WEEKLY REPORT – WEEK TWO

NUMBER SEVEN

Strangely he chose the most famous superhero not to be blessed with any special powers. He has two close friends who were born in September 1979, whilst his two grandfathers were teachers. His favourite film is Once Upon a Time in the West, which I admit to having never seen. He suffers from hayfever, and whilst his gums are perfectly normal, Kate Lawler once made a negative comment on his teeth. He has a deep interest in astrology and has got a birth chart. Meanwhile he recalls an indecipherable fotune cookie message about trains and his girlfriend recently got TWO different fortunes in a cookie, on her birthday no less, which read as follows:

1. Is knowledge knowable?
2. Laugh at yourself before others laugh at you.

NUMBER EIGHT

My most recent participant’s brother was also born in September 1979., and is also a teacher, while she herself has a teaching qualification. She thinks she might have a relative from nice, and there are definitely twins in her family. One of her favourite films is It’s a Wonderful life, as is mine, which I last watched in New York the night before my Empire State / Affair to Remember-themed proposal, which it just so happens is another of her preferred moving pictures. Like Number Six, she chose Superman, though this time the 90’s TV version. She admits to being a fellow Evertonian, and is superstitious around Magpies, whilst she once got a fortune cookie message predicting a surprise for her when she got home.

The surprise was that nothing happened.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, no other friends have been in touch this week. This is a shame, as I feel I am beginning to recognise several comon themes across them. Perhaps they are patiently holding their breath to see what unfolds. Perhaps they were also influenced by David Bond, who discussed  his recent ‘disappearance’ project in The Times Magazine last weekend.

Bond deliberately went missing earlier last year, testing his concerns that there was too much information easily available for him to be able to disappear. Detectives set up a Facebook page with his alias in an attempt to find him as they traced his ‘data-wake’ and, as he outlines in upcoming documentary Erasing David, ultimately committed ‘data-rape’ easily. One of the detectives who did eventually find him, Cameron Gowlett, stated:

            A lot of people are giving information away voluntarily… giving

            up their whole lives on Facebook and Twitter  – everything, their

            date of birth, the names of relatives and friends, where they live,

            when they’re going on holiday and what their political views are…

However, this much we do know.

Half of us were born in September 1979, or know someone who was.

Only one of my new found family has no teaching relatives.

The only links with Nice we share are a couple of potential grandparents and the one foreign holiday.

1,3,5,6 and 8 have a same favourite film as me, there is common ground between 1 and 5, 3 and 5 and 5 and 6. 5 obviously likes his films.

Three do not disclose allergies – whilst 1 and 2 are both allergic to dust.

A different three chose a different version of Superman.

Two support Everton, like me.

The majority are superstitious, whilst half have had a memorable fortune cookie message.

Only one has had his palm read in Blackpool.

And, quite aptly, two have twins in their family.

NEXT TIME…

The ‘Caledonian Antisyzygies’ of Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner; The Talented Mr Ripley, Billy Liar, even Frankenstein’s Monster. 

 Wish me luck.

WEEKLY REPORT – WEEK ONE

NUMBER ONE

Responded within an hour of receiving the survey.

Both his parents were teachers, like me (they’re now retired).Donnie Darko is one of his favourite films, just like mine. He is allergic to cats, as I once was. He considers himself to be superstitious only occasionally.

NUMBER TWO

Got back in touch the following day. An ex-colleague of his was born on September 27th. He is allergic to dust, just like person one. He once opened a fortune cookie with a curious message within it – “Be patient and the universe will guide you…” which could have applied to me also.

NUMBER THREE

She lives in New Zealand,  and someone close to her is a teacher. One of her favourite films is Amelie, just like me and person number five. The other is Whale Rider, which I haven’t seen yet, but simply must now – it is apparently about a twin who confronts the past, changes the present and determines the future…

NUMBER FOUR

Person four sent me her responses then asked not to be involved any further. I can though exclusively reveal that she knew a teacher and believed in ghosts, however.

NUMBER FIVE

Now this guy shared several interests and experiences with me. Born on 27/9 he’s a teacher, with a serious allergy, who thought he might have relatives in Nice. He had films in common with persons 1, 3 and 6. He saw himself as the alter ego of person six too. very superstitious, he’s visited fortune tellers and was also told that twins ran in his family!

NUMBER SIX

Would you believe, he lives in the very same small town as me. His brother is a teacher and his one and only family holiday abroad was taken in Nice. one of his favourite films is American Beauty, the same as one of mine and one of number five’s. The alter ego of number five too, he supports Newcastle, the team close to the heart of many of my relatives. Concurs with Derren Brown when it comes to superstition.

Keep them coming.

This was the month I gained ten pounds and fifty friends. In weight and a side project, respectively.

It was also the month that I experienced a series of strange musical coincidences, was stalked by different creatures, became increasingly obsessed by lookalikes and aliases – most specifically, superheroes – and visited yet more fortune tellers. 

All of this will be explained, in time.

I decided to wear this t-shirt again for a friend’s birthday party, which had been the inspirationnfor a single cover I helped design a couple of years ago. I hadn’t worn it for at least a year, but after putting it on, heard the actual single on the radio for the first time in months, and then at said party, the DJ strangely played the song once more. The next day, as we were leaving the classic English resort Southport the radio this time played ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ – which again I hadn’t heard properly since God knows when, although a busker had attempted a version recently when I wandered past him – and whilst driving along and singing we stopped at a roundabout behind a van advertising Nippon KUNG-FU classes. And then there was the whole incident with the Smiths Indeed, which you should have already read about.

This of course brought in the ducks, who have been paying frequent visits to our vicinity since that day. However, I failed to mention that I also met either a large frog (Kermit?) or a toad that day, who was sat precariously on the wall outside a house around the corner. I picked him up to make him more secure, and refernces were obviously made to perhaps the second most famous toad of all time, Danger Mouse’s nemesis Baron Greenback, and I thought nothing more of this event until in the week I received not one but two letters of different people, addressed to a Jonathan Greenback.

Having a quiet drink one evening in the local I recognised an older version of myself across the bar, wearing a very similar outfit and the exact same four year old Ben Sherman. Imagine my surprise when I later went the toilet and  found myself stood next to the same guy, in uncomfortable silence. The following week, I decided to watch a film about someone due to be married who people sometimes wrongly presume is gay, and starred an actress who had been in a series I loved when it was on eight years ago but hadn’t seen in anything since, plus an actor I strangle recognised but wasn’t sure why until I remembered he played the Las Vegas casino dealer in an episode of Friends that had always stayed with me for no reason other than that Joey followed this guy around, believing he was his ‘identical hand twin’, and this always sounded like the sort of weird thing I would do and resonated with what I’d been told in Blackpool about twins… After watching the film, flicking through the channels, what should be on that very but that exact same Friends episode.

I did spend most of March considering where things were going. I accumulated potential collaboratoes – all has now been revealed to them so we will see what happens next. But as the month went on I also became aware of the existence of the synchronicitous opportunity I have been patiently waiting for – the identity of which – whom – will remain a mystery for now.

I said at the start I have been to see more fortune tellers – these were the mechanical kind, at the end of a pier. However, they seemed to be just as ‘correct’ as the ‘real’ ones I encountered last Summer. The cards the machines spat out at me included the character description ”… you’re inquisitive about the world around you and life’s mysteries”, a palm reading told me I am ‘romantic’, advised me I am “too  secretive about little things, and too open about personal problems” whilst another told me I should me “morecautious and secretive… and prone to look too much on the serious side of life” and perhaps in an attempt to encourage this, gave Lise a picture of her future husband:

Even the arcade machine versions tell the truth…