Walking to the lovely Cafe San Gines in Madrid last week for their famous chocolate con churros, I was listening to one of my favourite bands The Aluminum Group. One of their songs is called ‘Without Erté’ and to be honest, I’ve never known what the title meant but always liked the mystery of the song. 

Wherever I am, I often like taking different routes each day to where I’m going as it makes each day interesting. One morning I turned right into a new street and ‘Without Erté’ came up on the headphones and as I looked up listening to the chorus as he was singing the word ‘Erté, I was standing in front of a bar called ‘Erté’. I swear to God! 

It was a bit of a weird moment as it’s not the most common word in the world and certainly not in Madrid, but it was such a coincidence that I started thinking about what it all meant.

It could mean that the universe is trying to tell me something or all kinds of different things, but perhaps we like to see more in things than there really are. 

I like to think of it as simply both an amusing and strange coincidence, as well as a reminder that there are moments which are out of the ordinary that we should never take for granted. 

Moments such as these can freak you out or they can make you smile, you choose. Either way perhaps it’s a reminder to always be open – to new ideas, surprises and early morning coincidences involving Spanish capital cities and bars specialsing in foreign beers. 

(FYI It seems the song ‘Without Erté’ is based on Russian-born French Art Deco visual artist and fashion designer Roman Petrovich Tyrtov, also known as Erté.) 

PS… For those who are more grammatically inclined than others, The Aluminum Group are from Chicago, hence the American spelling. I’m English, hence ‘aluminium’ in the title of this post.