HALLOWEEN

I've never been a fan of Halloween. I've always thought of it as an American holiday designed to line the pockets of confectionery companies and dentists whose Easter-related workload has started to drop off. I wasn't expecting people in Scotland to make a big deal of it, but they certainly did. There were Halloween costumes and decorations on sale in almost every corner store, bright orange pumpkins suddenly appeared on supermarket shelves, and every pub or bar in town seemed to be hosting a Halloween costume event or at the very least offering 'spooky' drink specials to celebrate the occasion.

Walking down the street the last two nights I've encountered one blood-spattered doctor carrying a machete, two vampires (although one might have been a walking corpse), a gorilla, a Playboy bunny well on her way to frostbite, a zombie and a superhero who I couldn't quite place. My Scottish flatmate was really into it too, she carved the pictured jack-o-lantern, decorated the house in cobwebs and bats and made some yummy-looking toffee apples.

I've since learned that it was actually the Irish and Scottish who took the tradition of Halloween to North America, and its Celtic and pagan origins make very interesting reading. The jack-o-lanterns (originally turnips) were carved to resemble devil faces so as to scare off the spirits. Although trick-or-treating is American, it probably comes from the Scottish tradition of "guising", where children were disguised as spirits to help them blend in with the souls flying around that night and provide added protection. Sorcery, druidism, rituals, phantoms, pagan festivals: I don't know why I haven't gotten into this earlier!

I was merely an observer this year, so unfortunately I've missed my chance to predict the future through communing with the spirits on the one day that the line between the living and dead becomes blurred. Now that I've scrubbed away the cynical Australian conception of Halloween, you can bet I'm going to have a huge one next year. Of course I have no idea where in the world I'll be this time next year, if only I had asked the Halloween ghosties...