On Sunday I met up with Charlotte, my second cousin, who lives in the south of England and was up visiting some friends in Glasgow for the weekend. I’d not seen her for about fifteen years, so as you can imagine there was lots to catch up on.
When I met her she was with three of her Glasgow friends. Two of them were from Aberdeen and were family friends of a number of my old university lecturers; the third goes to the Tron and knows various Tronites such as The Shed (who incidentally did a placement in my brother’s church in Skye), Donald (who I met at The Shed’s leaving do a while back, who also comes from Skye and knows my brother, and who went to school with my friend in Inverness Angus’s sister), and Alan (who leads the Impact team at my parent’s church). Charlotte, I discovered a while back, is also good friends with Kieran Dodds, photojournalist extraordinaire, who I know from my university days and whose brother comes to St Silas.
Earlier this week my dad went to a funeral of a well-known minister, at which he met at least one Glasgow clergyman who asked “are you related to Simon Varwell, the church reviewer?” (good job I gave that church favourable reviews, then!).
Angus, meanwhile, sent me an email from Inverness yesterday saying that he had been on a course last week where he had met two joinees, one who I know well, and an old university friend of my brother’s.
It really is a small world sometimes. I’d love to say that I’m just well-connected and super-popular, but it probably really is a small world… and makes me think that the “six degrees of separation” theory must be true.
Any other interesting small world stories to share?
Thursday October 26 2006 at 4:33 pm |
Yes, yes I do.
Today I was sitting in Nandos quietly chomping on my grilled chicken wrap, when a lady asked if she could share my table. She said I didn’t have to talk to her, but felt that eating alone wasn’t a good thing (or something like that…).
Anyway, so after a bit of silence and munching, I asked if she worked in the city.
Yep, she did and works in the building across the road from mine. A little further in the conversation it turns out that in the course of her duties she has had meetings with just about everyone in my unit.
Oh yeah, she’s an artist too and we had a good chat about public art and photography.
And that’s the end of my story…
Thursday October 26 2006 at 8:49 pm |
I think this is another case for the Varwell Venn Diagram™! Although that would obviously require at least another 3 pub visits to sort out.
Thursday October 26 2006 at 11:39 pm |
If you put ‘Gypsy Holocaust’ into the – Wikipedia – search box you will find a strange link between Gypsies and Germans.
– A brief Romani holocaust chronology – is worth looking up,
on the same page.