Black Friday

Yesterday of course, but what's it all about?  Well it's an American "invention" - Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday in November, and - rather like our Boxing Day sales, the day after is seen as a day for going shopping, and most people take it as a holiday.  But why "black"?  After all, a black day usually means a very bad day. Well apparently that's how it started out - it was the police who originally named it Black Friday because of all the problems they had with heavy traffic and crowds of shoppers and people fighting over bargains and such, but the shops adopted the name on the basis that in their books, black figures indicate profit.  I think as far as this country is concerned it's a transitory thing - last year was a bit manic, but this year shops seem to have stretched the whole thing out over a week or so and yesterday generally didn't seem to be that different from any other Friday.