Coincidence

Walking down my street I see the man with the pointy nose from my train station going into the pub. He's tall with curly hair. He has a girlfriend with dark brown hair. I stand at the same place as them on the train platform in the morning sometimes. I first noticed them when they were having a bit of an argument, perhaps a debate, about why she wouldn't buy an oyster card because its just one more way for them to track your movements. Conspiracy theorist. I've known them before - people unwilling to get a supermarket reward card so they can't check up on what they are buying, or who choose not to have a mobile phone or cash card so their wareabouts can't be traced so easily.

Anyway, pointy nose man and his girlfriend are walking into the pub and behind them is a friend of mine who I used to work with at Lewisham College, a resident of Bow. We stop and chat. It always amazes me that you can bump into people you know in such a large conurbation as London. He's moved to Borough and is working at a different college now. Pointy nose man comes out of the pub to ask him what he'd like to drink. We say hello. My friend asks how we know each other. We say we don't but we stand at the same spot on the train platform on the way to work...

Its also amazing how you are in the vacinity of so many people who are in your conscious but who you don't talk to or acknowledge. Once Bails and I were in France, south of Toulouse, I was driving round a roundabout when I spotted a couple I recognised from the train platform, before I realised why I shouted out the window, hey haringey folks! (being as I had no idea what their names were), but didn't see if they saw me. They probably got freaked out, I would have. When I returned I debated whether I should ask them how they enjoyed France but chickened out. They might have thought I was a stalker or something.