A great man' Stephen Fry'Milligan is the Great God to all of us' John Cleese'The Godfather of Alternative Comedy' Eddie Izzard'Manifestly a genius, a comic surrealist genius and had no equal' Terry Wogan'A totally original comedy writer' Michael Palin'Close in stature to Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear in his command of the profound art of nonsense' GuardianSpike Milligan was one of the greatest and most influential comedians of the twentieth century. Filled with bathos, pathos and gales of ribald laughter, this is a barely sane helping of military goonery and superlative Milliganese.'That absolutely glorious way of looking at things differently. No ammunition') to the landing at Algiers in 1943 ('I closed my eyes and faced the sun. I searched every compartment, but he wasn't on the train.'In this, the first of Spike Milligan's uproarious recollections of life in the army, our hero takes us from the outbreak of war in 1939 ('it must have been something we said'), through his attempts to avoid enlistment ('time for my appendicitis, I thought') and his gunner training in Bexhill ('There was one drawback. gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked 'e This is your enemy'e. They have sold over 4.5 million copies since they first appeared.'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'At Victoria station the R.T.O. Classic, timeless Milligan.Spike Milligan's legendary war memoirs are a hilarious and subversive first-hand account of the Second World War, as well as a fascinating portrait of the formative years of this towering comic genius, most famous as writer and star of The Goon Show. Unable to hold down his job on a building site he turns to robbery but is discovered trapped inside a suit of armour, almost drowns when he falls down a wishing well and catches a particularly revolting form of bronchitis whilst on religious retreat in a particularly revolting form of monastery.As you would expect, The Murphy is rude, irreverent and hugely funny. Set sometime between the first and second World Wars, somewhere in Ireland and sometimes everywhere else besides - at one point Murphy is kidnapped by Irish aliens who take him in a spaceship to see St Patrick choose his National Lottery numbers - Murphy's story serves only to prove that the luck of the Irish is not bestowed upon all the sons of the nation.

Even by the standards of the poorest of the poor in Ireland, Murphy is poor.

The Murphy by Spike Milligan