MOUTH OF THE WEAR Trick-or-treating is fine – and, what’s more, it’s British!
Halloween is upon us once more and it’s set to be a disappointing one for the kids. Trickor-treating has been severely restricted in tier-2 Sunderland. Aw. Let’s hope it’s still fun.
There will be those who will derive pleasure from this. They disapprove of the practice on the dubious grounds that “It’s American”. Odd.
No one seems to mind American junk food, junk drinks, music or films. So why take exception to a harmless tradition of theirs? Furthermore, it’s British in origin. In the Middle Ages, before the USA even existed, people would dress as ghosts, devils and what-not (although not SpiderMan), then generally act the goat in exchange for food and drink. It was known as mumming.
Regardless of antecedent, it’s a better tradition than dunking for apples. What’s that got to do with the eve of All Saints?
Worse still, relatively recently
Wooo-oooo! Halloween is great fun - but only if you’re under 11. we would have teenagers, in need of cider money, rattling front doors to burble that “The sky is blue, the grass is green…” then actually expecting payment for imparting this generally well-known information. Trickor-treating is surely an improvement on this.
Another fatuous objection to Halloween is that turnips have been usurped as material of choice to create lanterns. This genuinely is an American innovation.
But what’s wrong with innovations? As anyone who has ever scooped out a “narky” will concur, it’s hard work. Pumpkins are far easier to negotiate, whereas Joe Wicks couldn’t scoop out two turnip lanterns in one day.
So please let’s have no more burbling about trick-or-treating, or pumpkins. It’s for the little ones. Just leave it at that.
However, there are well grounded brickbats against the occasion. One is that supermarkets are trying to foist their Halloween junk upon us while also pretending that it’s Christmas (can you buy Halloween cards these days?).
Then there are the pubs. We have established that Halloween is for kiddiwinks. But pubs are for adults. So what’s with the cartoon witches, flashing pumpkins and unconvincing ghosts? Has any pub customer, ever, parted with an additional brass farthing on the strength of seeing this tat in a boozer? Or has anyone ever stormed out of a pub, indignant because there were no fake cobwebs?
Halloween is great, until you pass the age of about 11.