't take away my molten sparkling stick of fun, so don't bother trying.

That was a little bit of a ramble-rant. Apologies.