Sherbet Tasting

Just browsing through a few pages of thumbnails on this site tonight it becomes immediately obvious just how big Halloween has become as a festival. I only found out the other day that it's actually a public holiday in Ireland. But is it all about just the fun of dressing up and having a good time, or does it speak of a deeper significance, a need to let in the irrational to our increasingly rational lives? It leaves me a bit cold to be honest - in the flat sense rather than a ghostly one. I can't say I've ever embraced it, or ever felt the need to. That might be because it was never part of my childhood. I was never brought up into the tradition.

So I observe the antics of Halloween with something of a detached bewilderment. There are many obscure rituals, one of the oddest witnessed here today in Shipley in the form of sherbert tasting. I tried the strawberry but was then recommended the caramel. That was a revelation. But I had to buy some lemon to return to the office with, which really did throw me right back into childhood. I can imagine that lemon sherbets are just as popular now as they've ever been. The memory is so strong that I can almost feel the sensation in my mouth as I write about it.

Finally, at the end of another really hard week, I decided spontaneously to go catch "Nightcrawler" on release at Pictureville in Bradford tonight. I just wanted a bit of escapism and the film duly delivered. An incredibly clever and chilling piece of film-making with one set piece which was as good as anything I've seen in a very long while. My tip for a few gongs at the Oscars.

PS It was a day for shorts and a T-shirt. And I certainly wasn't the only one in summer attire. It has to be the warmest Halloween on record.