You can definitely borrow some of our 4th of July. We have way too much as it is.
this post was submitted on 23 May 2024
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okmatewanker
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Do they even have fireworks in the UK? I feel like you'd have some ridiculous restrictions.
Then again, I'm sure Mexicans would feel that way about the US.
Do they even have fireworks in the UK?
We do but we save them for Bonfire Night (and the weeks before and after) to commemorate the time someone nearly blew up Parliament.
Not just any someone. A religious extremist who was unhappy that the country was both insufficiently theocratic and the wrong form of theocracy.
yikes. i thought he was just an anarchist or something.
Nope, he was a Catholic extremist who was angry both that the UK was Anglican rather than Catholic and that it was secularising.
All they said is true.
However, its important to note that he was heavily entrapped into doing it.
Also, in those days, everyone would've been a religious extremist by todays standards. The protestant would have been just as extreme as the catholics, as they were during the British civil war which was far closer to a war of religion than parliament vs the King. Its just that they won that war, is all. So, they chilled out a bit....well, after the vile shit they did in Ireland of course.
The rest of British history, including guy fawkes, makes infinitely more sense when the British civil War is viewed, correctly, as a war of religion.
are you even allowed irony in the UK? I feel like youโd have some ridiculous restrictions.
You're not allowed to set them off after a certain time on most dates except certain exceptions that exist for certain dates. You're not allowed to set them off in public at any time, without authorization.
That's the grand total of the restrictions as far as I'm aware. So no not really ridiculous.
Oh, theyโre lovely in early July, try some on the fourth. Maybe even do a Bastille day encore. Thereโs always a reason to blow something up
For normal-sized fireworks, you've just got to be at least 18 years old to buy them and not set them off between the hours of 11pm and 7am. There are much tighter restrictions for anything bigger. There's typically a lot of them set off on the 5th of November, but otherwise it's rare to see them
No new years fireworks?
Yes, I did forget those
Yeah, we get loads of that. Fireworks are pretty much year-round now, which isn't pet-friendly at all.
Yes we do, mostly for Guy Fawks night. Remember remember the 5th of November.
The gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.
Sorry canโt read it without finishing itโฆ
"You can only buy fireworks (including sparklers) from registered sellers for private use on these dates:
- 15 October to 10 November
- 26 to 31 December
- 3 days before Diwali and Chinese New Year
At other times you can only buy fireworks from licensed shops."
Can't be more ridiculous than it is here in Australia. Can't buy or set off fireworks without the relevant permit/license full stop (generally limited to public events and film production), but if you purchase an adapter for your 12 gauge, along with a pack of primers, you can legally fire them from your shotgun on private property... but you'd obviously need a firearms license first.
I have a shotgun. I have the fireworks, primers, and adapter. I have never had a chance to use them.
Australia is such a fucking boring country to live in. No wonder we all drink so much.
Isn't 
a giant tinderbox though?
I mean sure it's silly to ban mortars or M-100s or deep-fryers instead of putting out public information as to what happens if you don't follow safety, but there's a difference in stakes between a lost hand or burnt down garage and starting a bushfire.
While the general ban on fireworks makes sense in a country as dry as ours, it's just tiring seeing the rest of the world get to enjoy yet another thing we miss out on here. Airsoft, fireworks, cheaper alcohol, cheaper fuel, economic complexity, product variety, modern internet infrastructure, logical speed limit tolerances, drinking on the beach (legitimately illegal in fucking Australia), the right to not be treated like a goddamn child by the government, no blanket bans/sweeping law reforms based on the actions of one person, nicotine vaping not requiring a doctor's prescription, over the counter medications that actually work and aren't just weak and ineffective versions the rest of the world can purchase, and just so much more.
You just never know when something you enjoy will be banned, restricted, or taxed to death in this country, and I hate it more and more the older I get. Australia is a great country to live in if you're 77 and retired. Our leaders are wondering why so many young people are leaving for better, more free countries... maybe the fact that we're the most overregulated nanny state, Murdoch-controlled, American-without-any-of-the-fun-parts wannabe first world nation has something to do with it. If I wasn't already in my early-30's, I'd be leaving too.
I live in an area with a lot of Americans, so I heard fireworks on the fourth, but I also hear them for no reason on plenty of other dayd
Remember, Remember that the US election is on November 4th. Hopefully, no religious nutbags try to emulate Guido Fawkes because they donโt like the electoral outcome.
I don't share your confidence
I mean, the Tories are getting binned.
Like I said I don't share your confidence. Labour have this uncanny knack of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
They own the media, the billionaires are all on their side, they've packed out the Lords, they've gutted and hamstrung the electoral commission and have started the gerrymandering already.
I hope you're right but I feel that, somehow, they'll live on like voldermot.
I understand Labor isn't meaningfully better these days.
What's the chance it doesn't fail to do anything to help its constituents and then calls an election and loses in like 2 years?
I understand Labor isnโt meaningfully better these days.
I may not be Starmer's biggest fan but a Labour government would be a massive improvement over the cavalcade of reckless, incompetent chancers we've had running thr country for far too long.
Labour are meaningfully better than the Tories, they've just slipped a bit from where they should be.
They're still categorically a huge improvement though.
Yeah everyone says that but I've yet to see anyone actually provide any evidence. I don't know how they can be so confident when they haven't even announced their manifesto yet.
Anyway the Conservatives big problem is that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel talent wise, long before sunak came on the scene. Labour hasn't spent the last 5 or 6 years gutting themselves of talent.
Didn't they purge Corbyn and anyone left of Tony Blair though?
There is, unfortunately, a lot of space between Blair and where the Tories currently are
There is a phenomenon here in America where our "left" party will get elected because of how unambiguously evil the conservatives are, fail to help their constituents or even stop those conservative policies, and lose house elections until they're out of power. Gained power after 8 years of Bush in 2008, then lost seats in 2010,12,14, and the presidency in 2016. Then they regained the house in 2018 under Trump, and presidency in 2020, and lost the house majority and senate seats in 2022, and are on track to lose the presidency and senate in 2024.
Am I being needlessly pessimistic by expecting Labor to follow the same pattern?
One thing that changes the dynamic substantially is that we don't have the same balance of power between the two houses of the legislature. Whatever the failings of our system, and there are many, the issue where the executive can't do anything without capitulating to a house of the legislature controlled by the opposition doesn't happen outside of unusual circumstances. As such we can probably expect Labour to at least generally follow through on opposing any Conservative policies that they currently oppose.
That does leave the issue of policies that they do agree with the Conservatives on. I'm certainly not expecting the UK to become some kind of utopia under Labour. We can probably at least expect things like the relentless demonisation of trans people and asylum seekers to reduce significantly, both of which are the subjects of recently-passed Conservative legislation. Whether or not they can improve the lives of the average person outside of those groups remains to be seen; the Tories have not left them with a good economic situation to work with, and I haven't seen any solid plans for anything that seems like it operates on a sufficiently large scale to make a big difference. I hope that they'll do some measure of re-integration with the EEA, which would help a great deal, but I'm filing that under "plausible hope" rather than "likely". We almost certainly won't see Labour withdraw us from the ECHR, which the Tories look more and more likely to do with each passing day.
So... yes and no. There are reasons to be pessimistic. There are also reasons to look forward to it. It's too reductionist to see it as a binary situation.
I appreciate that youre asking about what you've heard but I think you've been mislead.
I mean, its not like labour are brilliant or what they used to be but anyone who's claiming they're the same or not better is either deliberately lying or willfully ignorant. I think people built up labour too much in their heads and are still bitter about their reality check. "Behind every militant atheist is someone who beleived too hard."
You would have to go out of your way to do as badly and be as corrupt as the tories. The claim they're the same is a thought terminating clichรฉ that doesn't hold up to any scrutiny which is why people who claim it, never want to drill down into the detail.
You'd think the apparent leftists who claim that and the right wing tories who also claim it would get their information and attack lines from different sources.
However, apparently not.