When you blow out the candles on your birthday cake, what do you wish for? According to a study, you should probably wish that you don’t suffer from the effects of particulate pollution at your party.
Researchers from the University of Birmingham and the University of Manchester found that particles produced by burning candles can impair brain function, even after a very modest period of exposure.
To mitigate the problem, the boffins suggest improved ventilation – presumably because a draught from an open window is the likeliest way to ensure any candles don’t stay alight for long.
Now this is all very well, but when I have an open fire smouldering away in the sitting room, it is probably fair to say that a briefly-lit, 2in candle (or even 46 of them) on a cake in the kitchen is the least of my worries.
It is bad enough feeling guilty about heating the rest of the house with our gas boiler, or driving our petrol-fuelled car, or all the other things that are bad for planet but that are hard to stop doing. Having now to be angsty about my birthday candles is the icing on the cake.
I've refused to celebrate my birthday since I was 13 (but I will accept cash gifts)
Read MoreNevertheless, I think I’m going to follow the science on this one – although not because I am actually too concerned about being in close proximity to a lit wick for a moment or two. Instead, I’m going to heed the researchers’ warning for the rather more selfish reason that I find the candle on cake tradition very irritating.
Birthdays? Good. Cake? Great. Birthday cake covered with tiny candles that take an age to light, burn faster than polyester and are impossible to blow out? No thanks. I’d rather have my cake and eat it without the flavour of wax haunting my special day.
Do I feel differently when it’s someone else’s birthday? I do not. True, my teenage daughter still beams when we dim the lights and appear with her candlelit gateau. But even she recognises that when the flames are extinguished and the annual wish for a pony has been made (sorry, poppet, never going to happen), the cake looks rather less glorious thanks to being covered in a row of holes where once there were candle holders.
My nine-year-old son hates the whole fandango. For years he refused to have a birthday party at all, and he continues to despise even close family singing “Happy Birthday” to him.
My lush harmony line does not make it better, apparently. Whereas many children like elaborate cake creations, with fondant-crafted toppings, my son likes an old-fashioned Victoria sponge. Candles are merely a distraction from the main event. He is a wise child.
As for adults who insist on candles, I’m afraid it’s pure attention-seeking. We all know the kind of person who, even well into middle age, believes that the world should stop turning when the wondrous anniversary of their birth comes around.
And if there are not exactly the right number of candles on their cake, there will be hell to pay – even if 50 waxy flames on a smallish lemon drizzle present a fire hazard of much greater severity than merely a smidge of air pollution.
Just last year, six people were injured in a Greek nightclub when a grown-up’s birthday cake, complete with giant sparkler, set fire to a decoration hanging from the ceiling. I bet a tray of unburning baclava would have been far tastier and a damn sight safer.
I’m not suggesting there isn’t a place for some extra decoration to make your birthday cake special. Some piped icing perhaps, or a couple of fondant flowers to mark the occasion – anything that is pretty, edible and won’t create smoke. As for candles though, let’s snuff them out for good.
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