coincidentally

The BBC article I quoted in my previous post started by saying, ‘Fans of The Ramones will know “Hey! Ho! Let’s go!”. This reminds me of a conversation on the plane on my last UK trip.

I was sat next to a couple of young lads (well, relatively young) and it turned out it was the first time one of them had been on a plane. The other one just went to sleep, but the guy next to me and I had a wide-ranging conversation in which we swapped edited highlights of our life histories. At least it seemed to keep his mind off the flight.

We talked about gardens and wildlife and languages, all of which was fine; but he was keen to talk about music, which is a subject I struggle with. Mind you, as can be seen from the concert ticket collection in the photo, there was a time when I was a little more in touch with such things.

At some point I mentioned that I’d seen the Ramones live. (I’d forgotten I actually saw them twice, though the tickets suggest I did.) I think I even managed to work out what year it was (back in the early 90s) and I certainly remembered that I’d seen them in the Sala Canciller – a relatively small venue in Madrid that no longer exists.

Suddenly he stopped finding it surprising that I was so vague about it all – Ramones concerts are not, perhaps, the easiest to remember. I think I also went up in his estimation: at 14, he had been too young to go to that particular concert, but his older brother was there.

The chances of having coincided at some time or place in the past with a chance-met stranger may actually be quite high. But the odds of discovering such a coincidence during a casual conversation seem to be rather lower. I wonder whether the fact that it wasn’t actually him but his brother makes the odds higher or lower.

Author: don't confuse the narrator

Exploring the boundary between writer and narrator through first person poetry, prose and opinion View all posts by don't confuse the narrator