Christmas kicks off

Christmas starts to make its presents felt (geddit?) around the end of August here in England, when the first holiday chocs and mince pies find their way to the shelves.

Americans are lucky, they have Halloween first to get out of the way, plus the official first weekend for Christmas shopping is not till after Thanksgiving towards the end of November.

In England about the only thing keeping Christmas off the calendar is Bonfire Night on the 5th of November. The bonfire embers were still glowing when thousands crowded into Albert Square in front of the Town Hall for the switching on of the Christmas lights on the 7th.

Manchester hosts a superb Christmas season with several weeks of festive markets, skating rinks, decorations and street lights threaded through the squares. Each year the opening ceremony is much the same with an assortment of washed-up soap stars, X Factor also-rans and local radio deejays screeching into the mic for about an hour.

The main reason I keep going is to see the 10-minute fireworks finale set to music. I remember one year it was set to The Nutcracker Suite and it was remarkable how the big bursts matched the crescendos, while floating sparklers wafted along in time with the melody.

This year it was Supercalifragili...whatever with music from Mary Poppins (the West End production is transferring to Manchester). So not nearly so classy. Never mind, I was not paying much attention to the music because this time I took my tripod and snapped away throughout.

My camera has a default fireworks setting which keeps the lens open for 4 seconds at a time. It was my first time shooting fireworks so I didn't want to spend time fiddling with manual settings and missing half the show.

These are just some of the thumbnails from the night, straight out of the camera. I'm sure with a bit of tweaking there are a couple more good shots from the show. Not long to go now!