Glenn Gould, shop talk, coincidence

My most used disc is Glenn Gould playing J S Bach's Goldberg Variations. For a change today I listen to Gould's performance of Bach's partitas, which ring their way across the afternoon.

Last night I see a programme on the More 4 channel in which Harold Pinter discusses his plays with a group of actors as they rehearse extracts from them. He speaks with relaxed humour, perception and authority about the stage, playwriting and acting. It is always gripping to hear a creative artist talking about his work, particularly one as old and distiguished as Pinter.

I read a story in True Tales of American Life, about a young woman who is reading Great Expectations in a crowded restaurant in New York. She is joined at the table by a young man who says, as he sits down: "A tragic life for poor, dear Pip." They are immediately attracted to one one another. She writes her telephone number, but not her name, in the book and presents it to him. Soon after he leaves, (and fails to recover), his jacket with the book in its pocket, in the subway. He tries without success to trace her. She goes to Oxford to study English literature; he to Paris to study painting. She takes a short holiday in Paris and again finds herself in a crowded restaurant. She is again reading Great Expectations. A waiter asks if she would mind sharing the table. The same young man as before says: " A tragic life for poor, dear Pip, " as he sits down. The person telling the story is the daughter of the couple, who didn't repeat the mistake of their first meeting. Heidi reminds me that we recently saw a film of this story.
In the Mind charity shop in the High Street, a few mintues after reading the story, I find a book on synchronicity. I am not certain what the term means, and have to buy it to discover that it is a term invented by the pyschologist, Carl Jung to describe "meaningful coincidence". telephone you.