It must be one of the oldest surviving pieces of health and safety advice: "light the blue touch paper and retire." If only it was that easy.

The words of pyrotechnic wisdom were playing through my mind as I fumbled for matches last night.
Having got home late from work and invited the neighbours and their children round for a firework show I was fighting against the clock. As I discovered when it comes to fireworks, ignite in haste, repent at leisure.

I thought I'd impress the assembled throng with a noisy rocket for starters. Match was duly applied to blue touch paper as per ancient instructions. Only one snag - it was the wrong end of said fuse and the blasted thing shot up almost instantaneously and blasted straight into the side of my face about an inch from my eye. I was lucky, it ricocheted off into the night leaving me almost unscathed. In the words of the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "I've had worse." 

From the safety of the end of the garden the audience missed my brush with disaster (perhaps it should be 'light the blue touch paper and expire') and merely grumbled about the lack of end product. And of course the show must go on. Having worked out that it was best to apply the match to the end of fuse furthest away from the firework, the rest of the display went without further incident. Until the end. I looked on with horror as the last of the wretched things fell over and began spitting great gobbets of fire at the kids. Fortunately they fell just short, harmlessly landing at their feet. The kids loved it of course, thinking it was all part of the display.

As I accepted the half hearted round of applause my mind was fast forwarding to the next seasonal Dad task fraught with danger - placing the star on top of the Christmas tree.