(271) Less of a Plaskett/Parsifal Identity Crisis

On October 10th 2012 I received a message at Facebook from Deborah Cowley. She said she was getting in touch as she lived in Newquay and had recently received a gift copy of my book Coincidences.
During the course of our introductory exchange I sensed something synchronous re her identification of my signature and my specification that the only error I thought I had made in my otherwise meticulous recording of coincidence was in not capturing the facial similarities between myself and Peter Seiffert singing the role of Parsifal in a photo in the Sunday Times of late 1987.
  • October 10
    Deborah
    • Hi James, just reading your book, Coincidences and just wondered if I could send you a little piece I wrote myself a number of years ago. Incidently, While reading your book, a few coincidences have happened to me such as one day before I read you a friend of mine reccommended I read Coming Up For Air by George Orwell, which your book mentiones. Have sent a friend request.
      Kind regards
      Deborah
  • October 10
    H. James Plaskett

  • October 10
    Deborah
    • yes, have seen the blog, but would like to send you, via email, if possible my thoughts on this subject. Do you have an email which I can send you my thoughts on this matter. Also, how strange you are a GM. I play against my computer all the the time and I beat it a couple of weeks ago two times in a row. Maybe we can have a game online sometime?


        • Some of your coincidences are a bit tenuous, but if you read my thoughts on the matter you may think differently. I believe that when these things occur it is because of a link, that should not be broken etc etc.

      • October 10
        Deborah
        • A day before reading your book a friend reccommended 'Coming Up For Air' so I am reading a book about coincidences and one happens straight away. By the way, I have very scientific views on the matter
        • Also, after writing my thoughts about coincedences I phoned a couple of professors at Oxford and Cambridge who thought my writing had merit but wasn't their thing but encouraged me to pursue it.

      •  



      • October 11
        H. James Plaskett
        • How came you by my book?

      • October 11
        Deborah
        • A friend gave it to me as I told him it was a subject I had written about and was interested in. Will email you what I wrote, although it was about 10 years ago now.


            • Who? When? How came HE by it, please?

          • October 11
            Deborah
            • I will ask him when I see him soon and let you know. Have sent you an e mail with my thoughts on the subject

          • October 11
            H. James Plaskett
            • The guy´s name?
              I may recognise it...

          • October 11
            Deborah
            • Keith Hill

          • October 11
            H. James Plaskett
            • hmmmm
            • No. Don´t recognise that name

          • October 11
            Deborah
            • Didn't think you would. I think he got it in a charity shop, but not sure as it was given to someone as a gift with names I don't recognise, I will just go and get it and let you know what the names are

          • October 11
            H. James Plaskett
            • Would help me to comment upon what you hv just sent were there more concrete examples. Whatever else one may say about my stuff: at least I recorded it! Koestler, for example, says that when researching the biography of coincidence collector P. Kammerer he encountered " a meteor storm of coincidences" himself. But he recorded very few...perhaps only 3. One, involving Herta Buresch is in my book. I am meticulous in the presentation o evidence. To the point even of being a pain about it.


              • Deborah

                • It says at the front To Koolio from Parsija (I think, as the writing is quite illegible)
              • October 11
                H. James Plaskett
                • the only one I regret not having recorded and not in greater detail was the similarity in 1988 between myself + Peter Seiffert - the opera singer who played Parsifal
                • The name I just wrote is probably the one u hv difficulty in reading: Parsifal.

              • October 11
                Deborah
                • Yes, you mention Parsifal a lot in your book

              • October 11
                H. James Plaskett
                • PARSIFAL is my handle at the Internet Chess Club
                • the similarity between myself then + Seiffert then is clearer at my blog
                • Koolio...?
              • October 11
                Deborah
                • Actually, yes it does say Parsifal, just realised
              • October 11
                H. James Plaskett
                • Think I may be able to trace who that is since it is almost certainly the handle of someone else at the ICC.




                  • So it was a book given by yourself?
                • October 11
                  H. James Plaskett
                  • Also a coincidence in that as I sent to you this -
                  • the only one I regret not having recorded and not in greater detail was the similarity in 1988 between myself + Peter Seiffert - the opera singer who played Parsifal
                  • YOU Yourself misidentified the very identity
                  • the very name
                  • of Parsifal
                  • Written by ME

                • October 11
                  Deborah
                  • The writing was not very clear, but it is now
                • H. James Plaskett
                  October 11
                  H. James Plaskett
                  • AHA!!!
                  • More + More Synchronistic then, Ms Cowley
                  • No?

                •  
                •  

                •  



                •  
                  •  

                •  
                   
                  •  


                •  
                  •  

                • October 11
                  H. James Plaskett
                  • When did Keith give you my book?
                • October 11
                  Deborah
                  • Two weeks ago



                    • October 11
                      H. James Plaskett
                      • When did HE get it?

                    • October 11
                      Deborah
                      • Strangely, I gave him Animal Farm - by George Orwell as a kind of swap, who you mention in your book. I will ask him all the details later and get back to you.
                      • I think I already told you a few days before he gave me the book another friend of mine recommended that I read Coming Up For Air

                    • October 11
                      H. James Plaskett
                      • Indeed.
                      • Where are u now?

                    • October 11
                      Deborah
                      • Cornwall

                    • October 11
                      H. James Plaskett
                      • Ah
                        Koolio

                    • October 11
                      H. James Plaskett
                      • Think his name´s Paul...somebody +
                          •  + he was originally living near Grimsby or Skegness
                          • and then told me he had moved to the South West
                          • Are u in Liskiard?

                        • October 11
                          Deborah
                          • Things are becoming clearer

                        •  



                        •  

                        •  
                          •  




    • 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