Serendipity

Those of you who read my post 'Polite Strangers' will have seen that I suggested a daft social experiment whereby I invited you all to text random things to random strangers to see what response you get. I received one random text (from someone I knew) informing me that Giggleswick were competing against Broadbottom in the welly wanging championship the following day. I can only assume the rest of you kept your experiments to yourselves. So in the absence of any results from that teaser, I'm suggesting another one.

I recently acquired a ten pound note on which someone had written their name - Helena Randall. I don't know Helena Randall, but I thought it might be interesting to try to trace her and return her tenner. The name is common enough that I'm not going to get anywhere by searching google - a quick search reveals a Helena Randall who sells portraits and another who is Senior Regional Marketing Manager at Lambert Smith Hampton, but there are probably hundreds of Helena Randalls out there, and no way for me to narrow down which one is most likely to have written her name on a banknote.

So instead I need to assume that the name was originally placed on the note in some form of experiment, to see whether it ever got back to it's rightful owner, Helena Randall. So it is at least possible that Helena Randall will be searching for the note, and if she was to put 'Helena Randall ten pound note' into a search engine, this blog post would now appear somewhere on the list! However, in an attempt to raise the profile of the post in any search, and in case any of you should know a Helena Randall through your friends or friends of friends, I now invite you to share this post to see how far we can cast the net.

I believe a similar premise was the storyline for a very cheesy rom com called Serendipity. Whilst I can't recall the exact details (yes, of course the note came back round, they fell in love, yawn and eventually vomit), I would like to offer the note back to Helena Randall in the event that we establish contact. I might even frame it! (Incidentally, if anyone knows a Helena Randall who didn't sign the note, but fancies claiming it, I will of course be conducting a handwriting test!).

So spread the news far and wide, and if you're out there Helena Randall please get in touch!