Issue 158

Halloween Debate: Happy Corporations

22nd October 2007

I really don't see why we bother with it. It is yet another event that has been blown out of proportion. On this day spirits rise from the dead and parents freely let their children walk around at night. It isn't the spirits that you have to be concerned about.

Personally I wouldn't mind having a few spirits to frighten some of the annoying prats who see this as an excuse to basically vandalise the place; with the weapon of choice being eggs. In America people can get toilet paper thrown around the place and the worse they have to do is just collect a whole lot of bog roll from their houses, but here in Britain we have to suffer eggs. I have no idea how many other people have had to deal with this, but getting dried-on egg off of windows above the ground floor isn't as easy as it seems.

Why do they bother? Surely the whole principle is "trick or treat". Side-stepping the fact that this is giving kids field experience in how to threaten people to get what you want, the whole principle is bypassed. People waste money buying up lots of sweets with the intention of being nice, and still get tricked. The trick was they thought they were going to have a good time tonight!

Why are sweets handed out anyway? I thought that the children of this day and age were getting too fat! What's wrong with an apple or an orange instead of shoving sweets down their throat? I thought that parents were always telling their children NOT to take sweeties from strangers.

That said, I don't entirely blame parents for not letting their children eat apples given the horror stories I grew up with (no pun intended). I remember hearing tales of odd people pushing razors and needles into apples so that they'd do damage to children who'd eat them. These reports are just urban myths spurred on, most likely, by one kid eating too much and having a belly ache. Still, although it isn't the sort of scare that a parent needs, it always gets told every year.

It has been commercialised too much as well. Decorations are up way too early before it is necessary. Maybe if Halloween was as big over here as it was in America then it would be understandable, but it is always a major letdown. Pubs and such decorate their places a little, but there is no vast improvement except the chalk board has a cobweb in the corner and maybe a pumpkin lurking about the place. Stuff like those witches fingers trim the wallet too. They are expensive enough, but they're sold in packs of 5, and who goes to a party with 5 hideous fingers on one hand and perfectly normal ones on the other? This time of year I can always be found hiding behind the settee wanting for it all to be over. The sooners, the better!

Malcolm Bird