Why do fireworks still appeal?

As the New Year hangover slowly fades and memories of what we were doing that midnight come back in patchesmany will feature fireworks.

- RICHARD CHEMALY

There's little humanity has kept for 2300 years, but we've managed to hold onto gunpowder. That's not all too surprising.

We like things that look pretty and go boom. Why else would Oppenheimer get seven Oscars?

But watching the fireworks go off, I couldn't help but to partially repurpose the phrase, okay boomer. It just seems so... senseless.

Understandably, people want to celebrate and loud, pretty things have been the way since we discovered that copper sulphate burns blue-green but, really, all it is, is lighting a fuse and standing back. It hardly feels exciting, at least conceptually.

It's a lot better than firing AK-47s in the air but also feels less involved than putting a fist in the air and shouting huzzah.

You're going to the shop, buying some sticks, lighting a match and sending them off into the air. It's the gas-braai of celebration.