It's a mystery, but nobody can decide how they already know half the poems in this strange little book. Maybe their grandmother recited them in younger years; perhaps they learnt them at school; did they own a copy as a child and then blank it from their memory along with the
Superman pyjamas they wore til they were twelve - who knows? Regardless, the fact remains that we've all heard poetry written by the master of silliness himself, Mr Spike Milligan, it is just a matter of whether we know we know...or not. For example: there's the one about the thousand hairy savages (you know, the one your dad used to recite with Shakespearean panache when your mates came around for tea?) and of course we all know what happens to any unwitting cow who misfortunes to live on the mysterious Ning Nang Nong (and, no, we don't give a tuppence what it means). The fact is it tickles something we'd forgotten we even had. And although some people are simply too po-faced to admit it, this book was not exclusively written for children but for anyone who appreciates the humour of plain down-right daftness and non-fanciful poetry, which will, unlike the countless other examples of poetry I've been too nosey to put down over the years, encourage the readers to laugh all the while rather than plummeting the poor unsuspecting dears into a pit of depression and contemplation on life's toughest questions. In truth, I'm baffled at why a person would struggle through indecipherable similes and one fifteen-syllabal word after another when our Spike's on hand with his Ning Nang Nong. No, you can keep your Frost, your Keats and your Hardy - give me bonging cows and pinging trees any day. We
love you, Spike.
