1: Lovely day.
2: I couldn't have put it better myself, lovely day. Glorious.
1: Just perfect for taking a little journey, wot? Where are you headed?
2: St Ives.
1: Get away! I'm going to St Ives too. Small world.
2: No, it's a very big world, but we're both in the bit that's near St Ives.
1: Fair point. Jolly nice to meet you, anyway.
2: No it's not.
1: I say! That's a bit, err...
2: Oh, no offence meant. It's most pleasant to make your acquaintance, but officially we haven't met.
1: Ah! I see! So, my name's McAlister.
2: Erm, no, that's - oh, right, Stevenson, how do you do?
1: Very well.
2: Wonderful, but, erm, what I meant was that we've not officially met, because we're facing the same direction.
1: We're facing St Ives, but I can't see how that affects our encounter.
2: It doesn't. Oh yes, we've encountered, alright. We've made acquaintance. But we've not met. We'd have to be face to face to meet, that's what "meet" means.
1: No it's not. It means "converge" and "come upon", and "suitable" - although the last one is just clouding the matter, so let's ignore that - but it doesn't meet "converge or come upon whilst angled towards diamtrically opposed cardinal points".
2: Yes, granted, but I think we should agree, for the nonce if not in perpetuity, that "meet" means "encounter face to face". That way, it will avoid any confusion if this scene near St Ives should ever be described by someone.
1: Who?
2: Well, let's just say. Maybe I'll do it. And then, you see, I could list any number of people I might *meet*, but, because we have agreed that "meet" means "encounter face to face" -
1: I didn't.
2: Well, let's just say - then I could enumerate a cast of people that I *meet*, but it won't affect the number of people going to St Ives, which will be one. Me. I'm going to St Ives, and all the other people I *meet* - let's just say there's quite lot of them, perhaps in a mathematically confusing configuration - aren't going to St Ives. Just me. One.
1: But I'm going to St Ives.
2: Oh yes. I forgot that. Well, OK, maybe two.
1: And I passed an old gent a few miles back, you must have seen him.
2: Yeah, alright, but apart from him.
1: Plus, St Ives is a major conurbation, there's more than one road into it. I suspect that there are a number of other people going to St Ives at this juncture whom we can't see.
2: Quote possibly, but -
1: And, I mean, at what point can one be said to be "going to St Ives"? There might be someone in Dutch East India this minute, finishing off his rendang, putting on his batik, stepping from his rumah gadang, and intending to wend his merry way to St Ives.
2: Of course, that's feasible, yet -
1: So, to sum up, it's incredibly difficult to identify precisely how many people are going to St Ives at any given point, regardless of the tally of head-on collisions you might have drawn up along the way.
2: Alright!! Alright, let's just drop it! Can't we? Forget about the number of people going to St Ives!
1: Alright.
2: Alright!
1: Seeing as it is such a lovely day.
2: And it is a lovely day. [Pause, then shouted] Oh, get out of the road, you idiots!
2: [Shouting] Get those wives out of the way!
1: I tell you, these new mormon cat salesmen are the giddy limit.