I've just been outside in the back garden (we don't have an inside back garden) topping up the bird feeders and a shock thought entered my withering braincells. This is not the correct thread for such things but I believe Spike will enjoy this as he looks down.
If BIC pens are so cheap to buy now, does that mean "they are are not worth the paper they're written on?" That is one of my own originals and I'm proud of it. Remember folks, you saw it HERE first!! I'm quite quietly pleased with this particular offering. Time for a Draught Guinness moment. I feel dizzy and yet somehow, fufilled in a strange sort of way.
Byron 'sends his regards'.
"Bipolar is a roller-coaster ride without a seat belt. One day you're flying with the fireworks; for the next month you're being scraped off the trolley" I said that.
I not only miss Spike, but Grip-pipe-Thin as well.
I know that a few of us are not enamoured of the Saxe-Coburg-Gothe family, but their eldest son was a life-long friend of Spike's and I enjoyed watching the youngster and the master of slanted, penetrating perspectives, hit it off so well for all those years. The fact that Spike could slag him off showed how close they were. They had an honest friendship which could take the knocks in its stride. As I said to Lizzy a while ago, Charles was in tears at Spike's memorial service. Half in laughter and half in sadness. Spike fought to protect the underdog and the environment and I'm sure that his views carried some sway with the monarch-in-waiting. Perhaps Spike taught him how to talk to trees? Have you given your tree a hug today?
I'm getting bloody maudlin' now so I'lll go and kick the cat. She takes my knocks in her stride as well. I can never catch her!!!
"Bipolar is a roller-coaster ride without a seat belt. One day you're flying with the fireworks; for the next month you're being scraped off the trolley" I said that.
Dear Byron,
You have commited a monstrous crime, the details of which will be raised in pre-fabs, the House of Commons, revealed in the Radio Times, and exploded by none other than....wait for it...."Lance Brigadier Hercules Grytpype-Thynne", if he gets his way with the spelling.
By the way, Bluebottle likes this Leonard Cohen game: he can pretend to be intelligent and write messages to people who don't know he's wearing his mum's old drawers, on account of an accident in East Finchley when Eccles exploded a bomb by natural devices. "Ying tong iddle-i po".
Oh folks, it was in the year of nineteen miseree.....
Byron, I must now take my male hormone tablets....they give me the strength to go to sleep.
"What time is it Eccles?"
Andrew.
"Bipolar is a roller-coaster ride without a seat belt. One day you're flying with the fireworks; for the next month you're being scraped off the trolley" I said that.
Byron
I too loved Spike Milligan. We didn't get much of him here but I read some of his stuff and we did hear him now and then on the radio.
I think it was somewhere in the 1970's that he came to SA and I rushed to see his show. It was an experience I shall never forget and it was dreadfully disturbing. There was a sort of frantic quality about Spike and somehow his laughter sounded more desperate than amused/amusing. I think I was the only one who noticed this as my friends were literally rolling in the aisle. For me the whole experience was summed up when Spike said after a particularly rambunctious bout of laughter from the audience "Yout think I'm mad? You paid to come see me". I'm embarrassed to admit that I found it so terribly sad that while everyone around me laughed, I shed copious tears. Since then I've not been able to think of Spike in the same way as I did previously - for me he'll always remain a sad and lonely figure.
Jo
"... to make a pale imitation of reality with twenty-six juggled letters"
"... all words are lies because they can only represent one of many levels of being"
Sober noises of morning in a marginal land.
How very perceptive of you, Jo. Spike is now well known to have been a manic depressive, but I don't think it was common knowledge in the 70's. I once saw a documentary about the condition, in which Spike and others talked in some detail about their experience of it, and believe me it was not funny at all. I know there's a medico/chemical explanation for it these days, but sometimes I think certain people are just cursed with an ability to see the world as it really is. They are not able to 'fudge' issues or pretend to themselves as many of us do a lot of the time, so the artists among them escape through creativity, turning their pain and confusion into something positive. For Spike it was comedy, for Leonard it is poetry and song. Leonard often talks about his work in terms of it being a mechanism for survival, and I would count him in with the same group. He seems to see the world far too clearly for his own comfort.
Sorry, I'm rambling again. I'll shut up now.
Linda
1972: Leeds, 2008: Manchester, Lyon, London O2, 2009: Wet Weybridge, 2012: Hop Farm/Wembley Arena
That's a great response, linmag........so true. Unfortunately, I've never seen Spike in anything. I was very touched by your experiencing of him Live, Jo.....feeling the pain that he was dealing with in his own life.
"Bipolar is a roller-coaster ride without a seat belt. One day you're flying with the fireworks; for the next month you're being scraped off the trolley" I said that.
I'll shut up now.