1/ I was once in a bar in France talking to an American friend who was telling me about the summer he had spent driving along Route 66. "Like the song," I mentioned, but, strangely, he had never heard of it. I spent several minutes singing bits of the song and telling him all the artists who had done a cover version of it, but he still claimed he'd never heard it. Ten seconds later, that very song gets played on the radio.
2/ I recently dreamed that I had bought a copy of a new Paul Auster novel for a friend of mine. When I woke up, I realized it was an unlikely dream, as PA didn't have a new book out and, if he had, I'd have read about it in the book review pages of the various papers I buy and would certainly have bought the book immediately, as he's one of my favourite authors. I got up, switched on the TV and the BBC Breakfast presenter was in the middle of saying "After the news, we'll have Paul Auster on who will be talking about his new novel".