from
Tragically I Was an Only Twin
(collected writings of
Peter Cook)

Kenneth:
But there’s just one difficulty. Our firm never refunds money. It’s our strictest rule.

B:
But this is ridiculous.

Kenneth:
On the contrary, sir—there’s a very good reason for it.

A & B:
Oh?

Kenneth:
Namely our excessive lust for profits—and that explains our prices, too. Despite the wretched quality of our shirts, I think you’ll find them a good deal dearer than most.

A:
But that’s dishonest.

Kenneth:
Well, look at it our way, sir. You lose, but on the other hand, we gain. That’s the balance.

Peter Cook:
The grasshopper is an interesting creature. It has a disproportionate leaping ability. [...] Do you know that if the giraffe had the same leaping ability, pound for pound, he’d be able to jump onto the moon and Britain would be first in the space race?

Bennett:
[...] Who do you think may have perpetrated this awful crime?

Cook:
Well, we believe this to be the work of thieves, and I’ll tell you why. The whole pattern is very reminiscent of past robberies where we have found thieves to be involved. The tell-tale loss of property—that’s one of the signs we look for, the snatching away of the money substances—it all points to thieves.

Bennett:
So you feel that thieves are responsible?

Cook:
Good heavens, no! I feel that thieves are totally irresponsible. They’re a ghastly group of people, snatching away your money, stealing from you . . .

Bennett:
I appreciate that, Sir Arthur, but . . .

Cook:
You may appreciate it, but I don’t. I’m sorry I can’t agree with you. If you appreciate having your money snatched away from you I will have to consider you some sort of odd fish . . .

Bennett:
You misunderstand me, Sir Arthur, but who in your opinion is behind the criminals?

Cook:
Well, we are—considerably.

Pete:
Well, see, if there’s a fatality, if the bus is involved in a fatal accident of any kind, it’s the people up the front who get killed first, and the people up the back who get killed last.

Dud:
Well, you get killed all the same though, don’t you?

Pete:
Yeah, well you get killed about two seconds later, you see, and in those last two seconds of your life you might suddenly start to believe in God, or you’d be able to make out your will or something like that.

Dud:
I tell you Pete, when I’m in a tight spot I say to myself, ‘God please help me out, if You’re there. If You do help me out, I’ll believe in You and thank You very much. I’ll know You’re there for future reference.’

Pete:
Yeah, I have a similar attitude. Whenever I feel ill, you know, I get a dose of the flu or something, I say a little prayer. I say, ‘Dear God in heaven, if You’re there, heed my prayer. If You’re not there, don’t take any notice. But if You are, make me better by Tuesday at twelve o’clock and I’ll know You’ve done it and promise to be good for ever more and believe in You.’ Of course the trouble is, when you get better you don’t know whether it’s because God’s done it or whether you would have got better in any case.

Dud:
I saw this big sign saying ‘Topical fish this way’. I thought, that’s OK, see a few topical fish, a few up-to-the-minute bits of satire. You know, topical barbs about the current situation in the world today.

Pete:
What did you see?

Dud:
Well I go in there and it’s just a lot of fish swimming about, more timeless than topical.

Pete:
I tell you what you done, you gone into the tropical fish department—that’s TROPICAL rather than topical, you see. What happens is that during the winter months, all through the blustery weather, sometimes some of the letters become dislodged because of the gales. And obviously the letter R had become dislodged in this way. I was talking to the keeper about it actually, and he said that very often during the winter months, his Rs blew off.

Pete:
[...] Of course, Adam and Eve while they were in the Garden of Eden, they didn’t have anything to do with sex to start with, you know. When they were in Paradise, they didn’t have anything to do with sex ’cause they were wandering around naked but they didn’t know they were naked.

Dud:
I bet they did know. I mean, you’d soon know once you got caught up on the brambles.

Dudley:
Do you think you’ve learned from your mistakes?

Peter:
Oh, yes, I’ve learned from my mistakes and I’m sure I could repeat them exactly.

John Bird:
Nice. What sort of pleasure dome did he have in mind?

Peter Cook:
Well, he was a bit vague about it. He rambled on a bit. The only adjective I got from him was ‘stately’. In fact, that’s what he decreed.

John Bird:
Oh, he’s decreeing things now then, is he?

John Bird:
A sacred river?

Peter Cook:
Running right through the structure. He specified that.

John Bird:
We’ll need a plumber then. I can have Ronnie bodge up a river for you and we can bung up a sign saying, ‘Sacred River of Alph’. Something along those lines.

Peter Cook:
Yes, but we’ve still got a problem with his specifications.

John Bird:
What’s that, then?

Peter Cook:
These caverns he wants.

John Bird:
Caverns are a doddle! How big does he want them?

Peter Cook:
Well, this is the big crunch that we come to.

John Bird:
Oh no, he doesn’t want another river, does he? He doesn’t want a sacred river Crunch, does he?

Peter Cook:
No, he doesn’t want a sacred river Crunch, but with these caverns, you see, he’s specified, here, on the docket there, ‘measureless to man’.

John Bird:
Measureless? He wants caverns you can’t measure?

Peter Cook:
Yes.

John Bird:
But how does he know they’ll fit? I mean, he knows caverns come by the yard, doesn’t he?

Peter Cook:
He wants it to exit in a sunless sea.

John Bird:
Margate.

Peter Cook:
Yes, that’ll do.

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling:
[...] Now the Greeblings were Picts and they were quite unlike the Streebs, you see, for whereas the Streebs were tall, blond, willowy people, the Greeblings were short, dark, shrublike folk who worshipped the ladder.

Ludovic Kennedy:
Why was that?

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling:
Well, because they’d never actually seen one, so they couldn’t prove it existed and, naturally, they believed in it. Question of faith, really. Various animals were sacred as well. The giraffe, for example. Legend had it that were a Pict to kill a giraffe, his family would be cursed for all eternity.

Ludovic Kennedy:
How did the Picts know about the giraffe?

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling:
Well, they only knew the theoretical giraffe, which they revered because it didn’t need a ladder.

Ludovic Kennedy:
What are your main memories of Brussels during the 1970s?

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling:
A lot of hard work involved, of course. Committee meetings, committee meetings, endless committee meetings. For example, it took seven years of committee meetings before they could decide on a venue for the committee meetings. The only thing we all agreed on was it shouldn’t be Brussels. So, naturally, Brussels became the compromise choice.

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling:
[...] Extraordinary creatures live there in the Galapagos. Beautiful little two-footed millipede, to name but one.

Ludovic Kennedy:
Sir Arthur, were you ever accused of fraudulent trading?

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling:
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Well let me put it another way. Yes. From time to time there were complaints—frequently. We had to install a whole hot line for the complaints, but fraud is very much in the eye of the receiver, isn’t it? What I was doing was not so much fraud as teaching people a valuable lesson.

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling:
[...] I worked in the futures market.

Ludovic Kennedy:
How does that work?

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling:
Well, basically, you have to get hold of a number of clients with lots of money and they give it to you to speculate with. If, for example, you came to me and told me you thought the price of lichen was going to go up, I’d pocket the money and hope it went down and say ‘Sorry, old chap, you’ve lost your money.’ If it went up, I’d change my name and start all over again. That’s basically how it works.

Christ Morris:
Sir Arthur, it does interest me. Why did you agree to these interviews?

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling:
The reason is really very, very simple. I’ve lived a long time. I’ve been distorted, I’ve been misrepresented and I’ve been quoted accurately, which is perhaps the most appalling [...]

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling:
[...] Now I tell you the downside of this is you feel awful, but the upside is you feel terrific.