Студопедия — Coincidences
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Coincidences






In 1989 the Observer newspaper asked readers to send in their experiences of coincidences in their own lives. The next year they published some of the stories they received. Here are three of them. Read them without a dictionary. Which is the most interesting?

1. A ‘Small World’ encounter occurred in 1936 to Peter Elstob, novelist, historian and vice-president of PEN. Twenty years old at the time, he was window-gazing outside Lillywhite’s Piccadilly sports shop when a middle-aged American who had been standing beside him asked him for some advice.

Would it be all right to send a tennis racket to the daughter of the family he had been staying with or would they consider it over the top? Elstob reassured him.

The American then went on to say he had been unable to find the address of a young man to whom friends in the United States had asked him to deliver a letter. The man was not in the telephone directory, and nobody he had asked had been able to help him.

‘He showed me the letter; it was addressed to me. I can still remember the shock, the shiver, the wild suspicion that he must have known who I was. But that was impossible’.

It was not a significant coincidence, Elstob comments. All the writer wanted was his address, and he never met the American again. ‘I have no explanation other than one in a million chances do come up one in a million times.’

2. Flying out to the South of France to interview Graham Greene in the summer of 1988, Graham Lord, Literary Editor of the Sunday Express, found that Greene had booked him into a hotel in Antibes; but because a friend, Julian (“Jules”) Lewis, had decided to come with him, they cancelled the booking in order to stay instead at Jules’s favourite hotel, the Auberge du Colombier in Roquefort-les-Pins.

‘At the hotel Jules and I were lying by the swimming pool when there was a telephone call from London for “Mr. Lewis”. It turned out to be another Mr. Lewis who was also lying by the pool, and he turned out to be an old schoolfriend of Jules whom he had not seen for 30 years. They started reminiscing about their schooldays, and I was introduced to the other Mr. Lewis’s wife, another “Jules” Lewis (Juliet), whom I knewimmediately was going to be very important in my life.

‘It was love at first sight. Eight weeks later she left her husband, and I left my wife, and we have since lived together with astonishing happiness. For both of us it was like coming home.’

3. Mrs. May Badman has often had intuitive experiences, ‘knowing when a good or bad thing is going to happen, or a person I know well is going to ring, write or visit’; but one episode sticks out in her mind.

‘I often used the diesel train to town and for years had the habit of getting into the first carriage.

‘One morning I was, as usual, at the end of the platform, but just as the train came in, I suddenly found myself running down the platform towards the end of the train. When the train stopped I was more than half-way down.

‘When it arrived at St Pancras the train crashed into the buffers. In my carriage we were all thrown about but not seriously hurt. I was very shaken, and when I left the carriage and walked the length of the train, the further along I got toward the front the worse the situation of the passengers was, and near the front people were bleeding and crying. Five ambulances were called to take away the injured.’

 

2) What are the main points? Do the tasks; you can look back at the stories.

1. First story: here is a summary of the first story, with mistakes. Copy it, correcting the mistakes.

Peter Elstob is an American who was approached by a stranger outside a sports shop. The man wanted advice on where to buy a tennis racket. Then the man showed Elstob a letter that had been received by some friends in America; the friends wanted him to find out who had written it. The letter was from Elstob.

 

2. Second story: put one or more words in each gap.

 

Graham Lord traveled to …1… on business. He went with a …2…, ‘Jules’ Lewis, and changed …3… to stay at Mr. Lewis’s …4…. An …5… of Jules Lewis, also called Lewis, was also staying at …6…. Graham Lord and the schoolfriend’s …7… (whose nickname was …8…) fell in …9…, and they are still …10….

 

3. Third story: finish the summary.

 

Mrs. May Badman often took the train… One morning when the train came in she began… When the train arrived… The people in Mrs. Badman’s carriage…, but…

 

c) Guessing words from context. Do the tasks for each story.

1. First story: look back at the text, and match the words and expressions in the first column with their meanings in the second column. (There are too many meanings).

a. encounter 1. accidental meeting

b. over the top 2. idea about the cause of something

c. shiver 3. nervous laughter at something that

is not really funny

d. suspicion 4. shaking that happens when someone

is afraid or shocked

5. too cheap for the situation

6. too expensive for the situation

2. Second story: find words or expressions in the second story that seem to mean:

 

a. happened by chance to be b. surprising

 

3. Third story: what do you think these words and expressions mean in the story?

sticks out, carriage, buffers, shaken

4. All the stories: write down a list of five words that you would like to look up in the dictionary. Show your list to a partner, and discuss your reasons for choosing the words you did. Look the words up after class.

 

XI. a) Read these five texts and answer the questions given below:







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