Tuesday, 27 April 2010
The thing that immediately struck me when I met Douglas Adams was that he was almost the double of a friend of mine, another photographer called Gordon. Not only facially, but he was the same (large) size and had the same sort of dress sense and a similar gait. It was uncanny. As soon as I got home that day, I rang Gordon and told him that I’d just met his doppelgänger. “Oh yes” he said “everyone tells me that.”
I didn’t think much more about it until a couple of years later when I was hanging out with Gordon at the Cannes Film Festival. He and I had just got into the year’s glitziest party and we were both sitting, just inside the entrance, watching all the big movie stars arrive and get pounced on by a huge gaggle of the most highly accredited paparazzi.
We were just about to go off and get a drink when we saw Mick Jagger arrive, together with a huge entourage. There was a big commotion as he waltzed past the paps, completely ignoring them (including people like Dave Hogan, who he must have known personally). Then he did something very odd. He saw us, walked straight over and embraced Gordon like a long lost son. He asked him how he was, made a big show of it all, then turned on his heels and walked off again. Gordon was dumbstruck. And if you knew Gordon, you’d know how remarkable that is in itself. He’d never met Mick Jagger before and had never much liked the Rolling Stones’ music. So we were both completely mystified.
Afterwards the only explanation either of us could think of was that Mick Jagger had mistaken Gordon for Douglas Adams.