Open (the wall) Sesame!

If you look up the word coincidence you will, if you use my dictionary, find the following definition. “A colourless liqueur with orange flavouring”.

Which personally wouldn’t make me want to drink it…….

hang on……sorry, that’s Cointreau – that's the NEXT entry - I’ve only just got up, let me straighten my glasses.

Ah, that's better, yes, “a chance occurrence of events remarkable either for being simultaneous or for apparently being connected.” If you look just before at the word coincide, you get this –“to occur or exist simultaneously”.

So I probably would be correct in saying – "hey, I had muesli for breakfast and Mr Obama is president, what a coincidence!"

Because -if you are not following - the two events exist simultaneously.

So the task I have set myself this month, to post posts that are inspired, linked or driven by coincidence should be pretty easy!

Now, where were we? – So far it’s been; Wall (Berlin), Stanley (Berlin Wall), Charlotte (Nutella), Karl Heinz (Berlin) and Berlin Wall (bananas).

Funny, only 5 days? I thought I had been doing this for A G E S.

So today I figured it was time for a change and what better than – Sesame Street?

Now a little coincidence straight off, as I was looking on Wikipedia to check the facts - YES, if we can believe Wiki, the TV show WAS first premiered on Nov 10 1969 (the same year I remind you , AGAIN, as the Moon Landings, Woodstock festival and the disintegration of The Berlin Wall – what a year!, oh and my first snog!!) – I discovered an interesting fact.......

It is the first time I have seen on a Wikipedia entry the following warning at the top........

“This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably.”

Wow.

Which just goes to show how important the TV show really is.

I am a fan, a BIG fan. even though I first came to the show in my thirties.

I reminded myself yesterday of how events in Berlin had moved me to tears 20 years ago, but I cry EVERYTIME I watch Sesame Street.

If I was asked to choose which had had the greatest effect on freedom, The Fall of the Berlin Wall or Sesame Street, I wouldn’t hesitate.

The rubble of the Berlin Wall made us dream for a while, Sesame Street never stops.

If you asked me to name a top ten of creative geniuses, Jim Hensen would be in there at number …. Well I’ll wait ‘till someone asks.

My philosophy of life – Bert and Ernie. (Now there’s a coincidence – Ernie resembles a banana – and bananas, or suppliers thereof, were the first to benefit from the smaller Berlin Wall).

Incidentally, Bert and Ernie were the only puppets in the original Sesame Street pilot, privately viewed, and were such a success that they changed the concept of the eventual programme.

Anyhow, I’m loosing you, I can tell.

Happy Birthday Sesame Street.

I wanted to say that, and I wanted to write about the joy, and hope, and love expressed through the programme that is clear for even a cynic to see, but as always this month the Berlin Wall keeps rearing up around us.

You need to look at this link so that as we celebrate the fall of one, we remember the rise of others.

And you need to watch this video just to see what happened yesterday, and how it was possible for Angela Merkel not to smile at something so preposterously amazing.



She obviously needs a dose of Sesame Street.

So where’s all the coincidence in this?

Well, you can see what I wanted to write, and you can see the need to maintain a Berlin Wall connection (hmm, can I do that all month too?).

So, I turned to youtube this morning and put in “two events exist simultaneously” – well not those words exactly but “sesame street + berlin wall”. (The small letters may be important).

If you do that your top five results, in reverse order, are (strangely) – lesbo pro love scene, I am still horny, sexy teens on bed kissing, hot lesbians making out and enjoys it and (fortunately) the one at the top of this post.

God, youtube is weird.