As I write this I have no internet access at home and my data has just ran out. It happens when you move houses. Apparently. But it is quite fitting as I want to discuss a behaviour that pre dates even the internet itself.
This post should be peppered with colourful and interesting facts, semi incorrect wiki quotes and important dates but as I don't have the internet right now I will bung some on at the end after it gets installed between 8am- 2pm.
There has long been a tradition in British culture of a very naughty but still very funny behaviour involving one's bottom. For years it was the go to move for sticking one finger up at the system or sticking to the man. Normally it was followed by a Benny Hill type police chase with a overweight stuffy nylon clad copper and a quick wrestle and then a bundle into a van montage.
I am of course talking about the humble and pretty retro moonie. Showing your bum to others with the implicit intention of causing distress and most importantly comedy havoc. If you do it on TV all the better. But when was the last time you saw someone pull a moonie? (Do write in and let me know).
This jester like show is something for the history books. You can now record yourself slagging off an MP and then Tweet it to them and hundreds of people. You don't have to que up outside television centre in the hope that you may get into a live recording for a certain prime TV show. All in the hope you can make it into the view of a camera with your bum out. It's too easy now. You can self produce moonies on an industrial scale. At one point people would waste an expensive ticket to a sporting event to get naked a run across the pitch. These naked suffragettes are a rare breed these days.
I remember Baddiel & Skinner's sofa chat show (post Fantasy Football) and a man trying to rip all his clothes off. Alan Partridge grabbed a few streakers in Knowing Me Knowing You all be it fictional ones. But it was effort for your art then. Pre planned clothes with velcro lined seems, planning where the cameras are pointed or which is going to be the easiest steward to get past and onto that pitch?
Doing a moonie out the back of a mini bus down the motorway was a given certainty not a lesser seen sight which it is now. But why? It is the simplest of gestures. It is less aggressive than swearing more welcoming than turning your naked body around to face the front. Has security become tighter? Probably. Less live TV exists. Bedroom equipment, webcams and such make your own show of deceit 100% doable and less brave. People hide behind user names and masks in their bedsit studios. Well I say bring the moonie back. Take time to disrupt live TV broadcasts with this jester-gesture. Get your bum out and have a laugh like it is 1978. Speaking of moonies the internet guy is here and I have a new place to park my bike...... Oh God.
Here is the part the internet produced:-
Noted modern incidents:
On 7 June 2002, Macy Gray mooned the crowd during her performance at Manchester Apollo concert in Ardwick Green, Manchester, England.
At the 2005 UK Music Hall of Fame awards ceremony, musician Ozzy Osbourne mooned the crowd after a set he played.
In October 2006, English Premiership footballer Joey Barton was fined £2,000 for mooning Everton fans.
On 10 May 2007, Yvette Fielding pulled a moonie out a Soho restaurant window on the final episode of the reality television series Deadline.
On 24 October 2011, economic inequality protester Liam Warriner of Sydney ran alongside the motorcade of Queen Elizabeth II and a waving Prince Phillip for 50 metres with an Australian flag clenched between his exposed buttocks, before being accosted by police.