Rainbow George and his friend and neighbour Peter Cook.

                 "The Wondering Jew "

“I have discovered that people with money have no imagination, and people with imagination have no money.…”

"Make your life as interesting as you can so it’s worth watching when the tape plays back"

    Who 'Rainbow George Weiss' Really Was.

London forgets people like Rainbow 🌈 George Weiss faster than it should. He was born in 1940 and gone by the first of December 2021. Eighty-one years lived without apology. The headlines called him a Hampstead mystic and a fringe candidate. None of them caught the truth. He spent his life refusing the script everyone else follows.

The man before the myth
He dealt diamonds long before the Rainbow era. That detail still makes people blink although it tells you everything. George understood value and then walked away from it. In the early seventies he moved into a flat in Hampstead and stayed more than twenty years after the legal tenants disappeared. Squatters’ rights eventually handed him ownership and he sold it which gave him a small fortune. Most people would have melted into comfort. George used the money on doomed political campaigns loans to friends and ideas that had no chance in the real world. He told the Belfast Telegraph he had no regrets and he meant it. In his world embarrassment burned deeper than poverty.

Hampstead shaped him
He lived next door to Peter Cook in Hampstead and recorded hundreds of hours of their conversations like he was archiving evidence for a future that might care. The press once labelled him the master pusher behind the acid house craze which amused him more than anything. He treated notoriety the way other people treat junk mail. Step over it and keep moving.

Belfast heard him even if no one listened
Only George would stand in all four Belfast constituencies during the 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly elections with no realistic prospect of winning. He pushed ideas that sounded impossible with absolute sincerity. Belfast renamed Best City in honour of George Best. Cardiff and Belfast as independent city-states. A new European Union without countries or politicians. It reads like provocation until you realise he was not trying to shock anyone. He believed borders were a bad habit the world needed to break.

His philosophy in one story
People asked why he kept running. He would shrug and tell the same late-night story when the world softened. In Rainbow Land you arrive after death and they sit you in front of a giant screen. You watch your entire life from the first scream to the final silence. No edits. No excuses. Then you are given a tape of your life and  have to go out and sell it. If no one wants to buy it you wasted the only life you ever had. That was his rule. Make your story impossible to ignore because one day you will be the one trying to convince a stranger it was worth the ride.

Every choice followed that belief
The political parties sounded like dares. Vote For Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket. Make Politicians History. He was not campaigning for power. He was campaigning against the idea that ordinary life is the safest option. His friends described him as someone who wanted everyone to be alright and no one to go without. Looking back you can see the early shadow of universal basic income in what most people dismissed as madness.

The final message
Towards the end the Rainbow persona grew heavy. He called it a millstone. He posted what became his final public message. He wrote that he used to be agile but now was fragile ever closer to the end going round the rainbow bend looking forward to being back in clover with his spirit’s guide and soulmate on the other side. Even dying he stayed in character.

What he proved
George never delivered the utopia he imagined although he proved something quieter. Belief can be an act of rebellion when the world expects silence. Hampstead rolls on and forgets another oddball who refused to blend in. Belfast chooses candidates who do not dream out loud. Yet his philosophy sits there waiting. One day you will watch your life with no fast-forward and no second take. Make it worth the screening.

Farewell George. Save me a seat in Rainbow Land.