The Whittlesea Bear is a case in point. Click on the link for a picture, and an account of what happens on Plough Mondays in this Fenland town.

But what it doesn't mention is that after the "Bear" has paraded riound the town during the weekend, people gather at a place outside the town and certemonially burn it. (They let the man who wore it out for the burning - this isn't Wicker Man territory.)

The anarchist Bakunin wrote "the urge to destroy is also a creative urge".

In most circumstances I tend to the view that you should always try to incorporate what you are replacing into what you replace. I loathe the assumption by developers that the first thing you do with a site is to level all the buildings, or if you are refitting a shop, you gut it completely of all its fixtures and fittings.

I think, leaving aside rituals like the Whittlesea Bear where what is being destroyed was made for that purpose (like a bonfire or a firework) the creative aspect of destruction only comes where what is being destroyed is being repudiated rather than replaced, so that its destruction is a liberating action. And even then I think you should make use of the bits in some way.

(Incidentally, is this thread for July 6th 2000, or 1900? I was strongly in favour of turning the calenders back to 1900 on January 1st, and seeing if maybe this time we could get the 20th century right.)