"I Prithee Give Me Leave To Curse Awhile"

Truth be told, dear blog reader, yer actual Keith Telly Topping is an - impotently - vexed and utterly sickened author, journalist and broadcaster right about now. What a hugely depressing week this has been. A week in which the biggest - for which read only - story that the world's media seems to want to cover involves a bunch of self-entitled multi-millionaires being, allegedly, beastly and (allegedly) racist towards a couple of other self-entitled multi-millionaires. A story which has, seemingly, fascinated to the point of obsession, America. A country which, let's remember, once fought a sodding revolution to get rid of the concept of royalty. A story which has reportedly led to a family feud involving a family which, the last time it had a feud like this (well, not the last time per se, but one of the last times) ended up with The First World War kicking-off big-style. Mind you, it was also a story which got that odious oily twat Piers Morgan's arse kicked into the gutter along with all the other turds by ITV. It was jolly hard not to roll around on the floor laughing and kicking ones legs in the air like one of the robots from the 1970s For Mash Get S.M.A.S.H adverts by the comments attributed to an ITV spokesperson concerning all this malarkey: 'Following discussions with ITV, Piers Morgan has decided now is the time to leave Good Morning Britain. ITV has accepted this decision and has nothing further to add.' And, if you Google the phrase '... don't let the door hit your arse on the way out' you'll find that very statement right at the top of the list. Meanwhile, in the country in which this bunch of self-entitled multi-millionaire clowns are - nominally - supposed to be role models, over one hundred and twenty thousand people have died from The Plague. Whilst the nobility bicker amongst themselves. In so many ways, dear blog reader, we really haven't progressed very much since the Fourteenth Century. Our priorities as a society - as a species - are shot to Hell; the world is sick and worthless and it could probably use a sodding great bomb being placed underneath it to put us all out of our misery. So, to sum up, just an average week at the Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House, then.

This week also saw the first anniversary of the date on which the Covid-19 outbreak was, officially, declared a pandemic and, shortly afterwards, Britain entered into its initial lockdown (sequel lockdowns were, subsequently, available).

Of course, as previously noted on several occasions, the one major bonus about so many people being stuck in their collective gaffs with little to do except watch the telly and surf the Interweb for much of the last year has been the significant regular increases in the traffic involving this very blog. It's an ill-wind, dear blog reader, which blows no one any good. Allegedly.

The US Supreme Court has disposed - dismissively - with the last of now extremely former President Mister Rump's challenges to state erection procedures on Monday, utterly rejecting his appeal of lower court rulings which upheld Wisconsin's handling of mail-in ballots. Which, to be fair, was funny. The court announced the rejection without comment in a one-line order, which is its normal practice. For context, the second word in the statement was 'off'. Probably. Rump and his sordid allies have a uniformly unsuccessful record before the Supreme Court in their effort to overturn the presidential erection results in states won by President Joe Biden. In December of last year, the justices refused to take up a lawsuit filed by Texas against the battleground states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The court said that Texas had demonstrated 'no legal interest' in how other states conduct their erections. The Supreme Court last month rejected two other Rump challenges to vote counting procedures in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. And, while the vote counting was still underway in November, the court declined to stop Pennsylvania from counting ballots received after erection day. Monday's action was no surprise, because if the court had intended to take any of the Rump challenges, it would have done so before Congress formally counted the Electoral College vote on 6 January, a process which was delayed by several hours by an attempted insurrection at the Capitol. You might have noticed, dear blog reader, it was on telly, in the papers and everything.

Speaking of the events of 6 January, the story of some of the more notably daft conspiring insurgents involved in the disgraceful attempts to overturn democracy continues to amuse and astonish in equal measure. This week, for example, we hsve seen the latest bleatings from Jake The Horny Shaman (who used to live with his mom ... and now lives in jail) about how he was, you know, led astray by older boys and please, judge, don't cane him. Another of those who made a big name for themselves was Richard Bigo Barnett, the Arkansas plank who gained notoriety after being pictured with his feet up on Nancy Pelosi's desk during the insurrection. Recently, Barnett reportedly yelled in court during a virtual hearing about the manifest unfairness of life in general and his own incarceration in particular. During the hearing, Judge Christopher Cooper of Federal District Court in Washington suggested the next court date for Bigo's case would be held on 4 May. This caused Barnett to completely lose his shit and erupt over proceedings being extended whilst he remained banged up in The Joint. 'I've been here a long time, another month? It's not fair,' Bigo was heard to wail concerning the new court date, according to NBC4. 'You're letting everyone else out ... I need help,' he squealed. Well, maybe you should've thought about that before you were pictured, grinning like a Cheshire Cat with your feet up on Nancy Pelosi's desk, matey? Just a suggestion. Following the outburst, the judge called for a five-minute recess so Barnett could cool his jets. Barnett has been charged with a variety of charges including aiding and abetting, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, parading or demonstrating in a Capitol building and theft of government property.

The Washington Post's Katie Shepherd has detailed the story of one William Robert Norwood III. According to a criminal complaint, Norwood texted a group of friends and family that he was going to attend the 6 January punch-up and 'fool police' by dressing in all black. 'I'll look just like ANTIFA,' he claimed. 'I'll get away with anything.' He allegedly followed this up with a subsequent photo showing himself holding a police vest, apparently 'acquired' during the insurrection. 'It worked,' Norwood sneered. 'I got away with things that others were shot or arrested for.' Norwood was extremely arrested last week and charged with his naughty insurrectionist ways. His story was the leading item in Aaron Blake's properly thigh-slapping Post article Thirteen Not-So-Greatest Hits From The Capitol Riot Arrest Records. Another story revealed in recent days deals with Richard Michetti, a Pennsylvania man who - allegedly - texted with his former-girlfriend about being him in the Capitol. At one point, he told that her she was 'a moron' if she didn't understand that the erection was stolen. The ex, who is identified in a ten-page Statement of Facts merely as W1, went straight to The Feds on 7 Jan and grassed Michetti up like a good'un, suggesting that he 'sent several text messages and two videos' to her whilst participating in his alleged illegal activities. The pace of arrests stemming from the Capitol insurrection has slowed in recent weeks. That's both to be expected and also a reflection of how many people made it so utterly easy to identify themselves - in many cases taking selfies or appearing in videos of the siege helpfully captured by themselves or others. The Post's Travis Andrews, for example, wrote in mid-January about some of the most brazen and ultimately foolhardy participants identified at that point. Now that the number of arrests has grown to around three hundred, the examples of rank stupidity has also grown. Amongst those that the Post's most recent expose highlighted are Kevin Loftus who, allegedly, posted a selfie from the Capitol with the caption: 'One of seven hundred inside' adding: 'That's right folks some of us are in it to win it.' He later posted to Facebook, upon seeing himself pictured among the suspects: 'I am wanted by the FBI for illegal entry' and pointing to his photo. Troy Faulkner allegedly wore a jacket from his painting company which included a phone number. Joshua Lollar allegedly posted to Facebook saying: 'Just got gassed and fought with cops. That I never thought would happen.' Within minutes, someone believed to be his sister replied: 'We cleaned off the post of you going into and inside the Capital [sic] since they plan to prosecute everyone that was in there.' A minute later, she added: 'You need to clean off your page.' He didn't and now, he hs to face the consequences. Kevin Lyons allegedly posted an Instagram photo of himself in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office saying: 'WHOSE HOUSE?!?!? OUR HOUSE!!' He later told the FBI that he had a dream about being in the Capitol that day, before they showed him the Instagram post. 'Wow, you're pretty good. That was only up for an hour,' he said, according to court documents. He later e-mailed video of the incident, saying: 'Hello Nice FBI Lady. Here are the links to the videos.' Justin Stoll allegedly responded to someone who criticised his videos from inside the Capitol a day afterward by issuing threats, including: 'If you ever in your existence did something to jeopardize [sic] taking me away from my family, you will absolutely meet your maker. You can play that for the [prosecutor] in court, I don't care.' He is now extremely charged with making threats and witness tampering and, one suspects, very much does care about his upcoming day in court to face the music. Thomas Fee allegedly sent a selfie from the Capitol to his girlfriend's brother, who had asked if he was in Washington after seeing one of Fee's social media posts. The brother, of course, was a federal agent.

Other simple recidivists who have recently had their collars felt by Plod include Federico Klein, a former State Department aide, arrested on charges related to the storming of the Capitol and marking the first known instance of an appointee of now extremely former President Mister Rump facing criminal prosecution. Also, Isaac Sturgeon of Dillon, Montana, who was arrested by the FBI on arrival at JFK airport over the weekend after being extremely deported from Kenya where he had rushed off to following the events of 6 January. He is charged with seven counts including shoving a metal barricade into police officers.

If you're looking for some further, in depth, hilarity related to the madness of the far-right in American politics dear blog reader, Shayan Sardarizadeh's piece Why Are QAnon Believers Obsessed With 4 March? is well-worth a few moments of your time. Although, since 4 March came and went without anything even remotely interesting happening, you should probably also check out an article from Newsweek's Emily Czachor, QAnon Theorists Switch Date To 20 March After No Trump Inauguration, Call The 4th 'False Flag' for a supplementary dose of twenty-four carat comedy genius.

Still on the subject of those banged-up in The Slammer for their - alleged - naughty doings, the way in which British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell is being treated in a New York jail is 'degrading' and 'amounts to torture,' her brother has claimed. Which, if you look up 'ludicrous examples of crass, unconvincing hyperbole' on Google ... Ian Maxwell alleged that his sister was being held under 'constant surveillance' in a six by nine feet cell with no natural light and the food was 'basically inedible.' Maxwell is accused of helping the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein groom young girls, allegations which she denies. She is currently seeking bail, ahead of her trial which is due to kick-off in July. Prison officials have not commented on the conditions under which she is being held ... except to roll their eyes and mutter 'has everyone taken The Stupid Pill, or what?' Maxwell, who also has US and French citizenship, has been in jail in Brooklyn since she was arrested last July at her secluded mansion in New Hampshire. Maxwell, the daughter of the late media mogul - and crook - Robert Maxwell, was in a relationship with financier Epstein in the 1990s. She, allegedly, introduced Epstein to wealthy and powerful figures including Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew.

Images of what appears to be a hovering ship have been captured as the result of a rare optical illusion. David Morris took a photo of the ship near Falmouth in Cornwall. The BBC meteorologist David Braine said that the 'superior mirage' occurred because of 'special atmospheric conditions that bend light.' He added that the illusion is common in the Arctic, but can appear 'very rarely' in the UK during winter. Morris said he was 'stunned' after capturing the picture while looking out to sea from the hamlet of Gillan. Braine said: 'Superior mirages occur because of the weather condition known as a temperature inversion, where cold air lies close to the sea with warmer air above it. Since cold air is denser than warm air, it bends light towards the eyes of someone standing on the ground or on the coast, changing how a distant object appears. Superior mirages can produce a few different types of images - here a distant ship appears to float high above its actual position, but sometimes an object below the horizon can become visible.'

National treasure Stephen Fry has backed a campaign to transform a building in Portsmouth into a Sherlock Holmes museum. The actor, writer and presenter said that an old records office set for demolition was an 'ideal location.' But the city council's culture chief Councillor Steve Pitt said the office was 'completely unsuitable.' Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a Portsmouth resident and some of his archives are already on display in the nearby Portsmouth Museum. About one thousand residents have signed a petition opposing plans to replace the records office with council homes, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service. Campaigners want to put the Lancelyn Green collection, which contains about fourteen thousand pieces related to Conan Doyle and is mostly in storage, on display in the Edwardian building. Fry has narrated Sherlock Holmes audio books and appeared as Mycroft in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. He urged Portsmouth City Council to 'seize the moment' to 'create something that will contribute hugely to the city's reputation.' He said Holmes had been a hero for 'each new generation. No-one who has studied the phenomenon would disagree when I say that this worldwide fascination, admiration and need for Sherlock will only continue to grow and grow and grow,' he added. He said 'legions of fans around the globe' would be attracted to the 'most magnificent archive of Holmesiana ever assembled.' However, Councillor Steve Pitt, cabinet member for culture, claimed the building was 'dilapidated' with a collapsing floor. 'A Conan Doyle museum is something that would be great for the city, but we need to find the right location,' he said. Councillors will debate the issue at a full council meeting next week.

Some Britons like to think they have a 'special relationship' with the US - particularly when it comes to the Royal Family (see above) - based on a common language and cultural, historical and political ties. But, according to one of the UK's most respected polling companies, there is one chasm which the English language can't always bridge and it's not The Atlantic Ocean - the British love of passive-aggressive sarcasm. In the words of YouGov, 'half of Americans would not be able to tell that a Briton is calling them an idiot.' YouGov showed a number of common British phrases, including 'with the greatest respect,' 'I'll bear it in mind' and 'you must come for dinner,' to Britons and Americans. 'While not all the phrases show a difference in transatlantic understanding, there are some statements where many Yanks are in danger of missing the serious passive aggression we Brits employ,' YouGov said. The starkest difference was in the phrase 'with the greatest respect' - which most Britons took to mean 'I think you are an idiot,' but nearly half of Americans interpreted as 'I am listening to you.'

Lou Ottens, the Dutch engineer credited with inventing the audio cassette tape, has died aged ninety four. An estimated one hundred billion cassette tapes have been sold around the world since they were introduced in the 1960s. Ottens' invention transformed the way people listened to music and there has even been a resurgence of the cassette in recent years. The engineer died in his hometown of Duizel last weekend, his family announced on Tuesday. Ottens became head of Philips' product development department in 1960, where he and his team developed the cassette tape. In 1963, it was presented at the Berlin Radio electronics fair and soon became a worldwide success. Ottens struck a deal with Philips and Sony that saw his model confirmed as the patented cassette, after a number of Japanese companies reproduced similar tapes in a number of sizes. On the fiftieth anniversary of its creation, he told Time magazine that it was a 'sensation' from day one. Ottens was also involved in the development of the compact disc and more than two hundred billion of those have been sold worldwide to date. In 1982, when Philips showed off a production CD player, Ottens said: 'From now on, the conventional record player is obsolete.' He retired four years later. When asked about his career, he said his biggest regret was that Sony and not Philips had created the cassette tape player, the Walkman. Cassette tapes have experienced an unlikely surge in popularity in recent years. A number of artists including Lady Gaga and The Killers have released their music on them.

Nicola Pagett, who died suddenly his week of a brain tumour aged sevety five, will not be forgotten by anyone who saw her on stage or screen over a career of thirty years. She was a glacial, beautiful presence in plays from Shaw to Pinter and she illuminated Upstairs, Downstairs on television in the early 1970s. She played Elizabeth Bellamy, the spoilt and self-absorbed daughter of the upscale Belgravia household in Eaton Square, who made the mistake of marrying a poet with no interest in the physical side of love. She had an affair with his publisher and conceived a child. Other amorous adventures followed before she left for New York. Other starring roles soon followed: Elizabeth Fanshawe in Frankenstein: The True Story (1973), widely considered one of the best Frankenstein adaptations; the title role in Anna Karenina, a 1977 BBC epic co-starring Eric Porter as Karenin and Stuart Wilson as Vronsky and Liz Rodenhurst in A Bit Of A Do (1989) adapted from the Yorkshire novels of David Nobbs, with David Jason and Gwen Taylor. Liz was the promiscuous, middle-class mother of the bride who started an affair with Jason's working-class Ted Simcock, father of the groom. However, her career was overshadowed by a long period of mental illness, which she wrote about in a book, Diamonds Behind My Eyes, published in 1997. Her behaviour became increasingly erratic and she developed an obsession with Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's spokesperson, whom she bombarded with love letters. Her final stage appearance was at the National Theatre in 1995 in a revival of Joe Orton's black comedy What The Butler Saw with Richard Wilson and a young newcomer, David Tennant. Her book suggested a recovery of sorts. But it was only partial. Some days were better than others but she was nothing if not resilient. Nicola was born in Cairo, where her father, Herbert Scott, was a peripatetic Shell Oil executive who had met her mother, Barbara, in Egypt where she had been stationed with the Women's Royal Naval Service. The family travelled around - Nicola had a younger sister, Angela - and it was in the Yokohama convent school of Saint Maur in Tokyo that a seven-year-old Nicola stood on a desktop and declared she was going to be an actress. After another business posting of her father to Hong Kong, she was sent, aged twelve, to the Beehive boarding school in Bexhill-on-Sea, where her godmother, Anne Maxwell, served in loco parentis. She was just seventeen when she went to RADA in 1962. On graduating she changed her surname to Pagett, then spent several years in repertory theatres, including The Glasgow Citizens and The Connaught, Worthing, before making a London debut in A Boston Story (1968) at The Duchess Theatre, adapted by Ronald Gow from Henry James and starring Tony Britton and Dinah Sheridan. She immediately became a West End regular, employed by the producer Michael Codron in no less than three important roles opposite Alec Guinness: in John Mortimer's A Voyage Round My Father (1971) at The Haymarket; in Julian Mitchell's adaptation of Ivy Compton-Burnett's A Family & A Fortune (1975) at The Apollo - in which she met the actor/writer Graham Swannell, whom she married in 1975 - and as Jonathan Swift's muse, Stella, in Alan Strachan's 'entertainment' Yahoo, based on the life and work of the mordant Irish satirist. In all three roles her beauty was tempered with a fascinating mixture of steeliness and reserve. In 1974, she joined a remarkable season directed at The Greenwich Theatre by Jonathan Miller, in which a nucleus of four lead actors - Pagett, Irene Worth, Peter Eyre and Robert Stephens - examined the Freudian themes and links between three great classics - Hamlet, Ibsen's Ghosts and Chekhov's The Seagull. She was perfect as Ophelia, Regina the maid and the lovelorn Masha, trapped in a romantic triangle. This quality of mystery and an inner, secret life is a rare one in an actor and it really counted in the plays of Harold Pinter, most notably in a 1985 revival of Old Times, in which she played the wife of Michael Gambon's film-maker visited by their mutual friend of twenty years ago, played by Liv Ullmann. Pagett stood out, too, in Pinter's Party Time on a double bill with Mountain Language at The Almeida in 1991. Pinter directed her at The National in 1983 as Helen, a stunning and slyly provocative enchantress in The Trojan War Will Not Take Place, translated from Jean Giraudoux by Christopher Fry, so it was no surprise that she occupied the Vivien Leigh role of a not-so-kittenish Lady Teazle in John Barton's production of The School For Scandal at The Duke Of York's later that year. She was wonderful, too, as a seductive Countess in Jean Anouilh's The Rehearsal, translated by Jeremy Sams, in 1990 and offered what Michael Billington described as 'a highly intelligent study in devouring sensual rage' in David Hare's The Rules Of The Game, adapted from Pirandello and directed by Jonathan Kent in 1992. Her TV work had not dried up but was more sporadic. In Scoop (1987), a two-hour movie scripted by William Boyd, based on Evelyn Waugh's 1938 novel, she was Julia Stitch alongside Michael Maloney as the hapless war reporter William Boot and Denholm Elliott as the chaotic newspaper editor. And she starred with Peter Davison as Sonia Drysdale in Ain't Misbehavin' (1994), an under-rated comedy series of marital mishaps and alleged adultery written by Roy Clarke. A film career which began with the small role of Princess Mary in Anne Of A Thousand Days (1969), starring Richard Burton and Geneviḕve Bujold, included Roy Boulting's There's A Girl In My Soup (1970) with Peter Sellers and Goldie Hawn, Michael Blakemore's Privates On Parade (1983) with John Cleese and Denis Quilley and Mike Newell's An Awfully Big Adventure (1995), adapted by Charles Wood from Beryl Bainbridge's novel and starring Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman. After divorcing Graham in 1997, she lived alone in East Sheen - with her Persian cats - stoically dealing with her illness, making a domestic agenda of cooking and gardening and going for walks whenever she could. She is survived by her daughter, Eve, from her marriage and by her sister, Angela.

David Bailie, the South African actor known for his performances on stage, television and film has died aged eighty three. Bailie was born in Springs, South Africa in December 1937 and went to boarding school in Swaziland, before emigrating to Rhodesia with his family in 1952. His first acting experience soon after school in 1955 was an amateur production of Doctor In The House, which persuaded him he wanted to be an actor. After leaving school he worked in a bank and then for Central African Airlines. In 1960 he moved to Britain and landed his first small role in the film Flame In The Streets (1961) and then played one of the bell boys in Arthur Kopit's Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You In The Closet & I'm Feelin' So Sad (1961) with Stella Adler. He then bluffed his way into weekly repertory in Barrow-in-Furness as juvenile lead - terrified that he would be exposed as totally inexperienced. Recognising the need for training, he auditioned three times for a bursary to RADA - each time being accepted only as a fee-paying student, which he couldn't afford. He finally sent for the last of his stand-by money (two hundred smackers) he had left in Rhodesia and paid for the first term (1963). At the end of term he persuaded John Fernald to allow him free tuition for the next two years. Terry Hands was also a student at the same time, but had left a little earlier than Bailie and formed the Everyman Theatre with Peter James in Liverpool. On leaving RADA Bailie was invited to join The Everyman in 1964. Amongst other roles he played Tolen in The Knack ... And How To Get It, Becket in Murder In The Cathedral, Dion in The Great God Brown, MacDuff in Macbeth and Lucky in Waiting For Godot. After a year, he came back to London and auditioned for and was accepted by Sir Laurence Olivier joining The National Theatre. He played minor roles and also understudied Olivier in Love For Love. Hands, who had by now joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford (and later became its artistic director), invited Bailie to join them as an Associate Artist in 1965. There he portrayed Florizel opposite Judi Dench's Perdita in The Winter's Tale, Valentine in The Two Gentlemen Of Verona, The Bastard in King John, Kozanka in The Plebeians Rehearse The Uprising and Leslie in The Madness Of Lady Bright. During the early 1970s he worked with Stomu Yamashta at his Red Buddha Theatre. He was cast as the lead in Raindog, requiring him to do everything from singing and dancing, to performing Martial Arts and gymnastics - which he admitted was a demand too far. He was then cast by director Michael E Briant in 1976 to play the villainous Dask in the memorable Doctor Who serial The Robots Of Death. For personal reasons Bailie then had a long recess in his acting career. Between 1980 and 1989 he ran a furniture-making business. In 1990 he returned to acting, but soon afterwards had to have a cancer removed from his lip, which required learning to speak again. Whilst awaiting work in the acting field he busied himself with CAD design, self-training and writing computer programs and also doing health and safety work in the building industry. In the mid-1990s after playing alongside Brian Glover in The Canterbury Tales he made a comeback in the film business as Skewer in Cutthroat Island (1995), then played an English Judge in The Messenger: The Story Of Joan Of Arc (1999) and also appeared in Gladiator (2000). Bailie's best-known work in film is the role of Cotton, the mute pirate who has his tongue cut out, so he trained his parrot to speak on his behalf in the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies. His CV also included appearances in Ransom For A Pretty Girl, The Fenn Street Gang, Adam Smith, The Regiment, The Creeping Flesh, Son Of Dracula, Play For Today, Softly Softly: Task Force, Blake's Seven, The Onedin Line and The House That Jack Built. Bailie was also a professional photographer, specialising in portrait photography from his studio in West Kensington. David had two children from his first marriage. He married his second wife, Egidija, in 2002.

The Vicar Of Dibley actor Trevor Peacock has died aged eighty nine, his agent has confirmed. The actor played the bumbling Jim Trott in the comedy series alongside Dawn French. His family said in statement: 'Trevor Peacock, actor, writer and song-writer, died aged eighty nine on the morning of 8 March from a dementia-related illness.' Peacock appeared in every episode of the BBC sitcom from 1994 to 2015. Although most famous for the long-running sitcom, Peacock was also an accomplished Shakespearean actor, starring in a number of BBC productions including Titus Andronicus, Twelfth Night and as Jack Cade in Henry VI, Part II. The actor also appeared in the 1990 movie version of Hamlet and a 2000 production of Don Quixote. He was also a successful musician and songwriter. He appeared with The Be-Atles (a popular beat combo of the 1960s, you might've heard of them) in the 1964 TV special Around The Be-Atles and wrote a number of pop hits. Peacock's songs included, most famously, 'Mrs Brown, You've Got A Lovely Daughter'; originally written for a TV play called The Lads in which it was sung by Tom Courtenay, a cover version by Herman's Hermits topped the US singles chart in 1965. He also wrote 'Made You' for Adam Faith, Billy Fury's 'Stick Around', The Vernon Girls hits 'You Know What I Mean' and 'Funny All Over', 'Mystery Girl' recorded by Jess Conrad, 'Gossip Calypso' (Bernard Cribbins) and 'That's What Love Will Do' and 'Nature's Time For Love' (both recorded by Joe Brown & The Bruvvers). He contributed the lyrics for the stage musical Passion Flower Hotel (music by John Barry) and for a musical based on the newspaper cartoon strip, Andy Capp (with music by Alan Price). Before his acting career took off, Peacock compered the pop show Drumbeat for the BBC, also writing scripts for Oh Boy! and The Six-Five Special. Born in Edmonton, Trevor was a fine footballer in his teenage years, having a trial for Tottenham Hotspur when he was eighteen. He also, briefly, worked as a teacher in North London. He started his TV career in the 1960s in ITV Television Playhouse, Comedy Playhouse and The Wednesday Play. He later played Rouault in Madame Bovary and Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop. Peacock's CV also included appearances in EastEnders, Man In A Suitcase, Jonathan Creek, Between The Lines, Neverwhere, Albert!, Thick As Thieves, Edward The Seventh, The Borgias, C.A.T.S Eyes, The Riff Raff Element, The Thin Blue Line, The Smell Of Reeves & Mortimer and My Family and in 2007 appeared in the film Fred Claus, playing the father of Father Christmas. He had a long relationship with the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. He also wrote a number of musicals, including Leaping Ginger (1977), Cinderella (1979), Class K (1985) and Jack & The Giant (1986). Peacock was married twice. His first marriage was to Iris Jones, from whom he was divorced. His second wife was actress Tilly Tremayne. Peacock had two sons, the actors Daniel Peacock and Harry Peacock (with whom Trevor appeared in an episode of Kingdom in 2007) and two daughters, Sally and Maudie. He lived in the village of East Coker in Somerset and was an active supporter of Yeovil Town FC. He was diagnosed with dementia in 2009 and it was reported in 2018 that he was in the advanced stages of the disease, had retired from acting and was living in a nursing home in Yeovil.