The Phantom Firework Display

As fireworks bubble and squeak around us, and some really dodgy shops selling fireworks appear on the backstreets like fungus sprouting on a rotting tree, I am reminded of the most entertaining firework display I was ever involved in arranging. It was, to be honest, a practical joke.

When I was at university I was involved in a whole string of practical jokes. Not the 'silly prank that irritates a person' kind, but entertaining ones that ranged from the simplicity of placing a rubber pigeon (we couldn't get a seagull) in the chapel stalls above the Master's seat on Sea Sunday to the amazing pageantry of the fake Immersion of the High Professor ritual I have blogged about previously.

The firework stunt was like a military operation. At 1 in the morning on 5 November, a series of dark clothed pairs of individuals snuck out into the Old Court of Selwyn College (pictured). One of the pair had a bag of fireworks, each fitted with a timed fuse. The other had a bottle of water to douse any accidental pre-lighting. We set up the fireworks all around the court, with fuses timed from 5 minutes to 15. (The fuses were the rigid kind of firework lighter things that glow for ages - the scientists amongst us had had great fun experimenting with these to get the timings right.)

Once everyone was clear, a madman among us ran around the staircases, flinging bangers in to ensure we had a reasonable audience. And then it began.

From the safety of a friend's bedroom (I didn't have a room overlooking the court) we watched as the display began. Before long the staff were roused. And this was where it got very funny. They were convinced there was someone out there lighting these things. So you would see the heavy figures hurtling across the court at random every time a new firework went off. But of course there was never anyone there.

It might not have been the most sophisticated of practical jokes, but it did take a lot of preparation and some precision setting up. And watching officialdom running around, trying to catch the guilty parties, will stay with me forever.

Comments

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense

Search This Blog