As I discussed in last week’s post (Back To The 50s) we’re currently living in a magnificent location. It’s just a shame about the house.
Outside our window is moored a beautiful little ship called the Atticus – see the photo.
I love sailing. This means travelling around using the wind hence requiring sails instead of an engine (referred to in our household as ‘stink-boats’ for obvious reasons).
There is very little which can compare with being under sail in a reasonable breeze on calm waters for joy, exhilaration and pleasure. Travelling at a decent speed with no sounds other than the lapping of the water is wonderful.
So, finding myself looking longingly at the ‘stink-boat’ moored outside our window quite surprised me.
However, as you can see, she really is a delightful vessel.
Recently, we were introduced to a friend of a friend of Danita’s who lives a few houses along from where we are. We were under strict and explicit instructions from Danita’s friend that we were expected to get together and gossip about her.
We did get together and had a lovely time but sadly missed out on the important part of our mission which was to gossip about the friend we have in common – oh well, I guess sometimes you just have to accept failure. Interestingly, the common friend lives in Scotland.
When I mentioned the Atticus I was told our new friends were good mates with the owners. I accordingly dropped a number of (not very subtle) suggestions that an introduction would be really appreciated.
This connection got me thinking.
We have a friend (living in Scotland) who introduced us to the people across the road. These people are friends with the owners of the boat I’d been wanting to visit.
A similar thing happened last week. We were at a friend’s for lunch in Portland – out past Lithgow, nearly 3 hours drive. It transpired that one of the other guests has been living on the street where our next house-sit is and she began to tell us the life story of many of our new neighbours. A bit like a BI (Before Internet) version of Facebook.
This begs the question of who else do we know who could provide that really important introduction?
LinkedIn has created an entire industry based on this.
In my LinkedIn circle I have 944 direct connections and through them there’s a total of 243,872.
In a moment of insanity I’ve continued playing with the numbers. If we assume the same number of contacts, by the 3rd level I’m connected to 63,406,720 people and at the 4th level 16,485,747,200 which is probably more than the number of people who’ve ever lived. Never mind 6 degrees of separation, by 4 degrees I’ve run out of possible people. There’s something to think about.
Based on that I’ve obviously got ready access to exactly the people I need to talk to. Now, if only I could work out how to ask the question in really simple terms, like how to get onto a boat, I’m sure someone in there has the right contacts.
BTW when I described Atticus as a beautiful “boat” I was very promptly informed “it’s not a boat, it’s a ship”, hence the title of this post. I think I agree – it’s appeal is that it’s a ship even though it’s a miniature one.