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Rating: 
Summary: A British friend gave me the paperback.
Review: And I haven't stopped laughing. I had never heard of Spike Milligan before, but I found his book funny in a way that only the Brits can be, and touching with many moving parts about the war from a crazy man's perspective. I have since read five other Spike Milligan books, and none of them were a disappointment. Seeing WWII from Spike's point of view is realistic, funny, and very thought provoking. My British friend told me he (Spike) was crazy. At first I thought that was just a saying, but it's true. Spike is mentally defunct, in a very happy and bubbly kind of way. You will enjoy this book.
Rating:
Summary: one of the funniest ever
Review: I usually don't like war memoirs but I'd read anything by this guy. It is one of the funniest and most original books ever. Spike Milligan is a one-off and I'm so disappointed it's out of print. Our family's copy has fallen to bits cause so many people have read it. It should definitely be put into print again AND SOON!
Rating:
Summary: Funny, and yet so sad
Review: I'm usually not one to read autobios, but since it is Spike Milligan I made the exception. It was funny, just as I expected it to be, but there were parts that were very moving and sad; as should be expected I suppose for a WWII novel. His accounts of the absurd are always dead on hilarious, and I found myself reading a passage over and over and just cracking up.
I knew that Spike suffered from depression, and I think in parts it was very apparent. The places that are especially poignant are when he relates a humorous tale, and then explain how he visited the place years later, and how the memories are too much for him to bear. In one particular paragraph he laments: "Oh, Yesterday, how you plague me!"
I love Spike Milligan and his comedy, and have read several run-of-the-mill internet bios on him but his own biography really brings him to life. A great read!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent war memoirs
Review: I've now read all of Spike Milligan's war memoirs and think they're excellent (I'm also not a big fan of the Goons). While generally very funny you can really sense his depressive moods even at times when he's not explicit about them.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent war memoirs
Review: I've now read all of Spike Milligan's war memoirs and think they're excellent (I'm also not a big fan of the Goons). While generally very funny you can really sense his depressive moods even at times when he's not explicit about them.
Rating:
Summary: A Goon's memories of WW2
Review: In one of the funniest autobiographies I have read, Spike Milligan brings his sense of the ridiculous to his life as a gunner in the British army during WW2. This is the first in a series of autobiographical books that describe his wartime experiences. It covers a brief outline of his family history and the period from just before the war to just before his unit embarks for service overseas. Spike Milligan's sense of humor permeates the book, and to my mind works really well. However if you don't like the sort of British humor used by the Goons (or their cousins/descendants, Monty Python) then this could be a problem. I first read this book as a kid at school. I couldn't put it down then, and got some very strange looks from teachers for laughing out loud for no apparent reason (they couldn't see the book - and I didn't and don't usually laugh out loud while reading or sitting in class). Reading it again, the book is still a delight. An offbeat view of the world that looks at ordinary men coping with extraordinary and difficult times. This is a fascinating and very personal account of the wartime experiences of one of the most original British humorists.
Rating:
Summary: Has anybody seen our gun? No, what colour is it?
Review: This is a review of the series of seven embellished autobiographies as a whole, rather than just this one book. "Adolf Hitler:..." sees our skinny hero called up to serve his country in 1940 and introduces many of the other characters - particularly those involved in the genesis of The Goon Show. In subsequent books the war takes Spike to Africa, Italy and Liberated Europe and is a wonderful insight of those turbulent times through the eyes of a sometimes scared, sometimes overbearingly joyful, sometime shellshocked trumpet playing clown from London. This series takes you through the ups and downs: the death of friends, the pining for a world forever changed, romance in Capri, continual banter between friends, cold collation and the bloody awful Warsaw concerto. The first book was written in 1973 (I think) and the last was sometime in the early nineties; and you can definitely see the change in Spike as his writes the later books - the pathos is much stronger, the notes about wartime friends who recently died are truly moving. Spike acknowledges he is writing history, but that "I spiced mine up a bit". It's the history of wartorn and postwar europe from the individual man's perspective - a man who eats pasta on italian balconies, drinking cheap red wine until he passes out; who plays raucous tunes and chases the girls; who always goes for the punch line - but it's also the eulogy of his wartime friends, friends he loved. It also explains (in part) how Spike Milligan, as we know him, came to be. Free flowing comedy counterchanged with pathos and bathos - it's all there and I love every word. The other books are "Rommel? Gunner Who?", "Monty: His Part in My Victory", "Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall", "Where Have All the Bullets Gone?", "Goodbye Soldier" and "Peace Work".
Rating:
Summary: Has anybody seen our gun? No, what colour is it?
Review: This is a review of the series of seven embellished autobiographies as a whole, rather than just this one book. "Adolf Hitler:..." sees our skinny hero called up to serve his country in 1940 and introduces many of the other characters - particularly those involved in the genesis of The Goon Show. In subsequent books the war takes Spike to Africa, Italy and Liberated Europe and is a wonderful insight of those turbulent times through the eyes of a sometimes scared, sometimes overbearingly joyful, sometime shellshocked trumpet playing clown from London. This series takes you through the ups and downs: the death of friends, the pining for a world forever changed, romance in Capri, continual banter between friends, cold collation and the bloody awful Warsaw concerto. The first book was written in 1973 (I think) and the last was sometime in the early nineties; and you can definitely see the change in Spike as his writes the later books - the pathos is much stronger, the notes about wartime friends who recently died are truly moving. Spike acknowledges he is writing history, but that "I spiced mine up a bit". It's the history of wartorn and postwar europe from the individual man's perspective - a man who eats pasta on italian balconies, drinking cheap red wine until he passes out; who plays raucous tunes and chases the girls; who always goes for the punch line - but it's also the eulogy of his wartime friends, friends he loved. It also explains (in part) how Spike Milligan, as we know him, came to be. Free flowing comedy counterchanged with pathos and bathos - it's all there and I love every word. The other books are "Rommel? Gunner Who?", "Monty: His Part in My Victory", "Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall", "Where Have All the Bullets Gone?", "Goodbye Soldier" and "Peace Work".
Rating: 
Summary: Silly drunken licentious farting about in basic training
Review: This is the first of Milligan's WW2 autobiographies, from his call up in June of 1940 to him disembarking for action in Algiers in January 1943. A far cry from Remarque's bleak and horrifying All Quiet on the Western Front, Spike recalls with great fondness the early part of the war - think far more something like a football team or band on tour. This is just training, and whole bunch of young men without much to do given a second chance to muck up at school. Getting drunk, laid, and just farting about - at times literally: get a group of blokes together and, really, is there anything more funny?
I didn't laugh as much at it this second time around, but I remember being constantly in hysterics when I first read the series in a few nights back in '85. But Spike can still be trusted for at least a few laugh out loud moments - more if you're in the right mood.
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