Authors Electric

That time of year again. Mwouhahahahaha it’s that time of year again. (Ghostly laugh, in case you didn’t realise. Please be chilled.) Death’s heads and giant spiders’ webs festooning perfectly respectable garden walls, glow-in-the-dark stickers and beetles lighting up ceilings, shops groaning with a sugar fest the Like of Witch No Sane Adult Would Deem Suitable for their Little Darlings, and everywhere, everywhere, orange. Pumpkins, masks, tee shirts, costumes, all in the ghastly colour combination of dayglo orange and midnight black. Spiders' webs festoon garden walls. follow link for licence  You may glean from this – and from my odd previous mention of the subject – that I’m not a fan of Halloween.  When I was young, ooh, I dunno, a couple of centuries ago, Halloween in Britain barely existed. We made toffee apples and played apple bobbing, and my mother did something clever with apple peel, throwing it over my 5 year old shoulder to see the letter shape it made where it f...

What does BBC Radio 4’s long-running, much-loved soap opera about Everyday Farming Folk have against Hallowe’en? BBC Radio 4's The Archers The Archers began on 1st January 1951, as a 15-minute daily serial intended to spread the word about new developments in farming. It centred on 3 or 4 farming families, most of whom were called Archer, with the addition of the Aldridges at the posh end of the scale, balanced by the Grundys and Horrobins at the other. The characters took off, and a wealth of other storylines got woven in, some for comic effect, some for their gripping dramatic pull, but most as vehicles for messages about Good Social Behaviour. No one is ever racist, for instance, except in a clumsy way, because unless one of the villagers says something objectionable (and, needless to say, quite out of character), how are we, the listeners, to grasp that a newcomer to the Ambridge village is from an ethnic minority? Halloween pumpkins... at least they're not plastic. Photo ...

In a few weeks’ time it will be Halloween. The supermarkets are already full of pumpkins, plastic cobwebs, spiders and buckets, in which to collect the goodies for trick or treat, skeleton masks and costumes, all of which will be bought for children, who will set off happily on the night of October 31 st , to celebrate…what? Death, the afterlife, the afterlife, the interaction between the living and the dead, these are the themes of All Hallows’ Eve and I very much doubt whether the kids, who knock on my door asking for sweets, have any idea of the meaning of this custom. For them, it’s a chance to get lots of sweet things, dress up and go to Halloween themed parties, where they will eat scorched sausages, toffee apples and possibly play traditional games, like bobbing for apples. Trick or treating, however, has a long history. Although many people believe it came from the USA, it originated in medieval times, when children and poor people went from house to house begging for...