November 5 at wilsonsalmanac.com

It's been quite a remarkable day for me (and I haven't forgotten that I still owe some replies to the good people who have left comments on this blog, but I have been quite exceptionally busy - I'll be there as soon as possible). Guy Fawkes Day is always quite a busy one for me and my work at November 5 on wilsonsalmanac.com, especially with Guy Fawkes Day, very important to the British reader and some others. Also, my housemate, Christnas Day, and I are making a fragrant lawn, instead of a grass one, because it will look and smell better, and not require any expenses such as a lawnmower, its repair, and fuel to drive it. It took me a little time to dig out the grass and help the prostrate herbs to grow further.

Also, I am making an aquarium, which I call 'Pip's Folly', named out of some respect for the extravagant buildings built many decades or some centuies ago by wealthy landowners in Britain. (You can read about follies at Wikipedia.) The telephone barely stopped ringing, and my Almanac office and bedoom is upstairs, quite a distance from the garden, and my 'folly'. I was trying to repair a serious leak in it, and had to tear myself away from the work several times. But I'm optimistic that we'll have both a fragrant herb lawn, and Pip's Folly, before long, and I intend to post photos. I think the lawn will take a year or two to establish, but all efforts are in progress.

I hope you enjoy November 5 at wilsonsalmanac.com, and here at the Blogmanac, making any comments and asking any questions. It's been very busy lately, but I trust that things are returning, from now on, to daily posts at the ezine (at Yahoo! Groups) and this blog. So, I intend to be back tomorrow. Make a great bonfire tonight, for Guy Fawkes night, if possible. See you tomorrow, friends. Now, on with the show. Love, Pip

Guy Fawkes Night, United Kingdom and New Zealand

Guy Fawkes Night (often referred to as Bonfire Night) is celebrated with bonfires and fireworks on November 5, or the closest Friday or Saturday night.

Until the 19^th Century, there was a special Church of England service for this commemoration in the Book of Common Prayer. Guy Fawkes Day became a public holiday in 1606 when it was proclaimed by an Act of Parliament. In commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot on this day in 1605, when Guy Fawkes and his comrades tried to blow up King James I and the whole English Parliament, English people still burn a 'guy' in effigy. 

Traditionally, the guy's cap was made of paper and knotted with ribbon-like paper strips. The dummy carried matches in one hand and a dark lantern in the other. Children would go around the streets asking for money, saying "Please to remember the guy!" In 1850, in Britain, there was a strong wave of anti-Catholic sentiment, and the guy was often in the likeness of the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster. Despite the nature of the events commemorated, little political or sectarian significance is attached to Guy Fawkes celebrations these days.

In 1857, the popular guy was Nana Sahib who had brought military embarrassment to the British during the so-called Indian Mutiny, in which uppity colonials stood up for their rights. At Lincoln's Field, England, the huge Guy Fawkes Night bonfire used to be made of 200 cartloads of fuel and was topped by 30 guys, or effigies of Guy Fawkes ...

 

2011 The world learned that a vast emerging crack had just been discovered in Pine Island Glacier, in the Antarctic, with a NASA plane mission providing the first-ever detailed airborne measurements of a major iceberg breakup in progress.

The glacier last 'calved' a significant iceberg in 2001; some scientists speculated that it was primed to calve again. But until an IceBridge flight on October 14, no one had seen any evidence of the ice shelf beginning to break apart. Since then, a more detailed look back at satellite imagery seems to show the first signs of the crack in early October.

The glacier is of special interest to scientists because it is big and unstable and so is one of the largest sources of uncertainty in global sea level rise projections. It was calculateded that broken free, the glacier will cover about 880 square kilometers of surface area.