
When I was little, watching The Lone Ranger, Champion the Wonder Horse, Wagon Train and the like, it was the convention that when a baddie pulled a kerchief over the lower half of his face he became unrecognisable. Sheriffs, neighbours, even relatives would have no idea that it was he who was holding up the stagecoach or stealing the miners’ payroll or threatening the tellers in the bank.
Dutifully wearing my anti-covid mask I was therefore surprised on entering my local Waterstone’s the other day to be greeted with “Hello Mr Peacock”.
So either bookshop staff are unusually prescient, or the scriptwriters on those 1950s westerns were taking a short cut …
[Other bookshops are available.]
You are, of course, particularly tall and distinguished-looking, Mr. P.