On Guy Fawkes day, Tim and I had a ceremonial book burning of a box of horrible evangelical and "educational" [home schooly] books culled from one of his mum's shelves. Great fun. Burning, in general, is great fun.

Fire rivals trees for prettiness. Turquoise and diamond white flames flash in the corners. The ash from book pages remains in sheets and can be read from, if you don't breathe on them, because the ink is a pigment made from metal oxides. Before they are consumed, the pages glow purple and pink. The books collapse progressively into a series of kaleidoscope flowers. The sparks crawl over the edges like tiny worms. Pretty, unbelievably so.

And the temperature and the fact that this temperature is the product of pounds and pounds of material is oddly exciting. I liked the temperature, because it was icy cold out, and the air was positively wet.