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    Saw tweet last week saying about how they spent 35mins on one video - been looking forward to this one since.

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      Taylor: "... that air of flared-nostrilled cuntishness..."

      I literally applauded.

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        And for the benefit of those who haven't seen the Tweet from the wingco this morning, make sure you listen to the bit after the end of the podcast.

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          The bit at the end was absolutely fantastic - a bit embarrassing sat at my desk at work giggling along to myself. Luckily tomorrow is my last day here.

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            New message

            Chart Music #32: NEXT WEEK
            Earlier rather than later.

            (And the bonus Q&A episode is being recorded on Tuesday and punted out the week after that)

            Stay Pop-Crazed,
            Al

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              #32 is up: 28/10/82. Great to see that Neil is back. Three hours fifteen fucking minutes!

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                Halloween in the UK sounds really shit because the parents can’t decide if you’re really going to do it or not

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                  In my childhood, Halloween was a very minor event. Bonfire Night (Nov 5) was the biggie. I have no memory of this TOTP episode at all and it seems like an Americanization, which would accelerate in 1983 when 'Thriller' took off.

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                    Halloween was probably bigger in Scotland than England, as we had “guising” (trick or treating where kids had to do a party piece in order to get sweets) on October 31, turnip lanterns and dooking for apples, but yeah November 5th was the night for fireworks and standing half frozen/half burnt around a bonfire.

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                      In the late '70s West Midlands, we had the apple bobbing, random root veg lanterns and ghost costumes made out of sheets daubed with probably quite radioactive luminous paint. It was much more sketchy and improvised than the current version and definitely for kids rather than adults.

                      ET was quite a big influence on trick or treating becoming a thing over here, from memory.

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                        I think there a huge acceleration of Americanization in 1983: ET + Thriller was a big double whammy.

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                          Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                          I think there a huge acceleration of Americanization in 1983: ET + Thriller was a big double whammy.
                          That was probably what kicked it off. Where I grew up, no-one had heard of guising and suchlike, and Halloween meant sod all other than a feature on Blue Peter.

                          Charlie Brown might have laid a bit of groundwork, though. Linus and the Great Pumpkin always used to come on at that time of the year. But that was just one of those odd things that they did, like baseball and Thanksgiving. Has that started in England yet?

                          Neil and Taylor were spot on about those books of fake ghost photos and Borley Rectory. That used to scare the fuck out of me.

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                            I don't know if I believe Halloween should just be for kids or if I'm just lazy. But I haven't done a costume for Halloween since I was 13 and deemed too old to trick-or-treat. I got really excited about it as a kid and it felt magical, but now the thought of putting a costume together seems like a needless pain in the ass, plus I'm not of the age or social-set where I get invited to costume (fancy dress) parties so it's unnecessary. And I've never been a particular fan of the horror genre.

                            I wish we did Día de Muertos. I see some people in the US are trying to make that a thing outside of Mexican-American culture.

                            I'm starting to even get a down on all holidays. I'm even struggling a bit with Christmas, especially now that the only kids in my life are teenagers. It's devolving into a series of logistical challenges and travel demands rather than a special day with a special "spirit."

                            It's like I've seen to much behind the curtain and now all of these traditions just feels like a lot of effort and no magic. Maybe that's inevitable whenever society/capitalism/the church/whatever tries to tell people to feel a certain way on a certain day.

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                              The Book of the series for Arthur C Clarke’s World of Strange Powers used to scare the shite out of me. Esp the hooded monk “ghost” pic, and the nun covered in blood from “stigmata”.

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                                Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                                The Book of the series for Arthur C Clarke’s World of Strange Powers used to scare the shite out of me. Esp the hooded monk “ghost” pic, and the nun covered in blood from “stigmata”.
                                Was that the one with the crystal skull on the front of it? There was loads of that shit about at the time.

                                The Weekend Book Of Ghosts was the one that I had, full of "true stories" like the policeman's eyeballs with the image of his mudererer burned on his retina and people being buried alive being found in their scratched-up coffins, as well as the aforementioned ghostly photos and haunted houses. Terrible. It made me see all sorts of monsters in the patterns of the curtains, and to this day I still can't abide horror movies or anything else to do with all that. Fuck Halloween.

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                                  That was indeed the green? crystal skull cover AB.

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                                    Good episode. Neil and Taylor are a really good combo.

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                                      Oh for God's sake. Halloween isn't an americanization. halloween is a predominantly irish Festival which went to America, and the UK with the enormous wave of migration after the famine. The degree to which it was observed in places is the UK was largely dependent on the Number of Irish people who moved there over the last 170 years. It's also a Welsh thing to a certain degree, but that also received a massive shot in the arm in the nineteenth century, thanks to the massive wave of migration from Ireland to work in the coalmines of Wales.

                                      I was talking to someone today and asked them how had halloween changed from when they were young, and they immediately said the thing that I was thinking. The only difference is that we have more massively more money So buy cheap costumes rather than make them out of binliners and old sheets, and have the money to buy a bucket of sweets, which cost a fraction of what they did when I was a kid. Halloween in the US and in Ireland primarily differed in that Americans had disposable income and mass production, and in Ireland meat that wasn't minced was a lucury.

                                      What stuff like ET did was make English people think that Halloween was an American thing rather than an Irish thing, and suddenly it became a much bigger thing in the UK for some reason.

                                      Loved the show. Though oddly enough the bit that had me punching the air was Neil moaning about the treatment of Morecambe and Wise. Every Christmas is the Same in our house. I scan the various tv schedules for airings of full Morecambe and wise Shows, which you were able to see 10 or 15 years ago, but now you only have clip shows and that drives me up the fucking wall. I'm a simple man, with simple tastes and all I want are four full morecambe and wise shows in a row.
                                      Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 30-10-2018, 23:48.

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                                        This is correct. Halloween, as we know it, derives from Celtic traditions. There’s also a Christian element with
                                        All Hallows Eve and all Saints Day, but those don’t have much influence on trick-or-treating and what not.

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                                          It's just one of a bunch of festivals at key times of the year where Irish people used to dress up and go from house to house, because they had fuck all else to do, and all fucking day in which to do it. The typical potato based cottier farmer had to work maybe 13 days a year max, and less if he just got his kids to do it. It took off in the US because the US didn't have many traditions of their own, and here was one that appealed to a lot of groups that arrived in the US, because the Idea of a festival to separate the dead at the start of november (When the harvests are in, the trees are bare, and the weather has turned) was common to large numbers of cultures, before Christianity decided to celebrate the dead at the start of november. It didn't really take off as quickly in the UK because it had to compete with The UK's bonfire Festival.....at the start of November, which was designed to remind Catholics that if they didn't behave, they would be burned alive.

                                          The thing is that this sort of thing was also common in England in the long forgotten past, when pre reformation catholicism was probably every bit as heavily influenced by paganism as in ireland. The People who go around dressed up in Straw hats in Dingle on the day after Christmas carrying a wren in a box and drinking themselves into a stupor, are called Mummers, and you still find those around the UK.
                                          Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 30-10-2018, 23:51.

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                                            Philadelphia has a mummers parade on Jan 1. Apparently the wild mummering got rowdy in the 18th century and the attempt to ban it failed so the city made laws restricting mummery to permitted clubs in the mid 19th century. Then it became an official parade in 1906. It cost so much to put on that they had to get a corporate sponsor.

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                                              "which was designed to remind Catholics that if they didn't behave, they would be burned alive."

                                              They never did learn.

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                                                Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
                                                Oh for God's sake. Halloween isn't an americanization. halloween is a predominantly irish Festival which went to America, and the UK with the enormous wave of migration after the famine. The degree to which it was observed in places is the UK was largely dependent on the Number of Irish people who moved there over the last 170 years. It's also a Welsh thing to a certain degree, but that also received a massive shot in the arm in the nineteenth century, thanks to the massive wave of migration from Ireland to work in the coalmines of Wales.

                                                I was talking to someone today and asked them how had halloween changed from when they were young, and they immediately said the thing that I was thinking. The only difference is that we have more massively more money So buy cheap costumes rather than make them out of binliners and old sheets, and have the money to buy a bucket of sweets, which cost a fraction of what they did when I was a kid. Halloween in the US and in Ireland primarily differed in that Americans had disposable income and mass production, and in Ireland meat that wasn't minced was a lucury.

                                                What stuff like ET did was make English people think that Halloween was an American thing rather than an Irish thing, and suddenly it became a much bigger thing in the UK for some reason.

                                                Loved the show. Though oddly enough the bit that had me punching the air was Neil moaning about the treatment of Morecambe and Wise. Every Christmas is the Same in our house. I scan the various tv schedules for airings of full Morecambe and wise Shows, which you were able to see 10 or 15 years ago, but now you only have clip shows and that drives me up the fucking wall. I'm a simple man, with simple tastes and all I want are four full morecambe and wise shows in a row.
                                                Well, yeah. These days we all know about the origins of Halloween (or at least, anyone who's discussed it on here does). The point they were making in the podcast was that is that in most parts of England, at least, it was something that we were aware of, but didn't celebrate, and when it did arrive, it was a tawdry, commercialised form of the American version. I mean, they have it in Germany now, where there was never any kind of tradition for it, and it's just as much of a money-making scam.

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                                                  I used to read this from cover-to-cover.

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                                                    Usborne books were the business

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