Halloween, schmalloween. Bonfire Night is one of my favourite things about my adopted country. Last year we had two perfectly crisp, clear nights for the festivities, the Friday night was Roundhay Park’s annual massive bonfire and fireworks, the Saturday night, Bonfire Night proper – 5th November –  spent at a fun house party with lots of chili con carne and jacket potatoes, a fire lit in the backyard brazier, and one of their obliging, yet anonymous, neighbours had a seemingly endless supply of fireworks. We walked home with reddened cheeks, serenaded by the pops and bangs of fireworks from every direction.

This relatively obscure celebration stateside nonetheless has rather rich representation in pop culture:

• Attack the Block: an alien invasion that just happens to take place on Bonfire Night
• Podcast episode about Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot: Allusionist 65: Eponyms III: Who’s That Guy? 
• Gunpowder on BBC iPlayer with Jon Snow Kit Harington. A bit gory for my tastes, but if you know me at all, what isn’t too gory for my tastes? North Americans, BBC iPlayer is worth getting a VPN for.
• A Sherlock episode called The Empty Hearse
• And how about V for Vendetta?