Category Archives: Coincidences

Broken News, coincidentally

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I turned on the TV the other night and low and behold it was the very stunning Belinda Stewart-Wilson in the BBC comedy Broken News. I wasn’t sure at first, but yes, on closer inspection it was my former colleague at the Health Development Agency who back in 2000 welcomed me to my new work place by getting drunk with me in the Barley Mow (just off Great St.Peter’s Street in London). That ranks as the best ever welcome to a new job, take note my new Sift colleagues!

PS: Now in 2009 I see Belinda’s got a man (professional comedian Ben Miller no less) and a son and moved to Somerset, congratulations!

Now the nice thespian coincidence is that around the same time I had a guy called Chris Routh come and temp for me, who was also in the acting trade. He in fact said he was up for an audition for the Harrison Ford/Liam Neeson blockbuster K-19 The Widowmaker. A couple of years passed, I was visiting the States and popped into a cinema in Seattle to catch the film. And yes, you’ll be glad to know, there was Chris now appearing as a Russian submariner called Oleg doing his best to stop the atomic reactor from exploding! What’s more I had the good fortune to bump into Chris on his return, and he said he’d had a great time going drinking with Harrison.

PPS: By a nice quirk of fate at the ICAEW I worked with a guy called Alan who wrote a biography of Harrison Ford. There you go!

The Brazilian connection – part 2

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Went for a fun birthday party at scout hut in Hackney last night to celebrate Dr Dougie’s birthday. Around an open fire, looking at the scout’s honour and other plaques on the wall, I got talking to a guy called Nick. And we got talking about the Big Issue magazine, which Gibby Zobel used to work for. Funny thing is Nick told me Gibby is now working for Alijazeera (plus other outlets) in Brazil. Coincidentally we met Gibby at a mental health fundraiser in July 2003 with Shirley’s brother Junior. Gibby was off back to Sao Paulo to work, and we wished him luck, so it’s great to see it’s worked out for him. It was nice to hear he’d landed a job and a funny coincidence that it was with the Alijazeera TV station which is in the news with the leaked memo about the planned bombing of the station by Bush the US President (thanks to Meg for the link to this nice Bush satirical interactive). And finally, check out Gibby’s audio recording of Man City beating Man U 4-1 in March 2004 with commentary in full-flowing Brazilian.