GM James Plaskett presents another of his
coincidence files.
Geldof's Milk
On the evening of February 4th 2001 I was chatting
on the Internet Chess Club and joined in a discussion
on whether money brought happiness. I remarked
that I had heard that Sir Bob Geldof would be
doing some work on the house next door to ours
the next day.
I went on to say that even though I was certain
that his motives in setting up Live Aid in 1985
had been wholly philanthropic, the fact was
that he had also benefited from it financially.
James Eadon queried how. I said that he had
had indirect benefits, e.g. appearing in TV
ads for milk.
Simultaneously Eadon remarked "He was made
famous by Live-Aid and if you have fame you
can milk that."
He then said that he was unaware of Geldof's
milk ads.
The following afternoon Fiona, who never drinks
milk, asked me to go out and buy a pint in anticipation
of the chaps working next door perhaps wanting
some teas or coffees. In the event they declined
her when she offered to make them drinks.
Maurice Grosse
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
[Paula Yates], who had now 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 with whom I had spoken
at their annual conference in Winchester in
1988.
Several hours later my wife [poetess Fiona Pitt
Kethley] 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.
Countdown Orgasms. [Countdown is a sleepy
English word game TV program]
On the afternoon of September 25th 1989 I was
watching the TV show Countdown. Two contestants
were trying to come up with the longest word
that they could compose out of a random selection
of nine letters. As I was watching it occurred
to me how funny it would be if the longest word
that they could permute were to be "orgasms"!
I watched the show again the following afternoon.
A letter selection of P I M A O G S R I came
up. I saw that Orgasms is indeed a seven letter
word that can be derived from those letters.
The two women contestants each said that the
longest word that they could think of was "Sprigs".
The resident lexicographer disallowed it since
she was unable to find it in her dictionaries.
But the guest commentator, Dinah Sheridan, pointed
out that they could have had the legitimate
seven letter word Orgasms.
Do you agree or disagree with Plaskett's arguments?
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| From: |
Graham ASH-PORTER | Subject: | 2001-11-12 04:31:50 |
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