Cross talk: Fireworks should be banned

YES

Spring Festival saw pyromaniacs revel in an explosive-fuelled free-for-all. The fireworks were not a well-choreographed display of lights, timed to bring in the Chinese New Year with extra bang. Rather, they were a relentless onslaught of cracking skies, beginning early each day and dragging long into the night for the two weeks of the holiday season.

At first, it was a thrill - watching colored trails of fire spill through the dark, creating an interrupted canvas of lights probably visible from every lounge room in Beijing. But the appeal wore thin as the visual spectacular dropped off, giving way instead to night after night of rumbling dynamite, acrid smoke, and ringing car alarms. Explosives were detonated everywhere, like some budget-film approximation of a war zone.