Morrissey on Radio 4 Wednesday 18th Feb

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

I often walked around large cities like Düsseldorf, Cologne or London, had people pass me by and wished I knew more about them. Maybe somebody whom I had a lot in common with just passed me by and I would never know.

It is little things in given shared situations that gets me talking with people. We talk about it and then a conversation develops from there. I view Facebook and Myspace in a similar way. It could potentially be a good way to start a conversation, like a shared situation in "real life" that you'd otherwise never have, because you never met physically. You read that you share interests and have somebody whom you could potentially talk to about it. So in that respect these gadgets seem like an improvement to me, because it can make it easier to find people and it could be less dependent on pure chance.

Last year I mad the slightly puzzling experience that whenever I traveled to London I ended up in conversations with people who matched what I had been thinking and wondering about just before I traveled there. Maybe we are just not to force conversations with people and they just happen when they are supposed to and we keep our ears and eyes open?

I often experience that synchronicity of thought trains. I'll hear a little bit about some topic on the radio, do some quiet thinking about it, and then all the sudden run into the same topic in a totally different venue. It's probably because of the original news piece, it brings the topic to light and lots of people have it in the front of their minds.

I was at a large art museum last fall, alone, and saw a man lingering around my favorite gallery rooms. I kept bumping into him all day. He looked nice, and we probably could have talked about the art all day long. We never spoke. I wish I had tried to talk to him, but that's very hard for me to do.

However, a place like this can offer chances to cut across the randomness of everyday life by bringing together people who share some views. I have met some very good friends here, people I could never have possibly met in my everyday life.