Fat Tuesday

I don't get Mardi Gras.

Actually, that's not true. I completely get Fat Tuesday itself - a day of indulgence where everyone wears fancy dress and gets so drunk that they can't stand up and uses the parade as their preferred method of transport (got to get to Rampart and Dumaine? Gonna need at least a trombone for that kind of journey).

What I don't get are the proper parades. What we'd call carnivals. You stand in the cold for up to twelve hours at a time, whilst people on lorries throw stuff at you. A drive-by beading if you will. And people seem to take the accumulation of beads seriously - the locals all go out with step ladders and massive beachbags to put the beads in. I just don't get it in anyway - and it goes on for five days. Five days of people throwing tacky plastic beads at your face. Five days.

Me? I lasted about twenty minutes.