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.

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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')

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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

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Lee & Herring's Reasonably Scary Monsters

Stewart Lee and Richard Herring forgo pizza and football in order to watch a bargain bin video called "The World's 9 Scariest Monsters with Carol Vorderman" that features contributions from pop culture monsterologists Mike Gatting, Adam Woodyatt, Chris Packham, Pat Cash, David 'Kid' Jensen and others.

Made in 1998 - around the time the duo were doing the first series of 'This Morning With Richard Not Judy' -  for BBC2s 'Monster Night' it's a fun roast of those god-awful '100 Greatest...' clip shows in a format that pre-empts Gogglebox by some 15 years and will leave you with a new understanding of the tumultuous life of Mike Gatting.

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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.

A Bundle of Nerves

Joan Aiken
Peacock Books

I first came across Aiken's writing in an anthology called 'Ghostly Experiences', which I loved so finding this was a real treat.

This is a collection of short stories of a ghostly, macabre or just plain darkly humorous bent all written in what I'm beginning to see as Aiken's light and playful written voice.

The tone of the book is set immediately with the brilliantly comedic and twisted 'Cricket' and 'The Man Who Had Seen The Indian Rope Trick', both of which feature tales of stuffy Englishness coming face to face with something 'other' and losing out.  Next up is a fun but insubstantial tale of music and obsession ('Do You Dig Grieg?') and another of lust and avarice ('Belle of the Ball') before the book hits a decided high point with it's sole science fiction tale, 'Five Green Moons', as an angelic alien visits a small British town looking for somewhere he can make his home.  'Smell' adds revenge into the mix before 'Furry Night' brings romance, sport, peril and lycanthropy to the table.

At this point we are only 7 stories in and with 12 still to go  - the next boasts the frankly unparallelled title of 'As Gay as Cheese' - we are already certain that it's going to be a ride unlike many others.  Indeed, as it transpires, over the 19 tales we are treated to an imagination that is playful, inventive, exploratory, refined, bloodthirsty, absurd and peerless.  I am fast becoming a devotee of the lady's work and as such cannot recommend this highly enough.

The Young Ones

It seems that every generation has it's comedy zeitgeist; whether it be The Goon Show, That Was The Week That Was, Monty Python, The Goodies, Vic and Bob, Spaced, Little Britain or The Mighty Boosh.  A group of comedians turn up and say just the right things with just the right amount of humour to capture the times.  For me and mine it was The Young Ones.

4 student housemates, violent punk Vyvyan (Adrian Edmondson), depressed hippie Neil (Nigel Planer), pretentious anarchist wannabe (P)Rick (Rik Mayall) and smooth wideboy Mike (Christopher Ryan). Alongside them were arranged a comedy who's who of the era including Alexei Sayle,  Ben Elton, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. Over two series of 6 episodes each the quartet unleashed much needed comedic chaos over the British airwaves creating legions of fans and detractors each as vehemently entrenched in their position as the other.

Much of it does feel a tad dated today but it's also still wickedly funny and ridiculously creative.

The video below, 'Bambi', was the opening episode of series 2 and my favourite episode and has them picked to appear on University Challenge (and it's got Motorhead in it too).

Buy it here - The Young Ones - Series 1-2 [DVD]

Enjoy



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

British Film Forever - Magic, Murder & Monsters: The Story of British Horror & Fantasy

This is one episode (of 7) from a 2007 series celebrating the British Film industry.  Most of it seems absent from YouTube but the one I'm most interested in sharing with you all is here.

I'm pretty certain the title 'Magic, Murder & Monsters: The Story of British Horror & Fantasy'  is going to tantalise most, if not all readers of Wyrd Britain.  It's a 90 minute look back at the golden age of the genre filled with clips and talking heads. It's not really covering any new ground but is entertaining enough way to spend an hour and a half in the company of some old favourites.

I hope you enjoy.