Friday, March 10, 2006

(168) Maurice Grosse. And three familial coincidences: "Two twenty-six" ... unicorns ... and Six, six, sixes

On the evening of June 7th 2000 I glanced at Bob Geldof’s autobiography Is That It? to look at references to how he met his ex-wife, who had become our new next door neighbour. There was a description of their fellow travellers on board a Trans-Siberian train. One was an Englishman called Maurice - "who looked like a train-spotter".

The name made me think of the only Englishman of that name that I had ever encountered: Maurice Grosse. Mr Grosse was a senior figure in the Society for Psychical Research and with whom I had spoken at their annual conference in Winchester in 1988.

Several hours later my wife asked me to watch - for her, whilst she attended to a matter on the computer in another room - the last few minutes of an unscripted show involving Frank Skinner and David Baddiel, in case she missed anything particularly funny.
Baddiel mentioned a novel he had written where he had invented a psychical researcher called Maurice Grosse - and had then found himself sued by the very psychical researcher of that name.
He had been forced to pay him £5000.
...   ...   ...

On July 6th 2000 I was reading from example 67 of Coincidences (Entry 164 here) and had reached the point where I question Ian Phillips’ chess grade. "Two Two Six??" Living the Dream: A Coincidence Diary: (164) Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, Andrew Meldrum, and the Three teachers of 'Truth' (james-plasketts-coincidence-diary.blogspot.com)

As I was reading it (not out loud but just to myself) my three year old son, Sacha, said "Two twenty six."
... ... ...

At 5:52 p.m.on July 10th 2000 I was reading from page 15 of Coincidences where I give details of MonocerosThe Unicorn. (These are here included in Part Two: The Narrative, Epilogues and Appendiceshttp://james-plasketts-coincidence-diary.blogspot.com/2006/03/part-two-narrative-epilogues-and.html )

As I did so my three year old son, Sacha, said "You are a unicorn." That morning he had seen the film The Last Unicorn on TV .
.. .... ...
On the evening of November 27th 2000 I was in the bath with my son. I began to think about making an exposition, to my brother, Neil, of how my octopus expedition got done and where the finance came from. Cliff Stanford’s rise, via a loan of £20,000 into £34,000,000 six years later due to the creation and sale of Demon Internet, made quite a story.

The Demon Internet access number contained the sequence 666.
The replacement number also has 666 in it. Stanford gave me his phone numbers in Brussels, and his mobile.
These confirmed what his uncle, Mr Spiegel, had already told me: they all have 666 in them too.

I was thinking about saying to Neil - "Guess what his fax, phone and mobile numbers all have in them" - when my four year old son, Sacha, bleated out "Six six six". I asked him to repeat what he had just said and he said the same thing again. I then asked him to repeat it again, so that I could be absolutely certain, and he again said
"Six six six".
He explained that he was saying this because I had sprayed him with water. 
I had NOT voiced my thoughts.

2 comments:

Tom Ruffles said...

This doesn't say much for David Baddiel's depth of research - given Maurice's fame within psychical research circles his name should not have been hard to spot.

James said...

Freudian slip, I should imagine, Tom.