Splinters

Black Planet

There is something peculiar about this time of year. I remember sitting in a bar in New York in March 8 years ago and realising that Bill Hicks, Derek Jarman, Kurt Cobain and Charles Bukowski had all died within 6 weeks of one another. That's a lot of heroes to lose in such a small space of time.

Spike Milligan has gone to join them. God is dead. Read the obituary he penned for himself back in 1990. Then curse the hypocritical cunts at the BBC that praise him as a genius but refused to give him a new series for the last decade. It's only when he dies that they put him back on TV.

And, while Spike was most famous for the Goon Show and paving the way for Monty Python, he's at his most brilliant in print, especially his war memoirs. "Invasion of Italy - blown up at Monte Cassino - came down again unaided."