Halloween

I thought that maybe being in a wheelchair would stop my louche lunching ways, but somewhat to my own surprise (though not that of my mates, I’d wager), this isn’t the case. ‘You push – I’ll pay!’ has become my battle cry. But as I am wheeled about at this time of year, a pucker of irritation repeatedly flickers across my features. Pumpkin this, pumpkin that – all leading inevitably to the monstrosity that is pumpkin spiced latte. The final straw in my deciding that pumpkin spiced lattes are utterly, well, deplorable was when the ghastly Hillary Clinton described herself as a fan – ‘until I saw how many calories there are in them’. Soz, Hills, but it’ll take more than losing a bit of weight to keep a dog like yours on the porch.

It was the early evening of 31 October and I was three years old, sitting in the living room with Mum, on the brink of bedtime, when I turned to the corner and a decorative wicker armchair. (It was the 1980s.) ‘Mum,’ I enquired sweetly, ‘who’s that man sitting there?’ Mum, suitably unnerved, asked me for details about the invisible guest, whereupon I outlined a farmer resembling every description Mum had heard of her great-grandfather. Her great-grandfather was a 19th-century ploughman who worked the fields where our home would later be built. My parents had never spoken of him in my presence.

If you’re hesitant to ask someone if they are American or Canadian — the latter are often offended to be mistaken for the former — ask them instead about their favorite holiday. It isn’t a foolproof method, but if they say Halloween then you know you’re talking to an American. No other nationality would choose it — because no one else gets it so right. The origins of All Hallows’ Eve belong to Ireland and Scotland. The Celtic festival Samhain was not only a huge feast to mark the start of winter: it was a day full of superstitious activity, which included bonfires to clear the air of ghosts and sacrifices to appease anything all-powerful that might curse food supplies during the dark months.