(108) Novels about The Second Coming

In late 1994 I returned from a weekend visit to Fiona Pitt-Kethley ́s house in Hastings to where I resided during the week; the London home of Murray Sharp. I found him in conversation with Anna Durrant and her friend Rosie. Murray asked whether Fiona was working on any new book and I replied that she
had started a novel about The Second Coming.
At this there were gasps all round.
It transpired that earlier that evening Anna had suggested that Murray should write something and he had come up with the idea of a novel about The Second Coming.

This was Fiona ́s novel, published in 2000 -

...   ...   ...
Btw, the last communication I had with Anna Durrant was in 1997 when she returned a copy of a book of mine she had borrowed -The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra - and enclosed a photo of her newborn daughter, Ayesha.

So permit me to attempt to weave seven strands together in an effort to form a coincidence.

Anna 
Durrant ́s family home was in Putnoe Street, Bedford,
only a few hundred metres from my own. 
Just off Putnoe Street, and even closer to my family home, was that of 
Anne 
Cooper.
Each of these ladies produced a baby 
at around the age of twenty-eight, 
out of wedlock, 
a first child, 
a daughter,
And to each was given the name of 
Ayesha

Anne Cooper's Ayesha coming into this world circa 1985.
...   ...   ...
Ayesha is a name of Arabic and Persian origin meaning "alive", "life" and "womanly". 


...   ...   ...

Then one evening in early May 2001 I was looking at the questions in The Huge Quiz Book published by Wilson, which my wife had bought me.
One question concerned the meaning of Parousia.
The next day, Sean Patrick Ryan was commenting on my book, Coincidences. He said that the only word in it that he did not know the meaning of was ́Parousia ́. So he then asked me what it meant. I told him it means The Second Coming.


...   ...   ...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Narrative, plus Epilogues and Appendices

Image
" When a man looks for Truth, Truth looks for him." (Sufi aphorism) "The plural of anecdote is not data." Introduction The coincidences in this section, mostly from early 1988, seemed to lend themselves more easily to a narrative exposition.  To those examples which are, to some extent, verifiable,  I have appended a V. And to make the following of it all easier I shall begin with a synopsis. Before I begin, permit me to note that when, in April 1994, I attended the Society for Psychical Research Psi/Synchronicity workshop  (94) Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (james-plasketts-coincidence-diary.blogspot.com)   I was made aware by Dr Caroline Watt of what she called the "Mine Vs Yours" syndrome. i.e. that people tend habitually to regard their own coincidences as more cute, amusing, worthy of attention than those of others.  I think this is basically for two reasons:- a) Having lived through it all the experiencer will of...
Read more

(166) Paula Yates and family and friends. And from the Third to the Fourth

Image
( AMPLIFY ING the above article will make it easier to read.) I first met Fiona in March 1994, marrying her in December 1995 and hence moving to Hastings. I noted that a lot of her arty friends and neighbours had children with unusual names. Judy Neate had a son called Bingo, and Alistair Fairley a son called Paris and a daughter called Carson. Laetitia Yhap had a son called Ajax and Craig Sams a grandson called Mars. Unconventional children’s names automatically prompted thoughts of the TV personality, Paula Yates, and her four daughters - Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches Honeyblossom, Little Pixie and Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Yates More than once, in the first years of our relationship, I joked to Fiona that all we needed now was for Paula Yates to move into the area. Ms Yates had a close friend in Jo Fairley, Alistair’s sister, who had a house just around the corner from us. We had heard that Paula would sometimes be seen in the shops of Hastings...
Read more

(281) "Are you not entertained?"

Image
At 21:12 on June 29th 2015 I was flicking through a Youtube version of the 2000 film Gladiator - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbBiXPVKuTA I reached the point just before a particular scene which I wanted to see. Other available versions showed only certain excised scenes, but not the film in its entirety. It is where the gladiator portrayed by Russell Crowe talks with the slave owner played by the late Oliver Reed. The preceding scene, where Crowe takes on and slaughters a half dozen gladiators one by one, I had seen before as one of those excised. I now saw Crowe, after his killing spree, lobbing his sword to hit a distant table and asking of the ampitheatre crowd, "Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?" He then spits into the dust and walks off as the crowd chant his name. And I had seen that finale before, too. But the complete film here seemed to show a slightly different cut to that with which I was familiar. A missing bit ...
Read more