Introduction:
Finally, after many months, somebody has responded to the thing at the bottom of the front page which invites all and sundry to submit an article. Here it is - Peter McDonald's article about the Moomins.
Yes, the Moomins. They really did have the laughter, and all the living, didn't they? Their stories were always ones of laughter and living, and it was this simple premise which kept them a programme much loved by my sister, and Owen's sister.
I however, choose to remember it differently.
Is it not obvious that the Moomins are direct descendents/ancestors (for the dating is unclear in 'The Moomins') of the Russian Revolutionaries? Well, maybe not obvious as such, but arguable.
For instance -
1. The Russian Revolutionaries had the help of many sailors during their most famous 'Revolutionary Meeting' (popularly known as 'The Russian Revolution').
2. The Moomins lived on a boat. Or something. I think.
The Moomins also had strict principles in the programme, and would quite often hold showtrials with unclear motivations, which is not disimilar to the way a certain Russian 20th Century Dictator Dictated his Russian Country during the 20th century (and I am not thinking of Gorbachev. Unless he held showtrials, I don't know… no, anyway, I'm talking about Stalin).
But most people won't go along with this interpretive theory of the Moomins, so don't say it down the pub, or they'll say things like: "Pete, fuck off."; "Pete, what on earth are you going on about?"; "Pete, Stalin held showtrials, not Gorbachev, and stop dribbling on my toes." No, the best thing to do is to dress up as a Moomin and learn to speak in Russian (actually, it may be best to learn Russian first - those Moomin costumes are damned hot after a long time and that is how long it will take you to learn Russian). You will then be living proof of just how revolutionary Moomins can be! Prove the bastards wrong, ignorant wood-kickers. Bet they don't even believe that Sylvanian Families was really a covert sect of racial supremacists, bent on killing the proletariat and imposing their petit-bougeouis decadence on the workers (I suppose the Moomins would count as Gypsies, and would probably end up in Sylvanian Re-Education Centre).
But Moomins weren't all about political extremism (though I expect you by now agree that that was a large part of the Moomin Myth). The Moomins were also about a quite irritating theme tune that sticks in my mind even now, roughly 8 years since I last actually heard it. I would consider saying that I'm glad that I can only remember a few lines of the tune (those lines being the ones at the top of the article), but that's probably more irritating than not remembering any, because I am consigned to repeating the same lines over and over again. Perhaps I am in one of the circles of Hell, and this is my punishment for writing 'Agadoo' in a previous life, but I don't like that theory, cause I hate 'Agadoo'. The tune itself goes like so:
De-de-de-da-da, Deeya-de-de-da-da
(They have the laughter, and they have the living)
De-Daaaaaaaaah, Daaaaaaaaaah
(The Moooooomiiiiiiiiiiins)
There. Hum it once, you will never learn to stop, though you will go mad trying to.
The Moomins themselves were small white creatures, and looked not unlike albino versions of Geoffrey from Rainbows. There was a girl Moomin, and though no Moomins displayed any of their sexual organs through the show (though maybe they did, and Moomin sexual organs are something innocent on humans, like eyes, or noses?), you could tell she was a girl Moomin, 'cause they had cunningly put a ribbon in her hair. They were based on characters written by a childrens writer (frankly, they were hardly going to have been invented by an adult novelist - not exactly James Joyce stuff), but I don't think the Moomins in the books were much like the ones in the TV show - probably much more bourgeouis. Their tame exploits were no doubt tarted up for the more visual medium of Television.
Anyway, I have exhausted my patience with the Moomins as an article subject now, and refuse to continue.