Nicholas Pegg
@nicholaspegg
Actor, writer, director, gardener. Author of The Complete David Bowie. Probably the only Equity member to have played Hamlet, a Dalek and an otter.
Someone just tried to take me to task about something because they thought I was Simon Pegg. Just for the avoidance of doubt, I’m not. Yes, we’re both actors, and yes, we happen to share a slightly unusual surname. But I’m not Scotty, and he’s not a Dalek. Here’s a handy cut-out-and-keep guide.
This is remarkable. The same government that’s committed to sending trans women to men’s prisons is now proposing to send cis men to women’s prisons. And from the usual suspects who drape their obsessive transphobia in the cloak of “women’s rights”, the silence is so far deafening. Quelle surprise.
I loved these books, which inter alia gave me my first introduction to famous cases like the Cottingley fairies, Andrew Crosse, and the supposed ‘Gloomy Sunday’ curse - but like that particular urban myth, many of the stories presented as true by Haining were completely unsubstantiated. Heigh-ho.
Without wishing to be unduly harsh on an author whose exciting anthologies of often heavily embroidered and sometimes wholly unverified “true mysteries” very much enlivened my youth, he was never one to let boring old facts get in the way of a good yarn.
Looks like those peace talks between the People’s Front of Judea and the Judean People’s Front are going swimmingly.
The hill I will die on: the Grauniad’s ‘The hill I will die on’ feature is fast becoming a useful directory of people you would cross the road to avoid.
What a sad day. Raising a glass to that very fine actor Tom Chadbon, who graced every franchise from James Bond to Blake’s 7 to Game of Thrones, and whose brilliant comic turn as Duggan, the out-of-his-depth private detective in the 1979 Doctor Who classic City of Death, is the stuff of TV legend.
Raising a glass to the mighty Bill Oddie. What a remarkable legacy he leaves us of laughter, music and ecological passion. I had the pleasure of working with him on Doctor Who and the Pirates, in which he was superb, so I was able to tell him how much he had enriched my life. I hope he didn’t mind.
InGen Corporation says Jurassic Park is safe despite rampaging tyrannosaurus rex on the loose
20 July 2026: Farage ally Sarah Pochin describes financial investigation as ‘kangaroo court’. 29 June 2023: Johnson allies Zac Goldsmith, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nadine Dorries, Priti Patel, Michael Fabricant, Andrea Jenkyns and others censured for describing Partygate investigation as ‘kangaroo court’.
In the garden today: the Echinops is out, and the bees are mad for it.
Raising a glass to the mighty Bonnie Tyler. Total Eclipse of the Heart is leading most of the tributes, and rightly so because it’s a gold-plated classic. But my personal Desert Island Bonnie will always be Lost in France. So beautifully sung, it captured my nine-year-old heart and has never let go.
In the garden today: I only want to see you underneath the purple clematis.
All dressed up in my new #TipToe T-shirt and ready for action at tonight’s annual David Bowie London Event at the Water Rats in aid of the brilliant @tht.org.uk. Always a pleasure and an honour to compere this great evening of live music and Bowie love. 5.30pm until late if you’re in the vicinity!
From the garden today: gooseberries! (The ones that the blackbirds didn’t get first.)
In the garden today: freshly hatched dragonflies are emerging from the pond in their numbers.
Gosh, this photo is a remarkable discovery. Amid all those fascinating facts, the accompanying text neglects to mention that in addition to those roller skates, Bowie also appears to have disguised his close-cropped 1977 hair by donning a wig that looks remarkably like his 1987 hairstyle… 1/2
Raising a glass to that fine actor David Daker. With his roguish twinkle and Black Country brogue, he raised the game in everything from Z Cars to Porridge to Boon to Dick Turpin. His two turns in Doctor Who, as robber baron Irongron and hapless space captain Rigg, are up there with the very best.
Oh, hi mum. Setting aside the trifling facts that (a) you never had a mobile phone, (b) you unfailingly adhered to a quaint old habit of writing in sentences and using punctuation, (c) I never called you “mum”, and (d) you died 27 years ago, this seems entirely legit.
Dear @theguardian.com, nice piece about the rise of octopus numbers in UK waters, but I’ve never heard of ‘conga eels’. Do they dance along in single file? Think you mean ‘conger eels’. Are subeditors even a thing any more?
In the garden today: who doesn’t love a snapdragon? The bees certainly do.
Dear @theguardian.com, nice interview with Rufus Norris, but Istanbul is not ‘the Turkish capital’. That’d be Ankara. Are subeditors even a thing any more?
Just watched Monster on the Campus (1958). Outstanding. At one point it has Joanna Moore (mother of Tatum O’Neal) addressing Troy Donahue (immortalised in that song from Grease) with the amazing line “Jimmy, I know that Dr Blake has an illusion about a giant dragonfly but I’d rather not discuss it.”
In the garden today: it’s a good year for the roses. This beauty, a gift from some dear friends, goes by the rousingly Shakespearean name of Falstaff.
BREAKING: the Animal Kwackers band has withdrawn from the Freedom 250 celebrations.
Bret Michaels has now joined the mass pull-out from Trump’s rapidly disintegrating music festival. The line-up was announced on Wednesday. It’s now Friday, and they’re down to Flo Rida and Vanilla Ice. That’s gonna be quite a party.
The line-up for Trump’s ‘Freedom 250’ event was announced on Wednesday. It’s now Friday, and two-thirds of the artists on the poster have publicly pulled out, either saying that they were never told it was a Trump-affiliated event, or else expressing surprise that they had been booked at all.
In the garden today: roses again. White ones this time. Tons of ‘em!