No other city in Britain has anything like the capacity London has for chance encounters.

It's beyond stating the obvious; the size of the place, the hubbub of simply being the capital, the centrifugal force it exerts on all aspects of life, could n't allow it to be anything else but the place for bumping into someone who has an interesting, often unusual, occasionally quirky story to tell.

Many of these seemingly serendipitous meetings really are n't if you think about it.

My theory is that people of similar sensibilities seek each other out for one thing and cluster around similar nodal points for another. Take today as an example. At the gallery where I volunteer, I met a fascinating London based, Rosanna Arquette look-a-like Russian Film director, who had just finished making what seems to be an acutely poetic film of Sicily, and was wandering around the gallery late this afternoon seeking inspiration for her next film.

This would never have happened to me in my hometown. Never. Thank God for London.