Happy Birthday Spike.

Happy birthday to Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan, comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright and actor.

Spike was born in Ahilya Nagar, India on April 16, 1918 and died at his home on the remarkably named Dumb Woman's Lane in Rye, Sussex on February 27, 2002.
He'd told us he was ill.

...........

Onos.
We have cracked the midnight glass
And loosed the racketing star-crazed night into the room.
The blind harp sings in the late fire-light
Your hand is decked with white promises.
What wine is this?
There are squirrels chasing in my glass,
Good God! I'm pissed!

(From 'Small Dreams of a Scorpion')

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Silly Verse For Kids

Spike Milligan
Puffin Books

Silly Verse for Kids - a hilarious collection of silly poems by Spike Milligan! A collection of the absurd, ridiculous, sublime and characteristically anarchic verse from the brilliant Spike Milligan. With his very own illustrations, this collection, which includes the famous On the Ning Nang Nong will make you laugh from the bottom of your belly - just like Spike did.

I've been a fan of Spike Milligan as long as I can remember.  Whether it be watching the various Qs as a kid or reading the wartime memoirs as a teenager or getting wrecked and watching 'The Bed-Sitting Room' in my early twenties. I still think one of the funniest pieces of TV I remember seeing was a re-purposed Goon Show skit in one of the 'Q' series that I've always known as the dustbin dance.

For those of you who've not discovered them the various volumes of his wartime memoirs are a brilliantly funny and at times deeply poignant read that are heartily recommended but for a more instantaneous hit of pure Milligan his poems are the place to head to.  I quite like a bit (and I do mean a bit) of poetry but I'm in no way a connoisseur. I've only ever learnt three poems off by heart and they're all by him with one of them appearing here.

Rain

There are holes in the sky
Where the rain gets in
But they're ever so small
That's why rain is thin.

(all copyright to the owner)

These poems were all created to amuse his children and that's the sort of mindset that you should approach them with.  The collection is a cavalcade of the joyous abandon of logic and rules, filled with playful wordplay and inventive stupidity that sees the creation of works of wonder like 'On the Ning Nang Nong', 'Contagion' and 'Failure' and makes this a book that you can pick up again and again.

Oh, and it's almost impossible to read them out loud with finding yourself doing a Spike Milligan impersonation.

Buy it here - Silly Verse for Kids (Puffin Poetry)

The Phantom Raspberry Blower Of Old London Town

For anyone growing up in the UK during the 1970s and 80s 'The Two Ronnies' show was a TV staple.  Running between 1971 and 1987 the show, featuring the double act of Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett, was a massive and enduring success with audiences of up to 20 million viewers at it's peak.  The show was essentially sketches - tricksy wordplay being a particular favourite (four candles) - and monologues - Corbett's rambling attempts to tell a simple joke - but many of the series also featured a serial story, several episodes of around 9 or 10 minutes each that ran through the series.

Two of these series have stuck with me through the years.  I'll return to the second one sometime in the future but the one I want to show you today was my favourite as a kid, a Jack the Ripper parody called 'The Phantom Raspberry Blower Of Old London Town '.

Presented by 'Chopper Films' and starring amongst others, Vincent Prance, Peter Cushion, Miles Behind, Willy Eckerslike, Lydia Dustbin & Norma Stitz (it was the 1970s). 'The Phantom Raspberry Blower' was written, according to the credits, by 'Spike Milligan and a gentleman'; the gentleman in question being the hugely productive Ronnie Barker.  It tells the story of a Victorian London terrorised by a cloaked and top hatted figure who 'stuns' his upper class victims by 'blowing a raspberry' (making a farting noise (it was the 1970s)) at them.

As was often the case with British comedy of the time it includes some pretty suspect 'humour' (some decidedly dodgy stereotyping at the expense of anyone who isn't a heterosexual white British male)  that leaves a bitter taste on modern palettes.  Spike Milligan's hand in the script is obvious (possibly never more so than in the scenes referred to above) and the sight of two Queen Victoria's skipping hand in hand across a park is pure Milligan and would have been very much at home in any of the Q series.

There are moments that raised a smile and it was interesting to watch the whole thing together for the first time especially as I had no memory at all of how the thing ended. If you're a Spike fan or a Two Ronnies fan it's probably still worth checking out as you'll no doubt be fully aware that things are going to get quite near to your knuckles in a fairly typical display of crass 70s stereotyping and there are a couple of sniggers per episode.  If you're not then I suspect there's little here to change your mind as for the most part it all feels fairly hackneyed, a little bit aimless and with all allowances for the time it was made put aside the casual racism and sexism begins to grate quite quickly.

Here it is though in all it's dubious glory for you to make up your own minds.



..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain