I was referring to the sprits of the dead being around on that night, when I referred to the "Dark Side". I believe that in Mexico, there is a similar festival that commemorates the Night of the Dead at this time.
That would be the rather impressive Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) festival, which is usually celebrated on November the 1st & 2nd, and having studied the Day of the Dead festival for an Art & Design project way back in School, it's quite an interesting & colourful festival - indeed, the Mexicans will even produce things such as Clay (&other methods) Skulls with things that the person or persons that it is in memorial for liked / possessed etc... If i can find mine i'll try and phot it tomorrow(although rather obviously im not deceased! - I hope!).
Here's the wiki page about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead
As for Halloween. Personally, i'm not that bothered by it anymore just as long as A, It dosent affect me / try to stay clear of it, and B, No crime is committed / involved.
Earlier i had two kids saying the whole 'trick or treat' thing to me on my bike*. Just thought to my self, yeah...The trick is that im not letting you anywhere near my treats ive just brought from M&S, the treat. Im not going to a report you to those officers over there, and im not giving you anything either / close to telling you to bu**er off. Some kids can be alright - we had a few visiting earlier and had no problems whatsoever, but it's the ones who do go in for this 'Dont give me anything and i'll get you back attitude' i cant stand. Indeed Thames Valley stepped up patrols across their region this evening after some of the 'delightfull' tricks placed on peoples houses last year, including some idiot who thought it would 'only wake the residents of the house up and spook them'...by posting a firework through their letterbox. Which of course didnt work, set the house on fire, said person was arrested, convicted and now features in one of Thames Valley Police's add campaigns. :roll:
(To be fair too, i wasnt being forceably miserable - it's been raining fairly heavily in Basingstoke for most of the evening and i was getting pretty drenched!)