Hop Tu naa has come round again. Well I hope the kids turn up tonight with a turnip and witches outfit. They will get no money from me if they don’t. I hope this stupid trick or treat lark has now gone back to America and never given a passport to roam again. I note that over in the UK, they are now calling tonight mischief night. Extra police are on duty and what have you. I don’t know where mischief night originates from but, it sounds even worse than trick or treat. Let’s hope that our good old Manx tradition of Hop Tu Naa is the only song that is sung tonight. I have my bag of money ready in the window by the front door, and I shall only be dipping into it for Hop Tu Naaers.

On Wednesday it is bonfire night of course. I have never really been able to work out if the Brits celebrate the fact that Guy Forks failed to blow up Parliament, or the fact that he tried to.

I am having a problem trying to get my head around this money problem at present. The banks are going to the wall. People are losing their jobs, and mortgages are up the creek. Yet, tomorrow night a bunch of English cricketers will take on the West Indies in a winners take all match for half a million quid. As if that isn’t enough, the BBC pay a guy who leaves insulting messages on an old man’s answering machine, and then broadcasts the insulting message to the entire nation, 6 million quid a year. The BBC says this Jonathan Ross guy has a huge audience. I wouldn’t call 2 million out of 60 million that damn huge. Anyway it seems to me, that if this guy is on 6 million a year and a bunch of cricketers are going to earn half a million quid for playing a game of cricket, there is plenty of money sloshing around in the world. It’s just that the majority of it seems to be in the hands of fruitcakes.

OK then folks, that enough from me for now. I shall be back on Monday God willing, and even if he isn’t all that willing hopefully I’ll still be back on Monday.

This is Tom Glassey on the banks of the Silverburn River.