There was a phase in my life during which incredible coincidences and synchronicity were the norm. Most of these events were interesting, amusing and beneficial. I am glad now that I was able to enjoy them while they happened; I did not know that a very bad time was ahead of me.
I remember one sequence of coincidences that is unusual by any standards.
A new young colleague came to work in my group. His name was Greensmith, and they put him next to someone whose last name was Greenwood. The other man in the small, partitioned off area was called Verdellen. I was very interested in anagrams and the meaning of names at the time, and thought that it was quite a coincidence that three green men should be sitting close together. I do realise that the name Verdellen is not derived from the Latin word for green, but it still contains it.
I told one colleague, who said that four was his threshold: he wanted another green man before he would believe that it was anything more than coincidence. There was someone else who might have been interested, but I did not tell him because he was frantically checking his notes for an imminent major software upgrade at the weekend.
I decided to wait until after the system had gone live so as to get his full attention, but he suddenly looked up from his papers and - out of the blue, to no one in particular - said that he would be going to the video shop (this was before DVDs became the norm) to get The Third Man – a very good film.
I think that it is a great film, but the coincidence is that the third man is Harry Lime, and the screenplay was taken from a story written by Graham Greene. I told the first colleague that his fourth and fifth men had appeared.
This was just the start of it: there was much more to come.
I remember one sequence of coincidences that is unusual by any standards.
A new young colleague came to work in my group. His name was Greensmith, and they put him next to someone whose last name was Greenwood. The other man in the small, partitioned off area was called Verdellen. I was very interested in anagrams and the meaning of names at the time, and thought that it was quite a coincidence that three green men should be sitting close together. I do realise that the name Verdellen is not derived from the Latin word for green, but it still contains it.
I told one colleague, who said that four was his threshold: he wanted another green man before he would believe that it was anything more than coincidence. There was someone else who might have been interested, but I did not tell him because he was frantically checking his notes for an imminent major software upgrade at the weekend.
I decided to wait until after the system had gone live so as to get his full attention, but he suddenly looked up from his papers and - out of the blue, to no one in particular - said that he would be going to the video shop (this was before DVDs became the norm) to get The Third Man – a very good film.
I think that it is a great film, but the coincidence is that the third man is Harry Lime, and the screenplay was taken from a story written by Graham Greene. I told the first colleague that his fourth and fifth men had appeared.
This was just the start of it: there was much more to come.
