Timbo the bookworm !

G'day Tim,
I read the first few pages of the Christopher Wilkins novel a couple of weeks ago in A+R here in Sydney and thought it was a goer but i wasn't in the spending mood.(I had no money:>))so it'll have to wait. Worth it you think?

What's the bloody point of a PC biography of Spike Milligan?

Regards
Paul

PC in re Milligan = @#$%^&*^$%#$#@!!!! -) abend, posted on June 14, 2004 at 06:43:42

Timbo in Oz

racism | inherent | in Milligna's work.

I felt as I read it that it was more of an opportunity for the biographer to demonstrate hw PC he was.

IMO he was working through his recognition of his own distance from his upbringing, brought about by the war. The Goumiers and the several Indian divisions, for example, and the Maoris.

and, I always found the jokes with this content as funny and as light herated an acknowledgement of the pain of all (mis)classifications.

I just don't think of Milligan as a RACIST but a man who knew, as a comic GENIUS that race was reliably funny and shocking (because silly), esp. on recogmition of one's self.

NOT a nice man, really, but a loving one, nonetheless.

Warmest,

Keegan and Bierce - 2 of my favorties, posted on June 14, 2004 at 08:26:46

Mike K
Audiophile

Posts: 13976
Location: 97701
Joined: September 23, 1999

Keegan's short history of WWI is excellent. Will be reading more of
his stuff in future. Have you read any of Antony Beevor's war
history? Excellent stuff.

And Bierce ... my main man ...

Mike

Anthony Beevor, posted on June 15, 2004 at 03:14:02

Hergest Ridge

I read his Berlin last year and thought it was brilliant. I don't normally read outside of fiction but this was superbly written, i keep on meaning to pick up his Stalingrad. In a not disimilar vein regarding history well written i enjoyed The Peoples War, Britain 1939-45 by Angus Calder regarding the normal and not so normal lives of people during the war. I learnt a great deal. It was originally published in 1969 but my copy is a 1996 reprint in Pimlico.

Regards
Paul

Stalingrad, posted on June 15, 2004 at 08:11:25

Mike K
Audiophile

Posts: 13976
Location: 97701
Joined: September 23, 1999

Excellent book, about one of the most brutal extended battles in
history of warfare. I want to read his book about Spanish civil
war too, but I juat have not been able to read anything but fiction
lately.

Mike

Beavor,, posted on June 16, 2004 at 21:40:35

Timbo in Oz

No, but I have heard Beavor being interviewed about his book on Berlin. Stalin really did let Zhukov and Koniev compete, more than I ever thought. Amazing really that Zhukov survived later on, under a raving looney paranoid like Uncle Joe!

waiting for a copy at the library.

Have you read "Bright Shing Lie", it's about 'Nam.

Another book I can recommend is McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom".

A striking thing for me about the whole area of Western writing about the Russian war effort, was that for a long time, there was little mention of the level of technological development and quality in Russian weapons at wars end. Fitness for the purpose, I mean.

I have always been impressed with the DP / M despite the drum, the Goryunov M42 MG, the PPsh, the SKS, and the DShKa (12.7mm). The Browning 0.5"M2HB is a mere toy beside one of those.

My Dad told me that many Allied pilots were quiet struck by the Yaks they encountered towards the end. 3 Squadron RAAF flew in the Med from 1940 to wars end and was in Yugoslavia by then, they had P51Ds from 1943/4 on.

The Yak's climb rate was just one worry. What they'd heard, from distilled Luftwaffe POW interrogations added to that.

The P51D was one of the slower climb Allied jobs to boot. Quite a bit slower than a MK IX Spit. You would probably have need a Bearcat to deal with one!

Warmest

Beavor,, posted on June 16, 2004 at 21:41:20

Timbo in Oz
Audiophile

Posts: 23221
Location: Canberra - in the ACT - SE Australia
Joined: January 30, 2002

No, but I have heard Beavor being interviewed about his book on Berlin. Stalin really did let Zhukov and Koniev compete, more than I ever thought. Amazing really that Zhukov survived later on, under a raving looney paranoid like Uncle Joe!

waiting for a copy at the library.

Have you read "Bright Shing Lie", it's about 'Nam.

Another book I can recommend is McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom".

A striking thing for me about the whole area of Western writing about the Russian war effort, was that for a long time, there was little mention of the level of technological development and quality in Russian weapons at wars end. Fitness for the purpose, I mean.

I have always been impressed with the DP / M despite the drum, the Goryunov M42 MG, the PPsh, the SKS, and the DShKa (12.7mm). The Browning 0.5"M2HB is a mere toy beside one of those.

My Dad told me that many Allied pilots were quiet struck by the Yaks they encountered towards the end. 3 Squadron RAAF flew in the Med from 1940 to wars end and was in Yugoslavia by then, they had P51Ds from 1943/4 on.

The Yak's climb rate was just one worry. What they'd heard, from distilled Luftwaffe POW interrogations added to that.

The P51D was one of the slower climb Allied jobs to boot. Quite a bit slower than a MK IX Spit. You would probably have need a Bearcat to deal with one!

Warmest

Timbo in Oz
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio Scrounger
Peace

Battlecry Of Freedom, posted on June 17, 2004 at 01:15:21

Hergest Ridge

My wife did American Studies as part of her Uni course back in England and one of the texts she had to study was Battlecry Of Freedom. One summer on the fruit farm i spent the evenings waiting for customers and read the book. Loved it. Most of what happened in the Civil War i knew nothing about.

She also had to study Tindalls , America, A Narrative History which is on the bottom bookshelf here in the study, i've only ever glanced at it so don't know if it's worth reading or is just facts and figures to jump into now and again.

Regards
Paul

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Timbo the bookworm !

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