Small f*cking world, innit?

[WOM]

The other day I was reminded of the time that Ms WOM (at the time) and I were in St Maarten. Walking down the main road, we literally bumped into an art director I worked with at the time. Neither of us knew that the other was going on vacation that week. Weird.

But he says to me "Look, if you're hungry, there's great little beach restaurant just down the way, run by a Canadian guy". So we went. As we're eating, the owner pops by to ask us how it's going. And it's an ex-advertising guy who used to live on my street, whose son I babysat almost every night for about three years.

Small f*cking world.

So, any similar experiences?

[Stumpy Pepys]

Small f*cking world, innit?

The moral of this story is that there are far too many overpaid creative types on weekend breaks on the continent.

[Etienne]

Small f*cking world, innit?

Not sure by what definition St Maarten counts as "the continent."

[RobM]

Small f*cking world, innit?

Sitting at a bar in Detroit airport waiting on an onward flight to Phoenix.

I was watching the baseball and having a beer, it was the round before the World Series. Guy came and sat down beside me and we nodded our hellos.

Finished the beer and ordered another. Of course this was the first time the guy had really heard me speak. Got the beer and he asked - 'Are you Scottish'.

Turned out he'd studied at Edinburgh University, told him I'm from Edinburgh and he asked where. Just outside really, small place - Musselburgh.

'I did my placement there'.

I ask where.

'GP surgery, a Dr Clubb'.

I inform him I can see the surgery from our back door and then remember that my neighbour worked there as receptionist.

'What, Moira'?

The odds must be ridiculous.

[WOM]

Small f*cking world, innit?

Yes, that's the stuff.

And yeah, we're overpaid. But we have to make our nut before our knees are shot.

[EIM]

Small f*cking world, innit?

At my first pub job in London it turned out my manager was engaged to the sister of my best mate in secondary school who I hadn't seen in about ten years.

This sort of stuff happens loads to me. It's weird.

[treibeis]

Small f*cking world, innit?

After a trip to the flicks a while back, The Lady I Walked To The Registry Office With and I went to a pub near the station that neither of us had ever been to before. After about ten minutes, some bloke walked in, took one look at The Lady I Walked To The Registry Office With, shouted “The Lady treibeis Walked To The Registry Office With! I don’t believe it!” and fell into her arms.

It turned out he was somebody she used to hang around with when she lived in Switzerland in the early 1990s. He was changing trains, had a bit of time to kill and had wandered into the first pub he stumbled upon.

At first, I thought he was all right. This changed about 20 seconds in – shortly after he’d pulled a pair of canvas plimsolls from a Hugo Boss bag and announced, in a cringeworthily loud voice, that they’d cost the best part of 300 euros.

A couple of minutes later, he announced, in an even louder voice, that the steak he’d eaten the previous evening had cost over 100 euros.

Shortly after that, he looked at me and said, “Don’t say much, do you? Or don’t you understand what I’m saying. Inselaffen normally don’t anyway.”

That was the point at which I left the establishment. I don’t give a hoot about being called an “island monkey”; after all, it’s hardly the most cutting insult on earth. I simply didn’t want to hang around, lest I discovered how much he’d paid for a hand job in the Geiz ist geil brothel down the road.

[WOM]

Small f*cking world, innit?

In the early '90s, I was sullying this young lady's reputation for a few months. I learned that her father worked, loosely, in the same orbit as my dad. (Tool and die, car parts, etc) I mentioned this in passing to dad and he says "Where's he work?" Then "What's his name?" Then "Peter! Yeah, I have a meeting with him on Thursday."

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Small f*cking world, innit?

I ran into an ex-girlfriend in the National Gallery once, an unremarkable coincidence in itself except for the fact that the next time I went there, about three years later, I bumped into her again - and it was the first time she'd been back there since, too.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Small f*cking world, innit?

Etienne wrote: Not sure by what definition St Maarten counts as "the continent."

Sorry, I assumed it was in the Netherlands. It isn't.

[San Bernardhinault]

Small f*cking world, innit?

St Maarten's mostly famous for having one of the noisiest, scariest beaches in the world

[Incandenza]

Small f*cking world, innit?

I love the videos of planes landing there.

[NHH]

Small f*cking world, innit?

Glad it's not just me then who spends ages on youtube watching them.

[AMMS]

Small f*cking world, innit?

A number of years ago whilst backpacking I visited Fiji and stayed on a very small island about an hours boat ride off Viti Levu. It was pretty remote and apart from the locals who ran the hostel there were about 20 assorted visitors mainly Europeans. Of an evening after dinner everyone would sit outside and chat, other than go for a walk in the dark there wasn't anything else to do.

There were three Irish staying and a couple of Swedes and in the course of the evening one of the Swedish girls asked the Irish where they were from in Ireland. They said the town and the Swedish woman said they knew it well, in fact they'd only visited it last year.

Oh, said the Irish girl, what took you there?

The Swedish girls explained they were big fans of the band The Waterboys and had gone to Ireland to see them perform at a music festival.
Wow, said one the Irish, I used to help organise that festival and I know the band really well, what a coincidence. Did you enjoy the trip and the concert?

Well, said one of the Swedish girls in perfect English, sort of. The concert was really good and the town was great. But we were approached during the concert and invited back to the band's hotel for an after-show party. We went along because we were excited about meeting them. However, when we got there 'named Waterboys band member' wanted to take me back to his room, he wouldn't leave me alone and kept making passes at me. To be honest it was a bit frightening because he wouldn't leave me alone or take no for an answer, we ended up threatening to call the police and getting the hotel management involved. It really spoiled the trip for us.

There followed a moment of silence before one of the Irish said the band members name again, the Swedish girl confirmed it and then the Irish girl said 'he's been married to my sister for the last 6 years!'

Somewhere, on the other side of the word, karma was about to visit an ageing folk/rock musician.

[Femme Folle]

Small f*cking world, innit?

I was in Firenze once when I was 17 and as I turned my head to look for cars before crossing a street, I saw a girl standing just a couple of feet away who I sort of knew from Baton Rouge (a friend of a friend). It was a shame that our mutual friend wasn't there too. That would have been fun.

That's my best small world story.

[Weiro]

Small f*cking world, innit?

About 10 years ago I was in the middle of Warrington looking for directions, and I asked the first person I saw. He noted my Irish accent and asked what part I was from. I told him the name of the village that I'm from and he said: "Oh my brother owns a pub there", which is the pub where I watch football most weeks.

[WOM]

Small f*cking world, innit?

I was sitting with two guys waiting for the bus from Patras to Athens when we saw three girls walking toward us. "Look...chicks..." said this one guy from Charlottetown, PEI. They got closer and he realized that they were three girls he'd gone all through school with.

[NHH]

Small f*cking world, innit?

Back in he 1980s, my bereaved nan met her old fiance in Asda in Rochdale. He'd emigrated in 1940 to Canada and was back in town and just happened to be at Asda at the same time.

They eventually started going out with each other again (they were in their 60s and both bereaved) and my Nan moved to Kingston, Ontario and they got engaged.

About a year earlier, my Dad had gone to work in Dubai on building sites, and his boss was an Irish guy, who turned out to have a brother who'd emigrated to Kingston, Ontario, where he was the family doctor to my Nan's fiance.

But that's not the half of it. That fiance had been in the Canadian Army, and was one of the troops involved in liberating a camp in 1945. He'd taken pity on one guy, a Lithuanian, who he made sure to give some of his rations to. He helped shepherd him back to health, and the guy was in better shape.

Many years later, he was at his son's wedding. He gets introduced to the father of the bride for the first time, and it's the guy who he had helped. He'd been so grateful for the help by his Canadian friend that he'd resolved to emigrate there, since they were clearly top guys, and his daughter had met a guy and yada yada yada.

My own is being in New Zealand in 2007 at a hot volcanic mud spring, and whilst having a fag outside as my wife did some carving, which was one of the activities in with the entry. The woman having a fag with me was from the UK, and was in fact from Morecambe, where she lived next door to a colleague from my first job at the students union at Lancaster University.

[Erskine Bridges]

Small f*cking world, innit?

Crikey, thought I could win this but I'm not so sure now.
1997 on holiday with my girlfriend on a small island off Langkawi (I think). We were staying in little cabin type things in the woods and I was walking past one where a bloke was sitting on his verandah. We got chatting and he said to come over later with G/F for a drink.
So over we go, get on fine. He's English, lives in Australia, is playing professional football in Thailand and is on hols with his G/F. (His name was Tristram, went by Trim, and I understood why, but a really nice guy). When he lets slip he's a pro footballer, they always do, we get onto footie chat. I tell him I support Scotland but we're shit and know we are (Jesus 1997, we were fuckin' great back then!) He responded by agreeing with me but saying that his flat mate in Oz, a Scot, would never have accepted that. Diehard, blinkered, delusional, whatever.
So where in Scotland did his flat mate come from I asked.
You'll probably never have heard of it he said. Erskine.
Erskine? My girlfriend pipes up, I come from there! What's his name?
You won't get this. You really won't.
I genuinely can't remember the name but my G/F went pale when Trim gave it.
Do you know him then?
Know him? Used to be married to him.

[Crystal Staples]

Small f*cking world, innit?

In the first term at uni, a mate had a casual thing going with a girl on his corridor.

One night a couple of weeks into term, they were having a deep and meaningful chat - after some deep and meaningless sex - about his girlfriend from back home whom he was feeling guilty about. A couple of details about her rang an alarm bell in the girl's head and she interjected:

- So hang on a minute, her name's Jess, and you said she's at Bournemouth University?
- Yeah
- She doesn't happen to have a lip piercing and always wear green jeans?
- Yes, how could you possibly know that?
- My best friend's at Bournemouth, he's been shagging her!

A slightly more literal interpretation of the thread title there.

[WOM]

Small f*cking world, innit?

NHH wrote: Many years later, he was at his son's wedding. He gets introduced to the father of the bride for the first time, and it's the guy who he had helped.

Genuine shiver up the spine there, Nathan.

[Crusoe]

Small f*cking world, innit?

First day of university, 1993. I sit down at a long communal table in the canteen next to a guy who looks vaguely familiar. We get talking and it turns out he's Pete G., a lad who was my best friend when I was around 8 or 9 and living in a village in Surrey. I'd lost touch with when my family moved counties and his family moved back to Poland. We didn't renew our friendship, but coincidentally I was looking at Twitter the other day (I have a search on mentions of my town so I can keep an eye on local news/events) and he was in town on a rugby tour.

Alternatively, backpacking round Australia in 1998 I get a phone call from my mate (who I'd gone out there with, but we'd gone our separate ways as he landed a job and I kept travelling). He's in a hostel in Alice Springs and had just bumped into Danny C. from our old secondary school.

[NHH]

Small f*cking world, innit?

A mate was backpacking around Oz and saw a flyer produced by the main hotel in the 'town' in the middle of nowhere he was staying. It was for a stripper and on closer inspection, the picture of the stripper was his ex-girlfriend from University in Lancaster.

Turned out it wasn't her, but they'd chosen, of all the pictures in all the world, a picture from MixMag taken at the Lancaster student nightclub a couple of years before and used that as the picture on the flyer.

[Janik]

Small f*cking world, innit?

Briefly talked to a Portugese girl in a pub in Royston. She was staying there whilst she did a English langauge course in Cambridge. Six weeks later I sat down in a train between Prague and Ceske Budejovice, and thought the face opposite looked oddly familiar; same girl.

Also a holiday in Peru. It was an organised tour, through an Australian company that also advertised in Britain. The group was 6 Aussies, 6 Brits. No connection with any of the Aussies, but very close to the two other British couples. One not only lived in the same town, but he worked in the same village just up the road as me, for a company that is considered the greatest rivals of the one I work for. The other couple had both been at Nottingham Uni at exactly the same time as I had, and we found lots of mutual acquaintances. Couldn't work out if we had ever been at the same pub or party, but it seemed more likely than not. Possibly this wasn't a small world thing, but more an indication of a pretty constricted demographic that this sort of holiday appealed to.

[NHH]

Small f*cking world, innit?

I was in one of the Spanish bars on Hanway St (teenagers - this is what you had to do to get a drink past 11 in London in the early 00s) the night England had beaten Argentina in the 2002 WC. I was chatting to a young woman and mentioned I worked for an organisation helping football fans form co-operatives (amazingly, neither she nor anyone else ever found such chat alluring) and asked if I knew XX XX, a former colleague; I did, of course, and asked how she knew him, and it turned out she'd bought his house in Stokey about 18 months earlier.