The Rites of Mumufication
August 25, 2017
Where the FUUK do I even begin? I’m sitting in bed, face still caked in paint, utterly spent. Five hours of sleep in three days, six items of food, and a seven-hour train ahead of me tomorrow. I keep staring at the brick I’ve placed across the room. After several days of denying to my friends that I’d joined a cult, I’m pretty sure I’ve joined a cult.
Prepare yourselves: this is going to be the most incoherent, nonsensical entry yet.
I’ll start at the end.
Fucking synchronicities. My journey began with them six weeks ago, and it ended with them — in the best taxi ride of my life. Leaving the Invisible Wind Factory, I flagged a cab back into town. The driver’s first line: “So is that your usual Friday night get-up?”
“Here we go,” I thought.
I brushed it off, but he pressed. I asked if he knew the KLF. “Oh, Bill and Jimmy? Yeah, of course. I love Bill — read all his books.”
Holy shit. The most cultured taxi driver in the world.
For 20 minutes we flowed. He recommended Bad Wisdom, I tried to explain what had just happened over the last three days. As I got out, he yelled from the window: “Kick Out the Jams, Motherfucker!” Legend.
The Pull
Rewind to noon at The Florrie, where I reported to Gimpo as instructed. Stories were already flying that the Ice Kream Van had broken down and been pushed from town. It quickly became clear this was the “large heavy object” we’d be dragging.
Gimpo, in his inimitable style, handed us each a short rope to tie to the longer ones already attached to the van. “We haven’t really thought this through,” he shrugged, while Jimmy and a mechanic tinkered under the bonnet.
There would be 23 pullers per leg, three legs total — 69 pullers.
Before we set off, I queued for face paint. Some thought we were badgers, but it was skulls — Toxteth Day of the Dead style. Though in truth, most of us looked like pandas. My lack of sleep didn’t help.
The Rites
Upstairs in the Florrie, the volunteers gathered before three giant screens, like pillars. It felt like a place of worship — fitting for what followed.
Oliver opened. He’s been a star all week, his presence a joy.
Three robed volunteers in triangular hats performed alongside a film projected across the screens: 2023: The Triptych. Abstract, disorienting, pyramid-obsessed. Tangerines, Vladimir Putin, Starbucks cups doctored with Yoko Ono’s face, bombs, an all-seeing eye, something called ArtWar. Imagine episode eight of Twin Peaks and you’re halfway there.
Then came the Undertakers — Callender & Callender — who joined Drummond and Cauty to form Callender, Callender, Cauty & Drummond Undertakers.
Our first hymn: “Don’t be afraid, you’re already dead.”
They reframed “ancestors” as not just blood relatives, but everyone and everything that’s shaped us — artists, authors, musicians, first betrayals, lost dreams. Our ancestors are our experiences.
They introduced a voodoo-like spirit of death, fond of acid house, dirty talk, expensive rum, and cheap cigars. (Name forgotten — 3:45am brain fog.)
Then came the reveal: Mumufication. Each of us could one day receive a brick, engraved MuMu. It would sit in our homes until our deaths, at which point 23 grams of our ashes would be placed inside and the brick fired, to live forever in the People’s Pyramid on Toxteth Day of the Dead (November 23rd each year).
Bleak? A bit. But with humour, absurdity, and joy threaded through.
The Procession
A procession entered. Two coffins. A choir of volunteers. A cloaked figure. Hymn two: Justified & Ancient.
The cloak was thrown back. Jarvis Cocker. “They called me up in Sheffield Town, they said Jarvis, stand by The JAMs.”
He did. We sang: “All bound for MuMu Land.”
Then the Great Pull North began.
The Ice Kream Van — now with coffins inside — was hauled through Liverpool. Bagpipes, banners, chants: “Badger Badger Badger Kull Kull Kull!” and “What the FUUK is going on?”
No permission from the council. Just Gimpo marshalling chaos.
Police showed up. One volunteer in hi-vis told them the men in charge were in the van. Later, when my turn came to pull (short arse, so I was roped nearest the van), we took the van straight down the Strand. Smooth sailing. I even cracked a beer mid-pull.
Bill and Jimmy looked to be loving it, honking the horn, blasting the siren, joining chants. At one point the crowd burst into When the Saints Go Marching In.
Leg three was less smooth. A police van tried to block us. Volunteers pushed it from behind. Others — myself included — planted ourselves in front, knees nudged by the bumper until the police relented and let us pass.
We reached Clarence Dock, opposite the Invisible Wind Factory, where the Pyre awaited: a 23-foot pyramid of wood.
Torches lit. Coffins placed. For 20 seconds, I genuinely thought we were about to witness a human sacrifice as Oliver, shirtless with “Mu” painted across his chest, circled with a megaphone. He did not throw himself on the fire, thankfully. The JAMs lit the Pyre. We watched it burn.
Then came the bricks. Mumufication was real. I now own one. Which means tomorrow I’ll have to explain to my mum that I have both a tattoo and a brick to be buried in. Silver lining: I’ve saved the family a fortune in funeral costs.
The Graduation Ball
Midnight: the first (and last) live performance of Badger Kull. Their only song: Toxteth Day of the Dead. Four bass players, one note, chants.
The volunteers went wild. The “norms” — ticket buyers with no clue what we’d just endured — looked utterly bemused. They’d essentially paid to watch three minutes of piss-taking. The ultimate bandwagon-hype lesson.
Meanwhile, DJ Food and Greg Wilson actually killed it, though I did walk in to a Smiths track.
Graduation certificates were handed out. In the crush, Jimmy signed mine, then passed it to Bill. As I turned to leave, Bill tapped my arm and offered me a handshake.
My week had started with me too nervous to offer one. Now it ended with him offering me his. Why? Who knows. It probably means nothing. But after three days of obsessive meaning-hunting, it means everything.
Thanks, Bill. It’s been a pleasure.
I still have much to say, but it’s 5:57am and my brain is fried. I’ll let it stew and give it a few days before I try to interpret everything.
For now: thank you to everyone who’s read along with me. It’s been wild. Let’s carry it into the Dark Ages.
Signing out from the newly-tagged Badger Kull laptop.