Living the Dream: A Coincidence Diary

At about 0:30 a.m. on November 27th 2010 I saw something go by on Twitter from Cliff Stanford - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Stanford CliffStanford Cliff Stanford http://bit.ly/ghXxz0 @ akaSylvia @ pewari For a browser to make this calculation, it must load all table contents, (cont) http://tl.gd/761l6j At first I was confused but then followed the first link to find a site posted by fellow Twitterer, ratherdash , where people were being asked to turn to the nearest book when they would find that the third sentence of the second paragraph of the seventy-third page would define their life. Stanford had posted just that sentence with references to two other Twitterers one of whom, akaSylvia , I too was following. The only book adjacent to my laptop was a biography of Richard Branson, Branson , by Tom Bower which I had recently started rereading. Turning to page 73 could not have been easier because I had a bookmark where I had  halted. Between pages 72 and 73. The appropriate

On the morning of October 23rd 2007 I dreamed and then recorded the saddest dream - Sic Transit Gloria It is a setting where a dying George Best has passed an envelope containing loose change and scraps of money to me and asked me to take it to an address in Alicante. As I hand the money over to an old guy in a modest setting in Alicante, some of the lineaments of his face strike a chord. "Are you Nobby Stiles?" I ask. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobby_Stiles He says something back, with a laughing annoyance at having been recognised. Later I also meet up with Jackie Charlton and a guy with a vaguely familiar face who is forever bursting into high pitched flamenca song. At the end I realise that this is Gordon Banks and remark so to someone passing who concurs. I remark also to someone that Nobby Stiles must have fallen on hard times to be living in such reduced circumstances and he, naturally, agrees. I twig that these are all members of the 1966 England Soccer World Cup wi

On the afternoon of August 17th 2010 I found myself thinking back to this hit of the 1970s - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgZb86W-Zj0 although I had not heard the song nor even heard of it for a decade at least. I returned home and found that several e mails had arrived in my absence and that the first was from Kelly Dudley It was headed Something Old, Something New . Two below it was one from someone called ´Blue Humphries´. This turned out to be a Facebook message saying - Blue Humphries also commented on Sarah-Jane van der Westhuizen's photo album. Blue wrote: "I like my view of the Kymin but that is gorgeous !! NEVER move,lol" Shortly afterwards I was chatting on Facebook with Jeanna Tal, daughter of Mikhail Tal -   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tal . I asked her if she might be getting married soon. She said not and asked why I had asked. I explained these lead in coincidences. Shortly after at Facebook I saw that Mercedes Diane Griffin Forbes - one of only

At 7.35 p.m. on May 10th 2010 I was approaching the summit of San Julian hill near my home. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEwQItCOjKw I found myself thinking of press announcements that an Indian holy man had been observed performing a paranormal feat -  http://www.physorg.com/news192690076.html I thought, rather whimsically, that I might semi-seriously use this story to apply for James Randi´s $1 Million -  http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html  Some years earlier I had crossed swords with Randi about his refusal to test a guy making a similar claim - http://web.archive.org/web/20041023083501/www.alternativescience.com/james-randi.htm He had written back that if they took such kooks seriously then they did not have time to deal with the "serious claimants". the serious claimants . That from a man whose raison détre is the stance that all paranormal phenomena are nonsensical. He had ended communications with " Thank you for your inane input ."

On January 19th 2010 I mentioned to my wife that the story of my contemporary, Murray Chandler, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Chandler sounded like it was worth making into a film. The previous month a chap called Edwards had told me that on his 16th birthday Chandler´s parents had found a note pinned to his bedroom door informing them that he had taken a flight from his New Zealand home to London where he would be pursuing the life of a chess professional. Edwards added that he had wanted to go on his 15th birthday but jibbed when he realised that he would have to attend school in the UK. At 21 Chandler bought his first house in London, at 23 he acquired the Grandmaster title and at 25 had purchased a large garden flat in Earls Court. Then in 2006 he returned to New Zealand. Fiona disparaged his life and said that there were many such instances of people striking out on their own and making it. She cited her late friend and fan, Ziggy Frankel. http://www.zygmuntfrankel.com/ In