After spending his day writing satire (for Private Eye, unpaid) about Hillsborough, Peter Cook was forlornly sitting at the window table of an empty Kenny's in Hampstead one Tuesday in 1989. The table afforded a view up to Bentham House, home of his estranged comic partner Dudley Moore.

Cook was contemplating easy ad cash. His "ideal" commercials were those he'd made in the 70s with Dudley and Ursula Andress, for Solo, a soft drink. "I said, 'For God's sake, Dudley, don't tell them what's wrong with this product. The name for a start implies you drink it alone. Secondly, it tastes disgusting.' Of course the ads never got shown but we got a bundle of money."

At the nearby Pollo Sorpresa, Cook once popped over to a customer and devoured her spaghetti, because "she was toying with it". At Kenny's, the waiter couldn't tempt Cook, between six or seven margaritas, to do more than toy with a quesadilla.

It was a waiter, Cook noted, who'd been the basis for his character EL Wisty. "Radley was a pretentious school where the Warden and head boys sat at high table. And, as he served, Arthur Boylett whispered 'I saw a pebble in the driveway this morning and I thought I saw it move. So that pebble's probably very valuable.' So I developed this character that saw twigs levitate and hover … I've being doing him ever since."

Cook discussed Margaret Rutherford's chins, The Four Tops' hits and Hitler's pauses. When the bill arrived he became quite stroppy about contributing. The next day he rang to apologise, then asked me to phone him back, as "the recession bites in Hampstead".