Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall

Description

A voice is calling across the land, 'Bombardier Milligan'. 'Bombadier Milligan is dead,' I replied in a disguised voice. The voice replied, 'Then he's going to miss his breakfast'. The fourth volume of Spike Milligan's legendary account of his time in the army during World War Two begins as he and his regiment land in sunny Italy in 1943 ('The ship touched the beach very gently, so gently I suspect it's not insured'). After a bout of Sandfly Fever, from which he soon recovers ('I'm ready to be killed again'), our plucky hero is piddled on by a farm dog ('Mussolini's revenge?') before forging his way inland towards the enemy and the sound of guns ('We're getting near civilisation'), where matters suddenly take a dark turn ('I was not really me any more') . . .

Born in India in April 1918, Terence Alan 'Spike' Milligan was a comedy writer and performer who created The Goon Show which ran from 1951 to 1960. Milligan soon established his own fresh style of comedy. A poet and a campaigning humanitarian, Milligan was universally acclaimed for his published war memoirs. Amongst his radio series were The Omar Khayam Show and The Milligan Papers as well as his television series such as A Show Called Fred, The Idiot'sWeekly Price 2d and later the Q series from Q5 to Q9. He died in February 2002.

The most irreverent, hilarious book about the war that I have ever read * Sunday Express * Brilliant verbal pyrotechnics ... throwaway lines and marvelous anecdotes * Daily Mail * Desperately funny, vivid, vulgar * Sunday Times * Close in stature to Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear in his command of the profound art of nonsense * Guardian * Milligan is the Great God to all of us -- John Cleese The Godfather of Alternative Comedy -- Eddie Izzard That absolutely glorious way of looking at things differently. A great man -- Stephen Fry Manifestly a genius, a comic surrealist genius and had no equal -- Terry Wogan A totally original comedy writer -- Michael Palin