For years, nay decades, I have hated, hated, HATED Winnie the Pooh with a vengeance. Winnie the SHIT I used to call the waddling, obese little underachiever.
I blame Disney. The Disney Pooh bear is so far from Milne and Shephard's as to be a different species. Disney's Pooh is a vile, sunset-yellow freak with large, greedy eyes, a smooth, furless body and a prudish little red jumper. Oh and the voice they've given him makes him sound like a kiddy fiddler with a faulty tracheotomy.
He has been marketed to DEATH. You can now clothe your sprogs in WTP clothes, buy them talking WTP toys, (yup, with THAT voice) decorate their rooms with him, make them watch his 4000 spin-off movies, feed them vile biscuits called 'Pooh's rumbly tumblies' (I am not kidding) and even scrape the resulting excreta from their tiny little arses with WTP disposable nappies.
But now I am making a public confession. After all these years of Pooh hating, (coprophobia?) I have actually got around to reading the books. I have read Winnie the Pooh to Puggle and we are now halfway through The House At Pooh Corner. They are really, really good. The characters are well observed, the writing often sharp and witty, and the illustrations, in their proper context, are superb. This has come as quite a shock to me. I have even flicked through the poems in the back and they are funny and sweet. Puggle agrees.
One by one, the things I railed against are shuffling up to me with fluffy paws outstretched to offer a truce. Soon I shall have to rename this blog Friendly Little Terrapin or something.
Sorry Pooh.
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