Books that changed my life
I have my father to thank for introducing me to the series of books that... Well ok they didn't change my life but they changed my views on war and what i thought of as comedy (which until then had pretty much involved people hitting each other with household implements). Spike Milligans War Memoirs!
As you would expect from Milligan they are both extremely well written and very funny. They cover the time between his being conscripted into the Royal Artillery to his early forays into radio and give a real insight into the mind of a young man going off to fight for his country.
They are at times extremely poignant as well and it really brings it home that Spike is talking about real people when the inevitable happened and people he knew and had talked about were killed. Milligan also suffered with depression and at times this comes across quite clearly in his writing.
The moments of the absurd are there when recounting such events as the great lie in contest, clubbing, the gun barrel full of urine and the exploding dog.

I have read this series of books too many times to count and never get tired of them. I would also like to say i am now on my third copy of the first book in the series because i lend it out and never get the bugger back ( You know who you are Steve)

I would like to finish with my favourite Milligan quote from Adolf Hitler My Part In His Downfall
"The die was cast. It was a proud day for the Milligan family as I was taken from the house. ‘I’m too young to go,’ I screamed as Military Policemen dragged me from my pram, clutching a dummy. At Victoria Station the RTO gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked ‘This is your enemy’. I searched every compartment, but he wasn’t on the train. At 4.30, June 2nd, 1940, on a summer’s day all mare’s tails and blue sky we arrived at Bexhill-on-Sea, where I got off. It wasn’t easy. The train didn’t stop there."

BUY IT AND READ IT NOW. Just don't ask to borrow my copies :)
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Fri 16 May 2008, 22:38, 3 replies)

Haha
I'm buying that book tomorrow!
(General_Manchego, Fri 16 May 2008, 22:44, closed)

havelocke
The inscription on the dogs grave is one of the greatest ever, hilarious as well as poignant. to this day i also yell at planes, hoping they crash.
(biscuit bill, Sat 17 May 2008, 0:09, closed)

You are so right!
I remember at aged 15, 4 of us in the front row of an English class howling with laughter for 20 mins about "Uncle Willie, the pre-death mortician that hadn't worked for years" and the toadstools!

I do love the line in "Rommel? Gunner Who?" that goes: "Is it because we find the present so traumatic and the future so uncertain, that we find the past so secure?"

Pure genius.
(Sebulba continues to fight evil with evil....., Sat 17 May 2008, 9:55, closed)