Persuasion

In one of the Telegraph accounts of the life of George Best, found via Backword, one anecdote goes:

By now, though, Best's bedroom and bar room capers were seriously encroaching on his football. He missed training sessions, and in 1971 failed to turn up for a tie with Chelsea, instead going on a date with the Irish actress Sinead Cusack.

Since it's fun to look at the pictures of these celebrities in their swinging 1960s/1970s days (although Sinead still cuts a respectable figure as a fine actress and Mrs Jeremy Irons), here's a set of clips captured from Sinead's role in an episode of The Persuaders (scroll down a bit to the blonde in the brown waistcoat) -- itself a show surely ripe for a remake in these days of renewed Anglo-American alliance. Think of the pitch meeting -- two chalk-and-cheese English and American toffs, both handsome, solve crimes and build their friendship at the same time. An allegory for the Iraq war, surely?

UPDATE: Reader RG tells us that The Persuaders is being remade, with Ben Stiller and Steve Coogan playing the American and Anglo roles. The rights are owned by Granada, the large British independent television company. Here's the Variety story on the remake.