The man was Rainbow George and what he foisted on McGuinness and Adams was not a bomb but it was something that George believes could well have explosive consequences. It was a CD entitled Dream Ticket. In music and words, the CD outlines the philosophy of George s Rainbow Party, an idealistic, futuristic, mystically-directed organisation committed to government by referendum and the abolition of politics and politicians.
The Rainbow Party s Northern Ireland policy envisages not a United Ireland but a coming together of Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England to form WISE, an acronymic Rainbow Republic .
People will be wise and we ll make our politicians redundant, predicts George. We will lead Europe and the rest of the world into the 21st century as the people of the Emerald Rainbow Islands. Power to the people is what we re about. It is the future. It s a when question, it s not an if question. Politicians are the obstacle to peace.
Regular Hot Press readers will be familiar with Rainbow George. During last year s general election, we reported how he and the Rainbow Party were the inspiration behind The Independent Dublin Dream Team Band, the rock n roll political party, fronted by Aidan Walsh, which had a candidate in each of the 11 Dublin constituencies. George also featured prominently in an article in our Christmas issue about the wild years of his close friend, the late, great Peter Cook, the father of modern British comedy.
Rainbow George was born George Weiss, the son of a rich diamond dealer. By the mid- 70s, George had worked his way through a substantial inheritance and was almost penniless. He moved to Dublin to pursue a girlfriend for a while before becoming an apprentice prophet and returning to London in the early 80s.
George was, and is, an extravagant fantasist, a man permanently in the frenzied grip of wild schemes and plots, very few of which ever come to fruition.
HERBAL REMEDIES
At his home in Perrin s Walk, in Hampstead, London, Captain Rainbow has always kept open house. Although George doesn t drink, there has rarely been any shortage of what you might call herbal remedies beneath his eaves. Alongside random passers-by, local tramps, drunks and ageing hippies, a regular visitor throughout the 80s and early 90s was next-door neighbour Peter Cook.
Peter would lie on the floor (most of George s furniture had been borrowed or repossessed), occasionally for days on end, guzzling vodka, snorting coke, smoking (tobacco and weed) and chatting to whoever else happened to be passing through the house at the time.
At one point, Cook came up with the idea of the What? Party, a political organisation that would give everybody what they wanted, and was committed to, among other things, the closing down of Britain for redecoration. Peter appointed George as Minister for Confusion, and he has been assiduously fulfilling his brief ever since.
Rainbow George s political achievements have not, as yet, exactly been monumental. An inveterate gambler, Peter Cook famously made huge sums simply by placing bets on the direct opposite of whatever George predicted. In 1984, when George contested his first by-election, in the London borough of Enfield/Southgate, he received 48 votes. In the 97 Irish general election, three members of The Independent Dublin Dream Team Band received the lowest polls in Irish electoral history, while one, Maria McCool, broke the all-time record, by garnering a whopping 13 votes.
Nevertheless, George s enthusiasm and idealism remain undimmed. After the first two by-elections when we got virtually no votes, we decided we would become the movement that would speak on behalf of the people who were sensible enough not to vote in elections, explains George. Whenever there s an election where the people who don t vote outnumber those that vote for the official winning candidate, we claim that as a Rainbow Victory. After the last general election in England, we claimed 70 seats in the British Parliament, including 11 in Northern Ireland.
George had hoped to stand candidates in the elections to the Northern Ireland Forum so that the Rainbow Party would be represented at the peace talks. Unfortunately, he missed the deadline for nomination of candidates.
Adams and McGuinness were not the only recipients of the Dream Ticket CD. George distributed a copy to all of the participants in the Dublin Castle talks. I left about 30 parcels into the Castle, he says proudly. It s like dropping a pebble into a pond, getting across the concept of the united Islands.
THOUSANDS OF BOTTLES
Right now, George is wagering all on the Dream Ticket CD. He aims to sell a million and one copies, from each of which he hopes to make #1. All going well, this million quid will then be used to fund a major Rainbow Party campaign for the European elections next summer. Then, we can give everyone in Britain and Ireland the opportunity to come together to create the Emerald Rainbow Islands. That s the dream.
The only problem is that, as of yet, George does not have a distributor for the CD, in either Ireland or the UK. He had planned a launch for the project for September 1st last. But it had to be cancelled because it was the day after Princess Di s accident. I guess it wasn t really impeccable timing.
George is personally distributing a thousand copies from his home but is appealing, through Hot Press, to people in the music business to come forward, help distribute he record and maybe make a million themselves.
I m a fatalist, says George, who lives on income support. My life experience has left me convinced that there is something out there which is directing this whole show. We re all actors in a script and it s going to be a cliff-hanger. I believe that the world will go over the edge. Things will get worse before they get better. But I accept that you can t force things to happen. Everything has its time and place. But I am also an optimist. I very much believe that the spark for change in this world will come room these islands.
Dream Ticket, which features a contribution from Ian Dury, another long-time buddy, also boasts a small snippet from the thousands of hours of conversation with Peter Cook that Rainbow George recorded in Perrin s Walk. I don t miss Peter because I do feel his presence, George insists. I do believe he s definitely out there somewhere. Death, to me, is not a sad thing. Death is something I look forward to.
I have this picture in my mind that Peter is sitting at some bar at the moment, and every time his name is mentioned, he gets another drink. So, he s sitting there with thousands and thousands of bottles and he s able to distribute them to everyone he wants.
I ve got lots of friends on that side and I have this feeling that they are tuned in and getting a good laugh out of everything I m trying, and failing, to do. n

Rainbow George can be contacted, by sending a SAE, to The Rainbow Dream Ticket Party, 21 Perrin s Walk, Hampstead, London NW3 6TH.