January 9 , 1995

Peter Cook  (November 17 1937 to January 9 1995) was an English comic genius. The author of scripts like that for the movie Bedazzled, (1966), Cook was a founding member of the Beyond the Fringe troupe. Peter Cook, born into  a prosperous and emotionally nourishing family, left a body of work which assures that his fame can only increase. Our example is from an episode of the BBC2 series, Not Only, But Also,[1960s] in which Cook and Dudley Moore starred. The particular script is titled "Facts of Life", and our excerpt is part of a dialogue:

Peter:  [the father explaining to his son where babies come from] It was necessary for your mother to sit on a chair...which was still warm from my body. And then something very mysterious, rather wonderful and beautiful and sure enough, four years later, you were born...[This is] nothing unnatural...and you are not to think less of your mother because of it....

Roger: ...one thing, actually, slightly alarms me. I was sitting in this very chair yesterday, sir, and I vacated it, and the cat sat on it while it was still warm. and should we have it destroyed?

Peter:   It's a lovely chair. Roger.

Roger:  The cat,  Sir.

Peter:  Destroyed? Oh no Roger, you don't understand. That thing of which I speak can only happen between two people who are married and you're not married.

Roger:  Not yet anyway, Sir

Peter:  Not to the cat, in any case.....

We cite for this: Tragically I Was an Only Twin: The Complete Peter Cook (2005)