The flight was a little late, but the bad weather meant we had had another couple of days filled with concern and uncertainty, so an extra hour was irrelevant.

 

 

The first thing that many of us do is check the films that will be shown: I flicked through the inflight magazine and found a lookalike of me and Lise before turning to the film listings. Anyone aware of the new procedures on BA transatlantic flights will know that such excitement is ameliorated by the ‘on-demand’ service, offering about forty films to choose from. My appetite was whetted when I saw the listings, particularly one movie I’d been waiting to see for ages following a recommendation from the highly skilled builder of this very site, who knows me better than most people on this earth, and said that 500 Days of Summer could have been written about me.

 

It didn’t disappoint – the central character Tom’s Joy Division t-shirts, hopeful romanticism, love of The Smiths, and basically his whole personality, was reminiscent of me, and the narrative jumped back and forwards as well as any of my stories. But what really stuck was a quote towards the end of the film, something that stuck with me and was to resonate loudly later on during the trip.

 

                        “If Tom had learned anything, it was that you can’t ascribe

                         cosmic significance to an earthly event.

 

                        COINCIDENCE – That’s all anything ever is. Nothing more…

                        Nothing less.

 

Coincidence.

 

                        Tom had finally learned – there are no miracles.

 

                        There’s no such thing as fate.

 

                        Nothing is meant to be…”

 

Now this knocked me a little, as events such as the proposed strike and weather problems plus the fortune teller’s predictions, made me more certain than ever that this was all meant to be, but I watched the heartwarming UP instead of worrying about what I’d just been told by the narrator of an Indie flick.

 

We were on our way.

 

Suddenly, things went wrong upon landing, however. Our bags had not accompanied us on the journey, and so we travelled to the hotel ‘light’ but safe in the knowledge that at least one would be joining us soon enough.

 

Times Square was its usual buzzing self, and aside from the bags balls-up, everything was looking good. At Planet Hollywood we were even sat under Sly and Slimer, having noticed memorabilia from Big and Ferris Bueller (two of my favourite films) and West Side Story and Grease (two of Lisa’s) on the way to the table.

 

 

 

The following day brought with it some amazing experiences – The top of the Rock for the most amazing views, the sun was shining, a bus tour, then a fantastic Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. The biggest coincidence of Christmas Eve was that our tour guide on the Downtown bus, looked a little like me. Albeit a lot cooler, with the necessary knowledge and accompanying Queens accent. Then, one of the old Rockettes was a great lookalike for Lisa’s mum, and, after the show, we had our photograph taken by the spit of Barbra Streisand.

 

After a wonderful meal at the Grand Central Oyster Bar, we returned to the hotel, still no luggage… but It’s a Wonderful Life! was on TV.

 

 

No luggage meant no presents on Christmas morning, so, wearing pretty much the same clothes as the previous two days, we set off for the Empire State Building nice and early.

 

Now when I said that things were meant to be, every hope was pinned on us getting to the top of the Empire State. If you’ve seen An Affair to Remember you’ll get what that means, if not, go and see it. Sleepless in Seattle is, in my opinion, a little less relevant, however, both could be said to have relied heavily on chance, destiny, fate… and both inspired what happened next.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You really couldn’t make this up.

 

Another strange month, culminating in a life-changing few days in New York, more of which next time.

 

But the twenty two days before our departure was event-filled and offered yet more – as if it were needed – evidence that my seven ladies were telling the truth.

 

The month started with a trip to a self-help guru training day, all very useful, and the journey there brought chance encounters with two very influential old tutors who had sat themselves (separately) in the same carriage on the train there.

 

The following day, on a different train entirely, I met an interesting family who themselves showed a sincere interest in what I was writing in my little notebook about (them) and proceeded to borrow my phone, discuss Christmas spending amounts, and comment on my niceness, whilst swigging Stella from a can. What intrigued me about this meeting was that they now have my phone number – long story – and I wonder to myself, will this development come back to haunt me?

 

It hasn’t yet.

 

This was the day I also completed a ‘mental toughness’ questionnaire, and I was not entirely surprised to find out a couple of days later that I had the lowest possible ‘mental toughness’ score, one category of which looks at how ‘in control’ you are of your life. Every participant receives a ‘coaching’ report full of useful advice for improvement – I will be looking to follow this over the next few months and check my progress….

 

Perhaps the highlight of the start of the month was the World Cup. I prayed that England might get paired up with Algeria, the land of my fore fathers, and just as Derren Brown suggested might happen, my wishing came true and the two countries will play each other next June in South Africa. I immediately began collecting information on Algeria, though planning a sojourn there this year proved problematic when BA advice suggested nobody travel there unless it’s absolutely necessary… However, I also found out that one of their squad plays for Blackpool.

 

 

All the above, and following, was played out against the backdrop of a rather uncomfortable domestic situation in the flat above that which I recently moved into, the woman there, in between drunken-sounding screams, sounds as if she could be the two-faced individual / one who likes a drink that the fortune tellers warned me about?

 

A school trip encouraged me to consider converting to Judaism, and a TV drama was aired about someone whose life is dictated my fate and numbers, meanwhile hands came back in to my thoughts for a reasons that will soon become very apparent. And, at my grandma’s ninetieth birthday – the age I was told I will also live to – we discovered that two of my relatives were buried together, nine days apart, over a hundred years ago.

 

 

However, the main reason that all of this paled into insignificance during December was because the proposed trip to New York was put into serious doubt ahead of the planned strike by BA cabin crew during the period our trip was booked. Days of uncertainty, waiting for contradictory press statements, were nightmarish, given what was in store, but all the while I kept a secret security inside myself that told me everything would be ok.

 

You see, whilst most of the fortune tellers had foreseen me crossing the waters and having a good time, others had seen the year ending on a high, and a couple had suggested I consider living abroad, one in particular had been adamant that I would receive very good news on December 17^th.

 

Lo and behold, an announcement was made on December 17^th that the strike ballot was illegal and we would, after all, be going to New York…

 

A month of great change.

As predicted, the flat move went through finally, and I am very happy to be here. Other aspects of my life, in terms of moving (recent and potential) brought with them less good news, therefore the predicted career change looks more enticing than ever, especially given some of the experiences encountered through University-arranged talks and workshops: more of which later.

This month I had a great time at a christening, the first I had been invited to since such an event was predicted by the seaside seven. There I heard of the subjects’ mother’s recent visit to a medium, and what she had been told about the children… which came only a couple of days after a riveting story I heard about a young boy who sees ghosts. And, I discovered that where we now live was once a social club one of my best friends used to drink in before regularly scaring himself on the way home by staring at the building’s ‘ghost brick’. Perhaps it will turn out to be haunted though by characters from its time as a fire station, when the chief fire man shared the name of another of my best friends and my god son. All this being a flat where an old tutor, who once told me I reminded him of himself when he was younger, lives on the next street, I found out this month.

The warnings regarding ‘a bottle or glass’ were also painfully resonant this month when, after months of anticipation, I went to see one of my heroes (Morrissey) as part of my birthday present. As many of you will know, the concert lasted about five minutes before the singer sulked off stage after being hit by… a bottle or glass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tLUI7IGb38&NR=1

Once again, a birth and a death took place on the same day in November, though this time they affected a colleague, and the very creator of this site. And, as many of those ladies told me, I came into money unexpectedly this month, ok so they were a couple of months out, but there is not much  that I was initially told that is left to come true now.  This financial gain was also predicted by a horoscope in our now local paper, and a fortune cookie which said ‘if you had your life to live over again, you’d need more money’ the very day that one of the cheques arrived.

Plans to cross the water are continuing apace, and the year does seem to be “going out much brighter than it came in”. Coincidences, quirks of fate, are happening more frequently now – maybe I am looking out for them – but how else can you explain those above, or the time a couple of weeks back when I returned to the old place to cheekily check the mail box and arrive at exactly the same time a couple who looked remarkably like me and Lise, entered the building accompanied by an estate agent who said he was about to show them around my old flat?

However, perhaps the strangest coincidence this month was passed on to me by a course mate, who, during a visit to his friends, noticed a fortune cookie message pinned to her notice board.

“HELP! IM LOCKED IN A FORTUNE COOKIE FACTORY” said it.

Now, I have a decision to make. Clearly, Brigitta’s desperate pleas were bound to end up in other people’s post banquet entertainment, but I never expected such convergence at this stage.

Therefore, do I dismiss months of research and pondering? Accept that it was not my destiny to intercept her s.o.s.? Or at least, not just mine.

Or, do I investigate this event further, exploring the notion that this is all just another intricate layer of the elaborate game I am mixed up in?

You see, my lines of enquiry are already shifting, and this is where I need your help…

I spoke at the start of this post that I had been lucky enough to attend several fascinating glimpses of the worlds of curation and collaboration. One of these introduced me to the seminal article by Roland Barthes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes) which I will now (rather ludicrously) reduce to snippets of still-hard-to-read soundbites, but you get the idea:

“writing is that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost… the explanation of the work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it… the author ‘confiding’ in us… the novel ends when the writing becomes possible… the text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture… the writer can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original. His only power is to mix writings… when the author has been found, the text is ‘explained’… but there is one place where this multiplicity focused and that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto said, the author… the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author.”

Subsequently, over the coming months I will be asking you to play a more active role in my narrative. The exact details are yet to be revealed, and many of you already play major roles in my life story so I don’t want you to feel that you have to intervene any more than you already do, by acting differently the natural order might be upset…

But in the mean time, please can you look out for any lookalikes of me that you think are particularly good. Celebrities, colleagues, anyone who might be mistaken for me – now, in the past or even the future. You can send me links or pictures, comment on the forum or email theartist@jonathangreenbank.com and your input would be greatly appreciated. Apparently, my godson thinks there’s an Uncle Jon lookalike living next door here – unless that was a ghost too.

http://www.123people.co.uk/ext/frm?ti=person%20finder&search_term=jonathan%20greenbank&search_country=GB&st=person%20finder&target_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.clubwebsite.co.uk%2Fglanconwyfc%2Fcommittee_members.pl%3Fpage%3Dprint&section=weblink&wrt_id=216

I will leave you with two horoscopes that I read on the last weekend of November. One  mentioned that “problems with education make for a stressful time” whilst the other said “we all have our negative moments, but they pass… fotunately, the stars are giving you a deeper insight and a sense of how something is shaping up.”

‘Til next time – Happy advent.