Forgotten Peter Cook tapes: His relationship with alcohol and musings on the ‘speed of darkness’

When Rainbow George cleared his house as he bid farewell to Hampstead he unearthed forgotten recordings of him and pal Peter Cook setting the world to rights.

The two whiled away the hours watching cricket on the box and finding the answer to life, the universe and everything.

The funnyman, who lived three doors down from George Weiss in Perrins Walk, mused on what the “speed of darkness” was and if he was God for a day he would want people to be “perpetually happy”.

But the recordings which had been buried among a collection of Mr Weiss’ tapes also hint at the great satirist’s troubled relationship with alcohol.

Mr Weiss, the self-styled “village idiot”, said he often spoke of how “drugs were glamorous but alcohol definitely was not to him”.

Rainbow George, who turned 72 over the weekend, has recently archived his recordings which date back to 1984.