Saturday 22 January 2010

Scamper (n) A conman who lives in a tent.

I have seen today how easily superstitions or the concepts of ‘signs’ can emerge within society.
I got up this morning and the Ugly One was watching ‘The Green Man’, a somewhat vintage, although quite brilliant, black comedy starring Alistair Sim and a variety of British talent; Dora Bryan, Richard Wattis, George Cole and Arthur Brough (Mr Grainger from ‘Are You Being Served?’) playing the landlord of The Green Man itself.
Once it had finished I set off for the shops and went to up to Edgware Road to do some shopping. As I got on the bus to go two stops to Somerfield, I noticed that the pub behind me had been ‘The Green Man’. Then we passed a set of pelican crossings which was showing the sign to cross, i.e. the green man, and then, almost immediately, we were upon Marks & Spencer, whose large scale window artwork features a sketch of a man wearing presumably M&S clothing, but who is completely green.
Now, the gullible among us having had such an experience would say ‘Oooh, it must mean something’ and it is quite understandable that they should do so, but why should it mean something?
The randomness of events ensure that generally events conform to the laws of averages and probabilities. However, this also ensures that occasionally coincidences occur, and because our brains are hardwired for pattern recognition we connect those items which have symbolic value. Logically there should be no connection between a pub and an electric traffic sign, but because we have attributed a colour and the figurative symbol of a man to both we create a connection.
Yes, it was odd that this particular movie was shown this morning, but the rest of the green men have been in situ for quite some time, and pure coincidence can sometimes be a delight. There is nothing supernatural about it, and to those of you who habitually say ‘There must be something in it!’ I would ask you to think very hard upon the question ‘Why must there be something in it?’