It’s bollocks really, isn’t it? I don’t mean just Halloween itself but the whole arena of the so-called supernatural. I know I may be goading the “demons of the underworld” here, but I know I’m not – because such things definitely do not exist.
Having said that, I am lying here, right now, in my bed just before midnight on Halloween, wondering why I have goosebumps and feel so nervous.
Of course, at midnight the new Wordle puzzle appears and although that’s very exciting, it’s not that.
An icy breeze has just brushed past my face too, which is a bit weird. Am I experiencing a supernatural experience in real time, right here, on the Afterword? Woo-ooo! It’s a g-g-ghosst!
Of course not. As I say, it’s all bollocks. I must say that things are a bit strange, though. I like total darkness in my bedroom but tonight when I close my eyes there’s a definite light shining – like a torch pointed directly at me.
This light switches off the very moment my eyes open again. It’s happened three times now. On the last occasion I heard heavy breathing but it’s just me in here.
Right. It’s just happened again. I covered my eyes with my hands – I didn’t actually close my eyes that time – I was able to make out the bones in my fingers, like an X-ray image. I remove my hands from my eyes and then back to the darkness.
My eyes are immediately adjusted to the lack of light – no bright spots to blink away. Just silence and darkness.
Two cats outside decide that now would be a good time to have a screech-fest. Awesome.
I am anxious but my next thought is that the light thing is an early symptoms of a brain condition. Amazingly, I find this quite soothing and I try to drift off.
Nope. The light is back again and it’s now flashing on and off but only when my eyes are closed or covered by my hands. A distant, low moaning sound now accompanies each flash. I’ve decided that studying my see-through hands is interesting but no, I don’t like this at all. There’s no chance of sleep now. Bugger this, I’m off to watch telly for a bit.
…
Tell you what, Bullseye is just as entertaining now as it was then. Jim Bowen was a genius. Took my mind off it for a bit but I really don’t want to go back in the bedroom. I’m outside the door and I feel sick. So tired. Off to the couch, then.
I found a fag packet down the back of the couch and decided to take up smoking again. I went outside the house, round the back window near my bedroom. I stood on something soft. It was one of the cats. Erm, no head.
I look towards my bedroom window. Two small lights from inside my bedroom appear to freeze and look back at me. They hide under the window sill. I’m not going back in there.
But it seems I’ve decided to, anyway, certainly against my will. I’m approaching the door now, quite scared actually because I can hear noises in there. I can’t turn back now. My plan is to turn on the lights and just confront whatever it is. Hopefully it’s just a bird or
Dear reader, at this point the manuscript ended. Black Celebration was never seen in this world again…
…although some claim that communications were received on a hidden corner of the internet. Some claim that BC is still with us, but trapped in a parallel dimension – and at certain times of the year, when the barriers grow thin, he attempts to attract our attentions.
Good night – and don’t look behind you…
BC – where are you?
I like the movie. 🙂
But yes, it’s bollocks.
He’ll be at the first hole in a few hours, you’ll see.
It’s a Poultergiest!
(This is a golf/ghost pun, possibly the only one ever attempted)
Well, it made me laugh.
Yes, one could imagine a ghost wearing very loud striped trousers intimidating the US Ryder Cup team the night before the opening foursomes.
This is the scariest thread on the Afterword. Ever!
Who you gonna call??
Run DMC!
What would Halloween be without a little Pomplamoose?
The streets around here were chockers with kids and their escorting parents. Thank god I am in a town house.
There were about 8 groups all lining up to visit the same house. Seems to have taken off in last couple of years. I recall my family bollocking me for telling door knockers, at a more accessible abode, a few years ago, about American cultural imperialism.
Also in a townhouse and kind of cut off from the main drag thankfully. Last year had probably about 5 groups come by. Some houses nearby literally get dozens or even hundreds of groups being a very walk friendly area. Going to be a cold one though, currently below freezing and it snowed yesterday
How does being in a town house shield you from such invasive intrusiveness? I’d have thought an isolated, rural location would offer better protection from the unruly scroungers.
Well I’m (partly) on a private road so there is that
@Gary. I think needing to press a button and speak on an intercom is sufficient a hurdle that they just move on to the next house with a front door they can knock on.
Anyone here said “ I’ll take trick thanks” ?
I think I’m unclear as to what a “town house” actually is. I’m thinking perhaps it means something different in Australia as opposed to the definition in my head.
@junior-wells yes. Ever had flour on the bonnet of your car in a rainstorm?
Alternative view: I’m fine with kids having fun at halloween, though I loathe the tsunami of plastic landfill crap – dressing up box and gingerbread men were fine when my kids were little. Adults, though – adults should just bloody grow up.
@mikethep yes and that cobweb gets left up and traps birds.
@Gary a townhouse isnt just house in town. It is more dense, a cluster of adjoining places often in an enclosed area. Maybe thep can explain a Euro equivalent.
Don’t think I can improve on that, Junior, except to say that they’re invariably new builds designed to fit the maximum number of people in the smallest possible space. They tend to be tall and thin, with minimal or no green space. You’d probably find them in Northern Europe as well as UK.
We have a courtyard, fortunately, so we have a small potted garden.
I pay the little bastards back with some German cultural imperialism and the prospect of accelerated dental angst. “Here, help yourself”, I say, proferring a massive tub of the finest enamel rotters Haribo have to offer. Grubby hands usually grab a fistful of tacky crap and stuff it into their mouths. I cackle quietly and through clenched jaws say, menacingly, “That should keep your dentists busy”. Somewhat alarmed, their eyes widen, apprehensively. You can see them think to themselves, through a mouth full of gummy gloop, “What the hell did that nutter just give us to eat?”.
Madame Foxy, however, has an even more devious plan if she gets to the front door first; she offers them a bowl of small oranges from which to select a treat. The little sods, having already been polluted with American cultural imperialism by our neighbours’ offerings, invariably mutter a sad little, ‘Er, no thanks’ and turn away, crushed by her generosity with things they wouldn’t be seen dead eating. Over her shoulder, I triumphantly announce that, when I was their age, we sometimes had to wait until the shops had oranges in stock before we could even consider buying and eating one, and that they are ungrateful little toerags who have no bloody idea. My wife quietly shuts the front door and gently steers me back to the sofa with a promise of more tea.
I look forward to this time of year every year with great pleasure. My dogs love to bark their heads off at the doorbell’s repeated sounding of another freeloading visit from the village’s younger thugs and vandals.
It’s still summer here. Which is most unusual at Halloween. This year has been very weird weather-wise, with the summer starting exceptionally late, May and June having been a total washout, and now finishing very late. Fake cobwebs and witchy costumes look very out of place in beach weather. Perhaps we need to set the calandar back a month like we do with the clocks?
I preferred Halloween when it was a proper threatening shakedown from a masked mini-mobster. The choice was treat or trick – you had to cross their palm with chocolate, or the glass in your greenhouse might meet with a nasty accident. The price of a year’s protection for your garden gnomes was two Freddos and a Curly-Wurly.
We have a version of this thread every year, and every year I feel compelled to provide a modicum of balance by saying that I bloody love Halloween.
An evening of trick or treating, kids ruling the entire area, neighbours in our house for drinks, scary movie at the end of the night. And then at the weekend the local Rugby club’s awesome annual Halloween party, where the kids are free range across the fields and the adults listen to a bunch of different local bands with everyone in fancy dress.
Absolutely magic stuff, wish every week could be like this. The misanthropes need only leave their houses undecorated and they should be resolutely undisturbed by all the horrible fun others might be having.
This is generally true and in Canada it is a HUGE thing. I think most of the door to door people are less threatening than they can be in the UK, don’t think I have ever seen a house “egged” My poor mother who lived alone used to turn off all the lights and hide in a central room that had no easy outside access
I fail to see what is misanthopic about not wanting some little shit to put a stone through my potting shed window.
Our neighbour’s decline to participate, and she phoned me last night in tears, worried sick in case she had a second visit after her front door was battered with juvenile fists amid shouts of ‘F*ck off you old bitch’.
‘Horrible fun?’ Get out of here.
Well, since you’ve invited the comment, the post above in which you fantasise about unnerving small children “polluted by American cultural imperialism” is certainly misanthropic, if that word is to have any meaning at all.
It contains all the usual elements of these sorts of missives when someone in the immediate vicinity does something non-approved; vibrant fantasy, simmering but ultimately impotent rage and the imminent threat of a strongly worded letter to the local council.
Assuming the story about your neighbour isn’t part of the fantasy then I hope she’s doing ok today, sounds horrible. My neighbourhood is a local hub of Halloween activity – hundreds of tiny kids had fun last night, neighbours chatted and the elderly (including my own next door neighbour) were left unmolested. Which is of course as it should be, and as it generally is.
Hope everyone on here enjoyed their evening, however they spent it.
X
Opinions on this “holiday” may come down to whether one has children or not. I was always sort of a naysayer although I do remember a different sort of Halloween party in the UK when I was a kid in the 60s and 70s (apple bobbing etc). In Canada, experiencing the sheer joy on my daughter’s face when she went trick or treating when she was much younger was wonderful. Some memories I don’t want to lose. And some of the Halloween displays people do here on their own properties is quite incredible.
Yeah, there’s probably a degree of truth in that. It potentially also depends on where you live and how the evening plays out there.
That said, I’ve always been an (ahem) yaysayer, even before I had kids of my own. Love a party, love a bit of fancy dress and happy kids are a bonus, whether they’re mine or other people’s. Kids are ace.
I can fully understand others not enjoying it and opting out – that’s totally fair enough. I don’t really get the sneering, but then that’s probably becoming a bit of a meta-theme here.
Oh dear, poor Binge thinks my extended comedic rant above equates to misanthropy, and mocks accordingly. I look at the television these days and see exactly what misanthropy is every day, and it ain’t self-deprecatory riffing on the grumpy old man meme.
What vile kids @Vulpes Vulpes. Completely unacceptable behaviour.
Sad that they use Halloween as cart blanche to be even more objectionable than they are the rest of the year. Trick or treating hasn’t really caught on here so we avoid this kind of thing.
Lucky you!
No Trick-or-Treating hereabouts.
All my neighbours with kids are either South Asian, African or East European and don’t seem to be interested in Halloween.
Diwali is coming soon however, which tends to incorporate Guy Fawkes night(s). Fireworks a-go-go for nearly a fortnight!
Halloween gets my vote too. Late October is a rather dark, wretched time of year in Stockholm.
So a celebration which encourages some imaginative decoration of public spaces and offers the chance (for those who wish to do so) to dress up and have some fun is very welcome.
On Saturday afternoon there was a young mum and her 4 year old son on the Metro, convincingly made up as zombies, on their way to a Halloween party in the highest of spirits. Their joy was infectious,
Dressing up is great fun and so I approve of a week in the year when the Undead and the Living Dead are welcome on Stockholm public transport.
Stockholm Central Station
Kids in fancy dress is cute and fun. Adults wearing fancy dress costumes are more genuinely disturbing though. On a number of levels.
A sad tale: a lovely chap who used to run an Irish pub where I live was shot dead a few years ago, behind the till of his pub, by a masked gunman wearing a skeleton costume on Halloween night. Kinda ruined the vibe.
What a dreadful story @Gary! Particularly so, in a small, closely-knit community.
And I guess they never caught the killer.
Something like that would put me off Halloween for life!
No, they caught the killer. And the victim got a street named after him.
What an extraordinary end to the story!
Although I’m sure the poor sod would have preferred not to be murdered.
I presume that there will eventually be a street in your name in Monopoli, @Gary, after all those years where you have worked so hard to put your adopted home town on the map.
All Saints Eve is known as the “vigilia d’Ognissanti” in Italy
It’s a big day here in Sweden too and many families visit the local graveyards to remember the dearly departed.
The Forest Graveyard, just down the road from us, will be heaving this weekend.
Don’t mind the kids who live on our estate, but really gets my goat when kids from miles away pitch up
Chocolate covered brussel sprouts.
One year after opening the door I was confronted by two youths who had just put a couple of masks on. ‘Trick or Treat?’
‘ Hmm I don’t think we’re in at the moment, I’ll just go and check’
Alas I never saw their faces but hopefully they were bemused.
I really don’t know what happened last night. I don’t recall or recognise any part of the OP but I can see it all laid out up there. I’m going to suppress it and move on.
Welcome back, BC – how was your time on the “other” side?
I’m not sure. I now remember writing Halloween is bollocks and the bit about goading demons but I don’t remember anything after that.
My ambition would be to answer the door, naked and covered in blood, holding a baying dragon. Haven’t got round to it yet, the wife feels it would be overkill.
Bing doesn’t do naked so this is the best I or bing can do.
You are so dependable.
That’s on the right track, Hubes. I would love nothing more than to scare the living shit out the little beggars! (but we live up a drive of 3 houses and haven’t had T to T here in the 15 years living here. The gargoyle on the roof may have something to do with it. (You can come back down inside now, darling…..)
Does the thing on your roof spout water? If not, it’s a grotesque rather than a gargoyle
I’ll ask her.
I did not know that. Must be in the same source language as “gargle” as they both involved liquid in or from the mouth.
I only found out the difference last week myself.
@Black-Celebration
There we have it. Thanks!
Raining outside, loads of ankle-botherers (strewth, even their grandparents are dodgers!), the ‘ween is best experienced inside, and via Ace’s “These Ghoulish Things”.
The next Ace order will definitely be including Volume 2.
Not too busy with Halloween knockers in our square. We had a lighted skull in the window but only enough kids knocked to give away half of the sweets we had laid in. Oh well, suppose I’ll have to eat them.
I’ve grown to quite like Halloween. We live at the end of a little Close so are never bothered by strange knockers (Moose! Is that you?). The current crop of little ones in the area are a lovely lot. Polite and pleasant.
A few 3 foot tall witches knocked on the door with either a Mum or a Dad at the back to one side making sure all was well. ‘Trick or Treat!’ went the cry as small mitts made off with the Fun Sizes. ‘Thank you!’
Short, grateful witches are the best kind.
Indeed…
Let’s not forget that, since ancient times, the Celts have been celebrating Samhain.
A friend of mine is currently travelling in Northern Spain and send me a clip of Samhain being celebrated in Galicia. Here’s anews story from Galician TV. (The presenter makes me think of the Fast Show. I suspect Samhain gets rather scorchio.)
And another interesting snippet for our Spanish speaking members.
In Galicia, Samhain would not be complete without the Celtic bagpipes. Here’s the wonderful gaitera, Susana Seivane.
If you want to celebrate Halloween, Celtic style, you don’t need to leave the British Isles. Here’s a Samhain celebration in Edinburgh.
It’s heady stuff! Alice in Wonderland meets a Brazilian marching band and The Levellers. They all take LSD and then make a Hammer horror movie together: Night of the Living Dreads.
There are some remarkable haircuts. What do these extraordinary folk do when they are not re-enacting pagan rites or working as extras in zombie movies?. They all look magnificently unemployable. I can’t see them working in Waitrose!
Halloween! So much more than the Pumpkin Marketing Board!
I always ask the same question at Glasto, KFD. Where do you lot go the rest of the year?
But there are thousands of people at Glasto, @fentonsteve.
Surely they can’t all be like that wonderful gaggle of dreadlocked loonies from Edinburgh?
Or maybe they can?
I am reminded of a conversation I had with a guy who was working at the Medieval Fair that they had in Stockholm a few years back. I can’t remember exactly how he was dressed. A jester, a serf, something like that. Suffice it to say that, looking as he did, there would be few career opportunities for him in the 21st century.
So I asked him what he did the rest of the time.
He was happy to inform me that the Middle Ages were booming and that there was an abundance of work in the “Medieval Sector”.
There’s a lesson to be learnt here. If you want a bright future, acquire yourself some ancient skills from the past. You’ll ever look back!
I wasn’t sure about your choice of vocabulary, but I looked it up on my computer’s internet and it seems you’re quite right.
I assume they work in Health Food and Vape shops, the kind of places I never go, but they certainly don’t work in Waitrose.
A couple of friends were employed by English Heritage for many years as medieval to 2nd World War musicians. Classed as civil servants/ minstrels IIRC
Of course it’s time for soul cakers to venture out.
https://www.so-counties.co.uk/know-your-cheshire-antrobus-soul-cakers/
Excellent! I hosted last time they visited Northwich Folk Club. ‘Visitation’ might give the right idea. It’s all very unpredictable, none more so than when The Black Prince flipped his mask up and said ‘I did your double glazing for you last week.’
Visitation good choice. Wondered if you’d seen them as it’s your neck o ‘ the woods
Must make some soul cakes next year.
The Black Prince breaking the fourth wall.
Soulcakers!! Once again you hit the jackpot there. Hubert. Wonderful stuff!
Even The Stingster likes a slice of soul cake.
A song I’d never heard before and he really does it justice.
Then you need to hear the Watersons version KFD.
Thanks a lot, Hubert. Forget Soul Train! With your soulcakes, you’ve opened the door to an autumn tradition I’d never heard of.
Loved the anecdote about your English heritage minstrels.
Ah, The Hodening Hoss, the Marbury Dun. The latter refers to the legend of how a faithful horse, bearing news, galloped from London to Marbury Hall which sits in the middle of all these Cheshire placenames, including my lair. After delivering the news to its master, the Marbury Dun promptly expired, but was buried in the grounds of the now-demolished hall in recognition of its loyalty.
You’ll love this one, KFD.
Thanks @thecheshirecat. I certainly did
It led me to this (very well-illustrated) talk.
A ghostly hobby horse from Wales!!
Nice work @Black Celebration! Your nightmare was the start of all manner of esoteric explorations!
Though the Mari Lywd is later in the year.
I spent Halloween in the kitchen of the parents of a class friend of my daughter with about 5-10 other parents of 8-9 year old girls (who were whooping it up in the living room, dressed as vampires and ghosts). They slumped down on front of a video, while we tanked up on white wine and yakked away for hours – mainly mums, as the two other blokes slunk off to watch FC Köln chase a ball around a field on a wide-screen TV. Middle aged mums are great to talk to and listen to – a riot of fun and a veritable cackle of stories about everything and anything. I certainly left the party better informed than when I arrived.
Pumpkin Spice Latte anyone? I had a couple last year in New York Starbucks. Actually pretty nice I thought contrary to expectations. I suspect Afterworders could get rather cross about this beverage, judging by their history. It was cool to wander round Brooklyn and see the displays arranged on the steps of the houses there. A different ball game in that country. Here we have the little ones coming round. Very sweet craving sweets.
Great time of year to be in New York. The Americans take this event to the next level.
Personally I hope we nick Thanksgiving off them too, and that someone figures out a way to amp up Valentines Day – the first quarter is a little underserved for holidays.
You’re right Bingo. The UK is very poorly served by public holidays in general. It’s probably Oliver Cromwell’s fault: He banned anything that was fun.
Most countries have far great variety.
Sweden, for example:
Santa Lucia – Beautiful blonde girls in white nighties with candles in their hair sing carols.
Midsummer – Beautiful blonde girls in white nighties gather forest flowers and dance round a maypole
Valborg – Beautiful blonde girls in white nighties sing to welcome the spring then jump on their broomsticks and zoom down to Öland for an all-nighter with Satan.
(That’s enough nighties! Ed)
New York is THE place to be for Halloween…
Just in case you couldn’t make it this year….
There’s definitely a very friendly, inclusive vibe. But I imagine the crowds are ginormous.
After reading about how Samhain was celebrated in Galicia, I stumbled across this excellent clip about the history of Galician Music. (A knowledge of Spanish will be useful to understand it.)
At our local pub quiz the other night they played this clip of the Monster Mash being performed by Bobby Pickett on US TV. By far the creepiest thing I have come across this week.