Speaker 1
Well, a funny thing happened to me once, actually. I was at a conference in New York. It was a very big conference, and I was sitting in the bar with some colleagues and there was a message on the speakers: "Could Charles Clarson please go to reception?" They had a message for me.
So, I finished what I was doing with these colleagues, and I went to reception and I said, you know, "Hello, I'm Charles Clarson I think you've got a message for me." And the receptionist said, "But we just gave it to you, sir." And she looked around; the message had gone. And I said, "Well you can't have given it to me because I was just talking to some friends." And she said – she checked and no, no, I'd been there.
And I was starting to think I was going a bit mad. Anyway, while I was standing talking to the woman, another guy came up and said, "You just gave me this message, but I don't think it's for me because I'm not married." I looked at him and I said, "I think it might be for me," and I introduced myself. "Charles Clarson," I said. "Pleased to meet you." And he said, "My god! Isn't that weird. My name's Charles Clarson, too. We both have the same name." It's never, ever happened to me since. Very strange.
Speaker 2
Yes, well, this happened to me when I was living in Egypt. My name, Ralph Delaware, is not so – it's not that common and I don't know anybody, I've never met anybody called Ralph Delaware. But when I was living in Egypt, I used to go to Cairo at the weekends, from where I was working, in the Delta. And I would stay in a hotel, in downtown Cairo – I would stay in one of two hotels, usually.
And a friend of mine was trying to contact me, and he told me the story that he had phoned this hotel where I usually stay, and he asked to speak to Ralph Delaware, and there was a pause, and then a woman came to the phone and she said, "Yes?" And he said, "Can I speak to Ralph?" And she said, "He's not here." And Colin – the friend – said, "Who are you?" And she said, "I'm his wife."
Now, this surprised Colin a lot because he knows I'm not married. And as it happened I wasn't even staying in that hotel, I was staying in the other hotel at the time. And to this day we don't know whether there really was another Ralph Delaware staying in that hotel and that was his wife, or whether she was just pulling his leg.