Optimum timescale of a firework display should be same as a pop song

'Three to five minutes is the ideal length of time to spend looking at a load of brightly-coloured pyrotechnics exploding in the sky'

Some people complain that the whole show is over too quickly. To me that’s its appeal. The optimum timescale of a firework display should be the same as a pop song. Three to five minutes is the ideal length of time to spend looking at a load of brightly-coloured pyrotechnics exploding in the sky. After that it gets repetitive.

Who wants fireworks that last as long as a symphony? I could never understand the appeal of the display during the festival in August when people would gladly sit in a park for hours on end. But at least that was in the summer.

In midwinter in Scotland, nobody wants to be hanging around in the freezing cold any longer than is strictly necessary. What we want to be doing is carrying on with the important business of getting insanely drunk. Which is the true Hogmanay tradition. That’s what Scottish people did at New Year’s Eve long before all this fireworks nonsense.

Hopefully, the weather tomorrow night will allow the festivities to go ahead without a hitch. Given how appalling the weather can be at this time of year, it’s a minor miracle that the fireworks and the street party ever actually happen. At the start of the Millennium, the Street Party was cancelled two years in a row due to high winds and hazardous weather conditions.

I did a show at The Stand Comedy Club on New Year’s Day the first of those times. It was quite probably the best audience I have ever played to. The venue was packed to the rafters with excited and enthusiastic people from all four corners of the globe. Having travelled half way around the world to go to a party that never happened, they were determined to make up for it the following night.

The next year, when the whole shebang was cancelled again, I overheard a drunken conversation in the street along the following lines: “Have you got the right time?”

“Just after midnight.”

“Midnight? What’s happened to the fireworks?"

“Have you no’ heard ? Hogmanay’s been cancelled”

“Aw!! Does that mean it’s still 2004?” Happy New Year.

Optimum timescale of a firework display should be same as a pop song - Vladimir McTavish