“I was gathering a crowd of attractive young people and Peter liked attractive young people, so he had that magnet to come down the mews and see what was going on.” What was going on was mostly talk – locals and minor actors and activist friends of Weiss’s chatting while the tapes rolled and marijuana smoke drifted out of the wide living-room window. He liked Weiss enough, but was alarmed when Weiss started turning his comic whims into political reality. Weiss schemed on regardless, seeing Cook “without any direction whatsoever… to cause as much confusion as humanly possible…”CRUP contested the Enfield/Southgate by-election in Dec-ember 1984 on a platform of abolishing parliament. It lost to Michael Portillo by 16,684 votes to 48, developed links with the Monster Raving Loony Party, and launched Weiss on a series of bizarre schemes, including an attempt to raise money by charging people 1p to get into the Camden Palais and pounds 3 to get out Cook had mixed feelings about all this.

I found myself being directed by ‘The Wizard’ [Cook] to venture out into the world beyond ‘The Magic Mountain’… Weiss in turn founded Captain Rainbow’s Universal Party (CRUP), explaining himself thus: “Midway through our earthly association… At that time, Cook was toying with the idea of forming a political party called the What Party, based on the whimsical banalities he used to utter as EL Wisty in the Sixties; he appointed Weiss “Minister for Con-fusion”. Weiss is an ex-diamond dealer who lost his job and his money in the mid-Seventies, went to live in Ireland to pursue his girlfriend and write his autobiography and then, having become “a visionary”, moved back to Perrin’s Walk in 1984.

I’d rather do it for a few people socially, but it would be a bit rude to take up a collection after dinner.”George Weiss’s G-Plan living-room was often Cook’s arena. “The most ordinary thing like appearing on Clive James fills me with panic,” said Cook “I don’t much enjoy being on television I’d rather be sarcastic to myself. Cook got his handicap down to 16; he was invited to play in celebrity tournaments abroad. Disappearing without warning, he would call his Hampstead friends in midwinter from some sunny South Carolina golf course, Bruce Forsyth and friends in the background, glowing with expenses-paid bonhomie.Cook liked being king of this little kingdom.