Dear America
Firstly, thank you for the wonderful things you've exported to we humble Europeans. We are eternally grateful for Elvis Presley, Cheesecake, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Clint Eastwood, Seinfeld, The Grateful Dead, Les Paul, The Bourne Trilogy, Harvard, Joey Tribiani, the Moon Landings, Paul Robeson, Jon Stewart, Norman Rockwell, Samuel Barber, Jelly Belly Beans, Quentin Tarantino and Janis Joplin.
SRSLY. My life has been enriched by delights that travelled west to east across the atlantic.
I'll even forgive you for Dan Brown, McDonald's, Ford cars and Jerry Springer (although I'll acknowledge he was born in London).
But would you please, please take your Halloween, Trick or Treat AssHatterhy back to the USA and stick it right up your star-spangled **********
For 364 nights a year, children would fully expect to be treated with extreme ire at knocking on doors when I'm half way through my dinner or favoUrite TV show. They know that my response would be like a 300 horse-power hair drier aimed at their ickle faces.
So why, in the bowels of Christ; in the name of all that's sacred, am I expected to greet their grease-painted faces, their Dawn of the Dead outfits, with anything other than contempt and vitriol, just because it's All Hallow's Eve?
For over a thousand years (add 3,000 if we include the original pagan feast), we Anglo-Saxons have acknowledged the mysticism of the night before all saints are commemmorated, and the souls of the lost visit us here on earth. Fair do's. A bit of Seasonal cullinary excitement as the Autumn's first frosts sharpen the flavoUr of root vegetables, and pigs are slaughtered for their salted and preserved meaty goodness.
But why, oh why, for fUck's sake, do I have to tolerate spotty little oiks knocking on my door to demand (not seek, entreat or request) candy?
In my neighboUrhood, 70% of the door-knockers are asian, whose parents were born on the Indian subcontenent. Pakistani, Bengali and Punjabi kids; turbans, jilbabs, dhotis and hijabs neatly ironed, surronding horror-movie make up faces.
So, in conclusion, despite those cute hallowe'en scenes in E.T., take your hallowe'en, and stick it where the sun don't shine.
Love
England
PS. I do have a huge box of candy by the front door. I am, after all, only human.