Bagpuss, Songs from Bagpuss
Bagpuss, Bagpuss, big fat furry cat-puss. I was considering writing this as a parody of the song of the flea, or the row, row, row your boat song where the poor wee mice end up getting gunked with “revolting stilton cheese” and then sticky with orange squash (I wonder if that song being played and sung through our childhoods led Chris and I to despise orange squash yet both be rather ecstatic about the idea of stilton cheese…particularly since he relocated to the orient…

I had a night of silliness and pink wine with Sofia recently, and when the Spinal Tap DVD we’d hired decided to stop working (I think it knew somehow that Sofia’s terribly Nordic brain wasn’t really digging the songs about fat arses) we decided to play around on Youtube, her trying to show me a translated version of Pippi Longstocking and me digging out clips of Chorlton and the Wheelies and Pufnstuf (have to find that soundtrack…). I found her the opening titles of Bagpuss and yes, we laughed all so happy at whatever the lines are “Emily thought Bagpuss was the most beautiful…the most wonderful…the most fabulous…saggy old cloth cat in the whole world”. Oh God, it’s so nice though. This is another part of my recognition/love thing (that will become a doctorate one day I’m sure, once I’ve stopped worrying about nuclear paranoia and the cold war…and yes I know how out of date I am but being of obsesional mind it’s not like you choose this or anything…) - is there anything intrinsic in Bagpuss that is wonderful or is it that I remember it? And recently remember finding the CD in the Meadows branch of Avalanche Records in Edinburgh, and remember buying it for Chris that horrible Christmas, and he capering around in delight bursting into spontaneous song of the flea? Or perhaps Sofia laughing and being charmed by it too, having had no memory of it in childhood is proof that there is something intrinsically wonderful? Oh yes, I can hear Chris doing that “Ooooh!” noise he makes when he has been given something particularly nice.

The mice, the mice, the mice…the song they sing is “Sumer is a-cumin in”, allegedly the first piece of music printed outside of monasteries etc…fit for populist consumption outside of all those dark and cold churches, to be sung on the street (or in homes) instead. They sing it at the end of the Wickerman too…and goodness they manage to look jolly pleased with themselves as Edward Woodward burns. Although it still sounds very sweet when the wee mice sing it, I haven’t yet decided if I think of Bagpuss when I watch the Wickerman, or think of the Wickerman when I think of Bagpuss. Neither way is catastrophic, although I think I would rather see Madeleine set on fire. She seems to occupy the “Soo” territory of the female character who needs kicking in the face…only one female there and of course she has to speak in that hideous voice and melt niceness and prettiness on every situation…how depressing. Revolting simpering bloody female. What does it say about me if I reveal a soft spot for Professor Yafl? And yes I’m sure it’s spelled that way because there is a certain Yiddish quality to him. When I was with Jon and we talked about Bagpuss (because everybody, but everybody does, except those bloody people who have him on wallets and folders and cheapen and destroy all that is good and pure in the world) he said he always liked Gabriel the Toad. Ugh. Gabriel plays his banjo very nicely I'm sure, but he’s bloody boring, I much prefer the way Professor Yafl twitches over to peruse whatever treasure has been found and gets in arguments with the mice… Bagpuss reminds me of Jasper, a fabulous and wonderful cat we knew when me and Chris were growing up (He lived in our house and was lovely and fat and black and jolly, and then as he got older, very dignified and gracious).

I’ve hardly mentioned the songs, they are very nice and funny except when they’re twee and annoying. Christ – did they precipitate Joanna Newsom?