Right on cue
.. I just received an email from a non-b3tan explaining how he made do without fireworks this year:

We saw a fun thing at the kids school's open evening last month where the science teacher bubbled natural gas and a bit of oxygen through a bowl of water and washing up liquid and lit the bubbles to make a reasonable sized bang. In our shed there is a propane cylinder and an oxygen cylinder. A bucket of bubblified water was placed in the centre of the garden and I bubbled some of each gas through until there was a pile of bubbles on top. I threw in a match and got quite a good fireball but no bang. I tried more oxygen the next time and got a medium sized bang but nothing that special. For my next attempt I put in loads more oxygen and let the pile of bubbles get as big as possible. I threw in the match from as far away as possible and for a split second the world seemed to be ending. I stood by our garden gate shaking slightly with ringing ears and a headache that I didn't have before I threw in the match. It just so happened that a group of our local lads were walking down the path on the other side of the gate and they were exclaiming rather loudly that something jolly loud (or words to that effect) had just occurred and that they were really quite surprised (again add your own descriptive words). One saw me standing there and remarked "that scared the shit out of me", I paused for just a moment before saying, "me too!"
( teedyay, Mon 7 Nov 2005, 21:51, Reply)