Many years ago, I worked in a slightly disreputable pub in Edinburgh with a man we called Aussie Geoff.  We called him Aussie Geoff for the imaginative and innovative reasons that he was a) Australian and b) his name was Geoff.  He also was known as Aussie Geoff to distinguish him from another employee known as Wee Geoff, because, you guessed it, he was quite short and his name was also Geoff. 

Aussie Geoff had many skills and taught me many things.  One of the essential life lessons I owe to Aussie Geoff was discovering just how disgusting men are, when I once expressed doubt about how foul the gents’ lavatory could actually be.  There was no one in the pub at the time except Geoff and me, so he insisted I came into the gents with him to see for myself, and bloody hellfire, men and their toilet habits are grim.  Aussie Geoff’s other abilities including drinking a pint of Guinness in under ten seconds, and his most famous talent, though one I’m pleased to say I never witnessed personally, apparently was his ability to, shall we say, perform a certain oral act of pleasure upon himself. 

However, the thing I most remember Aussie Geoff for was introducing me to what Google informs me is known as ‘The Frequency Illusion’.  Sitting at the end of the bar after his shift, clutching his Guinness as usual, Geoff enquired if I was familiar with the word ‘defenestration’.  I was not, I told him.  Neither, Geoff said, had he been until a few days earlier, and now everywhere he looked, everything he read, defenestration was occurring all over the place.  How could this be, he mused, that he had lived twenty-eight years thinking people just chucked things out of windows, then as soon as he discovered there was an actual word for the window chucking, the defenestrators were defenestrating all over the place.  He downed his Guinness in the habitual ten seconds and wandered off to his second job as a barman in a strip bar in the West Port, (that strip bar and its role in me ending up fleeing the Balmoral Hotel and a posh school dance and a confused German teacher, hurtling down Waverley Steps in five inch heels is a whole other story), and I thought how peculiar, is defenestration even a word, or is Aussie Geoff just making things up again?  I shrugged and returned to reading my new Jilly Cooper novel, as once again, we had no customers in the pub, and literally three minutes later, there it was!  On page 769 of Appassionata, Canon Airlie is apoplectic at the ‘defenestration’ of Flora’s stuffed fox Foxy. 

I relayed this to Aussie Geoff in astonishment the next day, and he nodded wisely and said he had often had this happen, that you never see or hear of a thing, and then after the first time you hear it, it is everywhere!  This happened to me this week, when first of all, I read Nic Miller’s Substack about Mangonadas, and then almost the next day, there it was on the menu of a Venezuelan café in Dennistoun (because I am the sort of hipster who goes to Venezuelan cafes in Dennistoun, obvs- I’m really not, but my daughter wanted to try it, and since it wasn’t on the scary and dastardly South Side, I agreed).  And the second example was that after we went to the Venezuelan café, we went into town to see the National Theatre’s filmed performance of Present Laughter, starring Andrew Scott, who even I have heard of, and Enzo Cilenti, who I had not.  But the next night, watching The Serpent Queen on a friend’s recommendation, who pops up looking rather familiar, though luckily without the terrible Italian accent from Present Laughter, but Enzo Cilenti! 

Of course, there are many psychological explanations for this ‘Frequency Illusion’, though I am convinced it is really a thing, and we don’t imagine it, but I wonder these days how often it spontaneously happens and how much is our phones listening to us?  We’ve all had that experience I’m sure, where you casually mention to someone you’d like to do something, or go somewhere, or eat something, and then innocently open Instagram or Twitter or Facebook (other social media platforms are available but they are for the Youth and I understand them not) and you are mercilessly bombarded with adverts for said thing you accidentally voiced a passing fancy for.  Although I am not 100% sure the Frequency Illusion isn’t some sort of complex conspiracy theory (though I don’t know quite how that would work), the listening phones and the endless adverts just because I once mentioned that my Great Aunty Mabel had a spaniel shaped biscuit barrel are definitely all part of the conspiracy and the Rise of the Machines.

I do love a good conspiracy theory though.  I am firmly in the camp that believes there is something very fishy about the recent events in America, though my husband insists I am being ridiculous, and I was most put out when I discovered the ‘Birds Aren’t Real’ website was a hoax, as I thought that was the most hilariously brilliant conspiracy I’d ever heard.  My favourite conspiracy theory though, that so far I have not got anyone else on board with except possibly Ryan Reynolds, is that Pumpkin Spiced Lattes and their ilk are no more than a conspiracy by Big Cinnamon.  Think about it.  A few years ago, if you’d said ‘Pumpkin Spiced Latte’ to someone, they’d have thought you entirely bonkers and told you to bugger off with your weird ideas about putting pumpkin in their coffee, yucky yucky yucky mcyucksville.  But now, everyone LOSES THEIR MIND come September because ‘OMG, it’s Pumpkin Spiced Latte Season!’ (I’m looking at you, Jo, Perimenopaws).  And why could this be, UNLESS it is a massive conspiracy by Big Cinnamon?  But I shall not be fooled.  Oh no.  I am wise to the machinations of Big Cinnamon, and they will not get me.  Also, I am ideologically opposed to Starbucks because of the stupid names they give their drinks and I will not, on principle, ask for a Pixie Wixie Umpty Mumty Made Up Word That Sounds Italian Semi Unicorno Puppy Dog Tail Half Shot With Extra Hooha, when ALL I WANT IS A SMALL CUP OF FUCKING COFFEE, ACTUALLY!  There is also of course, the small matter of their doubtful tax habits, oh- and the fact I don’t drink coffee, but mostly it’s the stupid names.  And being in thrall to Big Cinnamon.

How did I get from Aussie Geoff to Starbucks and Big Cinnamon?  No idea.  Anyway.  Defenestration.  It’s a real word.  Google it.  So too apparently is what Aussie Geoff could do to himself.  Don’t Google that.  Imagine if you died suddenly and your family looked at your search history and that was the last thing you’d looked up.  But seemingly 7% of men can do this.  I would say, if there are any men reading this, maybe you’re one of them, but knowing men, if you are, you’ll already know! 

On that note, I hope you all have a lovely weekend.  Even you 7%...

Gill xx