Peter Rhodes on elephants, coincidences and piling on the summer pounds
I have a friend who once wrote a book about coincidences. Even after researching some of the strangest and most unlikely cases, he came to the conclusion that a world without coincidences would be much stranger than this world. Even so...
More than 40 years ago, a lad called George ran a seaside tea shop a few miles from here. My family and I holidayed in the area for many years. We got to know him well. Then George moved on and we hadn’t seen him for years. Last week we found ourselves wondering what had become of him. The next day we walked to Seaton, stopped for a couple of coffees, chatted with a volunteer at the tram station and generally fiffed and faffed about in the usual aimless holiday mode, until we found ourselves at the checkout in Tesco, right next to George. We had a joyous, surprised little reunion, caught up on family life and, after a few minutes, parted.
I admit it’s not the greatest coincidence story in the world but what were the odds, on a stroll with so many starts and stops, of our paths crossing with such precision? I wonder whether, merely by talking about George, we had subconsciously tuned our senses to be on the look-out for him. And if that theory works for finding George, can it work for my phone charger? I put it down here only last night...
My holiday reading includes a collection of short stories by the American writer, Raymond Carver, entitled Elephant. I tell people I found it in the living room.
Incidentally, the term “the American writer” using the word “the” rather than “an,” may suggest that I or you have ever heard of Mr Carver, when we may not have. “The,” followed by the person’s name, especially in obituaries, is a way of bigging up people whom the writer thinks you ought to be aware of, as in “the rapper,” the award-winning pumpkin glazier” and “the celebrated nose-flute virtuoso.”
I was going to write about the appalling state of obese-stricken, blubbery Britain, as exhibited on the Devon beaches. Then I found a roll of relaxed muscle resting on my waistband and discovered my BMI had crept over 25. I’m big-boned, but only in the summer.
