STRANGE COINCIDENCES AND A BRUSH WITH PORNOGRAPHY

Coincidences are unsettling. When something happens that duplicates something else that either has happened very recently or is happening now makes one … unsettled. It is similar to the very occasional clairvoyance that I have experienced in that one thinks of something and then it happens; it’s a coincidence of thought and event. If you trawl back through my earlier posts you will find one called ‘My Short Slender Greek Holiday’ in which I tell of how, when on a boat, I said to my wife ‘Dolphins - in about two minutes’ and very soon afterwards a dolphin appeared; there may have been more but we saw only one. So not 100% correct. It is hard to believe I know but very recently on an idyllic evening cruise on a large sailing boat out of Key West, Florida, a number of us were saying how the experience was like being in a movie - it was perfect in every way - and without really thinking I said to everyone ‘Now, cue dolphin’. Within a few seconds the captain of the craft, who had not heard what I had said, yelled out ‘Dolphin!’ and turned the boat around as fast as he could to show us the dolphin he had spied. I didn’t mention this occurrence in the blog because I had decided not to write anything about my trip to Florida and, frankly, because I thought you wouldn’t believe it. Maybe you don’t but read on.

This morning I was doing a menial job in the house and, as I usually do when so employed, I put on a CD. It was Anne-Sophie Mutter playing Mozart’s Violin Concertos number 3 & 5 with the Berlin Philharmonic under Von Karajan. The final movement of 5 was playing when I finished the job and went out of the house to drive to the Gym where I attempt to stave off the effects of ageing. As I left the house I switched on Radio 3, and the final movement of the 5th concerto filled the car. So it’s not just dolphins.

Three weekends ago we were staying with friends in Bury St. Edmunds and on the Sunday afternoon we were taken on a car ride to visit three churches all of which had historical and architectural interest. In one of the churches there was an informal bookshop. You’ll know the sort of thing. People bring in their unwanted books, they are priced and put out for visitors to see and perhapspay for. You put your money in a tin. I saw a book that I quickly realised I should buy. It was priced at £3.00.

I should now tell you that the day before we left for Bury St. Edmunds I was standing in one of our guest rooms that has become something of a repository for the odds and ends one gathers through the years. On a window ledge there were a few books that my wife had gathered from some remote corner and which I did not recognise. One was one of those Christmas gift books that one is never actually expected to read; it was called THE BOOK OF VICES’ subtitled ‘A Collection of Classic Immoral Tales’; it was an assembly of quotations and extracts from other works. I have no idea who had given it to me. I opened it at random and found, to my surprise, that I had happened upon the section named ‘LUST’ and specifically upon one of the seven pages of text taken from John Cleland’s classic work of pornography, FANNY HILL, MEMOIRS OF A WOMAN OF PLEASURE. I put the book back on the shelf (thinking, perhaps, to study it later – No! No! No! That would not be in character at all – rather, thinking that I would dispose of it later).

Now, back to the church book shop. The book that I had spotted was – did you guess?

It was FANNY HILL. It was an edition of the Collector’s Library and rather well produced with gold page edges, a ribbon bookmark and of a size to fit into a gentleman’s pocket. I opened the book and, as though there was not sufficient coincidence occurring, I found myself looking at the same description of an object that I had seen on the page of the book I had found at home. I won’t go into detail but suffice it to say that it included a reference to ‘a maypole of so enormous a standard …’. Say no more.

So, a coincidence indeed. Inexplicable. It was not clairvoyance because my thoughts had played no part in this. It was in the same category of happening as the recording of the Mozart Violin Concertos.

You must be dying to know what I did after I had perused this delightful example of the publisher’s art. Well, I bought it, dear reader. My three one pound coins dropped into the tin and it was mine.

Of course my motivation was of a high order. I cannot imagine what could have led a member of that church to have donated for sale a work of such depravity and I could not permit it to remain on sale for a minute longer. It might have fallen into the hands of a person less able than me to withstand the impulses that a book of such character can generate. I also saved the church’s reputation by my philanthropic act.

(It is worth my mentioning that when John Cleland wrote his book, published in 1749, he made a bet with friends that he could write ‘the lewdest book in the English language without using a single “dirty” word’ and he won his bet. The word ‘euphemism’ might have been coined for him.)