Halloween has got to be the ugliest of “holidays”. Christmas can be tacky, Easter can be schmaltzy – but at their best there is a lot of room for beauty. Twinkling lights and golden bells, holly wreaths and shiny baubles. Pastel colours and fluffy chicks. Scampering rabbits in the dewy grass.

Take a walk through any $2 shop and you will come across the most butt-ugly, offensive to the eyes, cheap and nasty collection of utter shit that you would never willingly bring into your house at any other time of the year. All in the name of Halloween.

Severed hands, floppy rubber-masks, plastic bats and spiders and messy, tangly cobweb stuff. I often try to imagine the factory where these products were made. Rural immigrants in big industrial Chinese cities reporting to work in a horrible factory.

“Today you are on the floppy rubber skeleton line”

And after tomorrow, when all the people are de-Halloweening their houses, do they store all this finery to be used again next year? Or are severed hands disposable?

But in  the interest of full disclosure, we paid $27 for this pumpkin.