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Coincidences

That's HIS gaff! Looks like we've scared him out of the place already! :lol:


We will find him, heheheheheheh... :twisted:
 
Close...that's underneath me.

If you look closely you can see me looking out of the window....with my PsychoScanner....
 
Pah. I have no fear, with my tinfoil hat.

twitch
 
Yesterday I had an email from some sailing website I must once have logged into.

But I can't have found it that relevent to me nowadays, as I hadn't even bookmarked it. However, I gave it another look, and tried its 'Find a Boat' function with the name of a boat I used to skipper 30 years ago. It produced nothing, but gave the option of repeating the search via Google. This I tried, and found a whole website devoted to the vessel! (Which was nice! :D )

Today at work, a customer came in who had sailed with me on that boat in those days!

(We were busy, and didn't have time to chat properly, but I did pass on the info about the website. He only appears around here about 3 times a year, and until a few years ago I had not seen him for decades.)
 
Last night I was listening to a paranormal podcast about Number Stations, at the end there was a short piece on an old subject they had covered, which was possessed dolls. He read a couple accounts that people had posted and as he read the third one I had a real feeling of familiarity. I knew I read it before but couldn't remember where. It then dawned on me that it was a post I had made to a different website about a month ago. :roll:

The coincidence is that I often listen to podcasts at night and tend to fall asleep with them playing in the background. If the piece hadn't have appeared when it did I would have missed it.
 
I was listening to the cricket on the radio on the television last night - that's to say, I was listening to digital radio via the set-top box on my television, using the BBC's "press the red button" interactive service. Don't worry if that's still as clear as mud, it's got sod-all to do with the story.

Anyhow, the day's play was coming to a close at about 6.25, so I pressed the "exit" button to return to BBC TV, which in this case was BBC2 and Eggheads. Does anyone else find that show, and particularly the "Eggheads" themselves, almost incredibly annoying? There's that young guy with the condescending smirk, the old lady who looks like she bakes lovely cakes, but you just know she'd murder you without a second thought. Anyway, you get my drift - it's not a show I spend too much time watching by choice, and my instinct is always to channel-hop away from it, pronto.

So, I was about to flick over to the end of the News, the end of The Simpsons, the end of anything that didn't have Judith "I was so poor before I won Millionaire that I was thinking of emigrating to France" Keppel in it, but in the few seconds before I managed to change channels, Dermot Murnaghan asked the next question, which was:

"What is the subject matter of the magazine Fortean Times?"

Needless to say, the smug bastards knew the answer, but I changed over, just the same.
 
hallybods said:
Last night I was listening to a paranormal podcast about Number Stations, at the end there was a short piece on an old subject they had covered, which was possessed dolls.
Click to expand...

Could you give the link? I would like to hear that podcast.
 
Peripart said:
So, I was about to flick over to the end of the News, the end of The Simpsons, the end of anything that didn't have Judith "I was so poor before I won Millionaire that I was thinking of emigrating to France" Keppel in it, but in the few seconds before I managed to change channels, Dermot Murnaghan asked the next question, which was:

"What is the subject matter of the magazine Fortean Times?"

Needless to say, the smug bastards knew the answer, but I changed over, just the same.
Click to expand...

I watched the very same programme, thought of this place, wondered about posting something but didn't in the end. You saved me the hassle.

(I never watch teatime telly as a rule either so I guess that's a coincidence, right?)
 
TheQuixote said:
Peripart said:
So, I was about to flick over to the end of the News, the end of The Simpsons, the end of anything that didn't have Judith "I was so poor before I won Millionaire that I was thinking of emigrating to France" Keppel in it, but in the few seconds before I managed to change channels, Dermot Murnaghan asked the next question, which was:

"What is the subject matter of the magazine Fortean Times?"

Needless to say, the smug bastards knew the answer, but I changed over, just the same.
Click to expand...

I watched the very same programme, thought of this place, wondered about posting something but didn't in the end. You saved me the hassle.

(I never watch teatime telly as a rule either so I guess that's a coincidence, right?)
Click to expand...

And yesterday, on the Weakest Link...the question went something like "The journal of paranormal phenomenon and strange occurences is called Fortean...?"

The contestant answered "Chronicle".

You are the......etc.....
 
Today I started a new book, "Wycliffe and the School Bullies".
Unusually, the bullies are schoolgirls.

So I was very surprised when Ronni Ancona's show tonight had a sketch about female bullying.... :shock:


PS: looking at the TV guide, I see I also missed a cat-fight on Coronation Street!
 
rynner said:
Today I started a new book, "Wycliffe and the School Bullies".
Unusually, the bullies are schoolgirls.
Click to expand...
Perhaps not so unusual:

Cruel world
16 June 2007

Scientists have worked out the evolutionary basis for many behaviours such as altruism and jealousy. However, over the millennia, people have been unbelievably and gratuitously cruel to each other. The evolutionary advantage of this is not obvious. So what is the biological basis of human cruelty?

One of your previous correspondents seeks to exclude women from the discussion of the survival of unbelievable and gratuitous cruelty as a human trait. They have not been so dominant in the history of large and dramatic behaviours, perhaps because they have seldom been in a position to initiate them. When they are in such a situation we see such exceptions as the 16th-century Hungarian serial killer Elizabeth Báthory, and ancient Roman females of the family that produced her role models, Caligula and Nero.

Today, in the everyday world, wannabe alpha females can create just as much nastiness as males, if not more. As a primary schoolteacher I have to deal with bullying. In 40 years, boy bullies, as opposed to boys who sometimes bully, have been rare. Female bullying is much more common, much more difficult to deal with, and delivers much more long-lasting, though less visible damage. "You can be my friend if you promise never to speak to her ever again," is the style of approach girls use.

I did ask the hangers-on once why they wanted to be the friend of someone who had demanded they dump another friend. They had no answer, even expressing disbelief that I should ask, despite being upset by the situation. Girls bullied by other girls are excluded, made to feel of no value, and have been driven to suicide. Females cannot be excused complicity in the production of cruelty.

I don't know why the trait of cruelty survives, but I do know why the trait of compliance survives. Survival depends on not being cast out from the central group. And while that trait persists, so do the queen bees.

http://www.newscientist.com/backpage.ns ... 084.200_lw


"Girls bullied by other girls are excluded, made to feel of no value, and have been driven to suicide. Females cannot be excused complicity in the production of cruelty."

This was exactly the background of the plot in the Wycliffe story..... (which was originally published in 1976)

And it's still an interesting coincidence that this NS piece should come up within a week of my original post! :shock:
 
The girl bully situation is a common feature of YA literature, but it would not be surprising if you personally had missed it. For one thing, you're a guy, as far as I can tell, and girl bullies are most often features of "girly" books; also, girl bullies aren't always recognized as such by male readers if the bullying isn't a major plot point. Males who haven't experienced the female style of bullying for themselves don't pick up the vibe as readily as females, who have all been through it. This is partly a stereotyping matter. People will recognize female bullies who act like male bullies (as in Bridge to Terebithia), and they will hate feminine bullies (as in the Little House books/TV show), but they will not necessarily connect the concept of "bitch" with the concept of "bully."

This holds over into adult life, when we find criminal psychologists finding excuses for female violent offenders, or denying them, or giving them secondary roles when the facts don't call for any mitigation of their responsibility.
 
A few months ago, I bought a whole carload of old golf equipment at a yard sale. There were several golf bags, loads of clubs, gloves, balls, tees and so on.

As Mr Snail is a keen golfer he enjoyed rummaging through it all, with most of it then ending up at his clubhouse for the youngsters to use. He kept some, including the only two Calloway clubs.

Then a week or so ago two different club members each lamented the loss of a Calloway club from their sets. They had each put down a club on the course while they took out (I think) a putter, and left it behind.

The two Calloway clubs Mr Snail had from the yard sale were the exact ones the two chaps needed, so he was able to produce them as if by magic, and handed them over graciously, to the two blokes' delight. 8)
 
Our last book club book was "I, Claudius" by Robert Graves. As we had enjoyed it so much the bf purchased "Claudius the God" and i got "Goodbye to All That", which i found fascinating. I told several people about Graves's teacher Mallory who introduced him to rock climbing and his apparently amazing climbing abilities.

Lo and behold a week later i checked in to the Dictionary of National Biography as i do most days and the biography of the day was none other than George Mallory.

And then today after a longer than usual absence from the message board i see someone has resurrected the Mallory thread.

Tomorrow night is bookclub night again, which means it is 4 weeks since we read "I, Claudius" and about three since i finished "Goodbye to All That" so those coincidences came pretty close together.

In case it triggers some more coincidences tomorrow night's book is "Nights at the Circus" by Angela Carter (my choice).
 
Okay, the actual coincidence part of this happened some time ago, but I'm getting a result now and I'm feeling all pumped (after a week or so of worm-eating), so I'm going to inflict it on y'all.

I don't use the break room at the day job's office building. It always smells funky and we're directly on the San Antonio Riverwalk, so it makes lots more sense to eat my lunch outside, and the vending machines contain the usual no-nutrition crud so if I need a snack I go to the fruteria down the street. But, one day a few months ago, I had to work late, I was starving to the point of insanity (hypoglycemia - I do not exagerrate), and the fruteria was already closed, so I resorted to the vending machine. And there, on a table, was an abandoned issue of a pop archeology magazine. I didn't even know there was anyone else interested in archeology in the building. So I scooped it up. In the back was a listing for events, divided up by state, so I looked under Texas. And Dr. James Adovasio, the hero of Meadowcroft Rock Shelter, was giving a lecture in Houston!

Now, if you're interested in Pleistocene archeology at all, you'd no more miss hearing Dr. Adovasio live than a fan of soul music would miss a chance to hear Aretha Franklin; yet, I would have missed this through not having heard about it had I not gone into a breakroom I normally don't go into. It took a little setting up, due to the date and location, but I went and I not only saw Dr. Adovasio, but I talked to him. He told me the Gault site, a site in central Texas that changes how we think about the Clovis adaptation (and which started being published RIGHT AFTER my book came out) was going to be worked on again, and said I should visit it.

And it's going to happen. I'm going to visit the Gault site. I can stay more than one day if I want to. (Yeah, if!) The Library Angel strikes again, and I wasn't even in the library.
http://www.utexas.edu/research/tarl/res ... _intro.php
 
PeniG said:
And it's going to happen. I'm going to visit the Gault site. I can stay more than one day if I want to. (Yeah, if!) The Library Angel strikes again, and I wasn't even in the library.
http://www.utexas.edu/research/tarl/res ... _intro.php
Click to expand...
Fascinating stuff. I've now discovered my latest favourite word - ecotone- and I don't even know what it means yet! (No, no, don't tell me, I just like the sound of it - in fact, it sounds like a sound anyway!)

Have fun at Gault. (Even if that's not such a nice word - sounds like a cross between guilt and gaunt... :shock: )
 
You can call it Buttermilk Creek if you like that better, but fewer people will know what you're talking about.

Once I quit the day job I need to find ways to ensure I can keep up with this stuff better, without distracting me from the stuff I'm quitting in order to do, as I'll have fewer constraints on my time and will have to be actually organized. You can't depend on the Library Angel professionally.
 
Buttermilk is good.

Reminds me of Folk Club days:

"Drinking buttermilk all the week, whisky on a Sunday!" 8)
 
Synchronicity - Co-Inky Dinky [a la Flanders]

For many a moon now I have been plagued by strings of synchronicity, which as anyone who knows me would confirm have not all been as harmless in their consequences as they either might or should have been! But cutting what could be a meandering tale should I even begin to document the 'past'!!! I'll get to the point far sooner than is natural for myself, especially when given to ponder just what the 'Cosmic Joker' is trying to tell me...........or do to me?

I have seven cats! All differing ages, types, temperament etc.... but the last two I took in were two brothers rescued from a Feral mother who had either abandoned them or had fallen foul of 'The Reaper'! Needledd to say they are quite skittish and even with myself who has pulled the Stars from the sky to please them, they are still quite nervous. Hence, despite being somewhat immobile these days due to an accident and ill health, I will if at all possible try to entertain them and attempt to familiarise them with myself, my friends and the other five moggies, who can also be quite weird, each in their own way as only moggies are apt to be!

So last week found me sitting on the front doorstep of my house, prior obviously to the nationwide soaking we have just recieved and are warned, all of us, Beware, there is more to come! So on the gloriously sun drenched days prior to the deluge, I had grabbed a few toys, to entertain them and the others should they deign to move from their various favourite 'specs'! Well after they had bored of the 'squeaky bird-mouse?' .....dangling and bouncing, pleasingly for a spell, I looked around for a couple of balls which I knew I must have, jeez I have bought enough, but unusually they were not occupying the middle of the floor for me to 'base over apex', because of.......indeed, I could lay my hands on only 2! One of these they did not approve of as it was an abandoned toy of my grandchildren, a spongy, tennis ball sized affair, that did'nt do anything high enough, fast enough or unexpectdly enough to warrant any inspection once it had with effort rollled under the garden bench! The other one however, was a small, bicoloured [blue/green...fyi!], I think we called them 'Superballs' when I was a lot younger, the type that with the slighest of drops will bounce higher than the house! This in mind I was careful how I let the thing go, as I neither fancied the effort of gathering myself up along with my crutches, to retrieve the thing, only to have it go awol immediatey I re-offered the toy to my 2 wayward strays! Although I did have the company of my ever obliging friend, I like to limit the number of times in any one day, I call 'Fetch!' in his direction![tee hee hee] I was also aware that although we live on an unadopted road, more a track really, there was traffic quite close, as well as all the vehicles which have to use the 'road' here to get to their various homes, though there are few, they are all quite dispersed along the steadily climbing thoroughfare.

So I thought a gentle roll to start proceedings with......and a gentle roll I produced right up to the point where it left my fingers.....then it hurtled in an almost completely straight line, down my path, out of the gate[hole...]across the track and into the long grass there, which occupied a small verge, 2ft at most then was aruptly met by the high wall of an old building there, which someone used as a garage, though the entrance to this was not on this side of the track!

Off they went, like 'cats outta Hell!' Ha ha! to where they knew it must be as I also did, as there really was'nt anywhere it could have rolled/bounced off to as Zed And Zod's sharp eyes watched, as well as my own if not as 'sharp' as they were some time ago, a fortnight at least! But despite their hither, thither, grass scattering eagerness to retrieve the ball, they were no having much success. so I braved the steps, the hot Sun and my crutches to get the damn thing for them! Calling them alll the names OI could think of which all meant 'gormless'! But despite myself watching the ball roll out of my hands and to that place where it seemed to have been stalled by the long grasses! I too, was unsuccessful and after about 10 minutes searching, a whole 8 minutes more than I should have needed to locate including time spent shuffling to the spot! iIt seemed that the grass had not only concealed it, but eaten it also, as it could not [impossibly] be located by Mogs, mate or myself! Not normally given to expletives [now I am being incredible...eh!] The f**king thing was gone! I was more perplexed than annoyed though! So 'game over', I called 'Fetch' me some tea to my putupon companion! End of story!............Well! No! A 'lost ball' tale would'nt spur me to waste my time atelling iit!

Three days later, my friend is a, how to say it without being offensive, a scavenger of sorts! He and his brother often look around in the skips in the locality for treasure and antiquities, which I'm sure oneday they will encounter. Now away almost at the top of the track, the folks in 'the Big House', are remodelling their home and a skip is [still] situated outside their home with their cast offs and surpluses! I sometimesa if I am up to it try to take a walk of sorts to the end of the lane where their is a field, or was a field should i say as Barretts, Wimpys or someother 'box builder' is fast consuming! Alas!

These walks I always take in the early hours of the morning as I like to see the foxes and the bats that are resident hereabouts, not to mention an Owl that seems to follow me each time I make this sojourn! IT'S A SOJOURN TO ME....!!!

Anyhoo, the upshot is that on passing this skip accompanied by my friend and 4 or 5 moggies, they always come with me do the older ones whenever I step foot our of the house in the wee hours, even Zed and Zod have begun to 'weave' in and out of the surroundings, but coming along with us, no matter their attempted nonchalance! So as it was there, the skip that is, mymate took a looksee in it, not to be left out the 'thrill of the hunt' I too took a glance into the thing! We both saw what was a substantial amount of 'New' carpet wrapped conveniently in plastic, so had not become damp or foisty! It had a black bin liner around it also. There was about 4metres in length by about 1metre width! So I decided that it was too good a find and would fit nicely somewhere, a loo or something maybe! I have 2 friends recently relocated their sorry arses so even if I could'nt use it , they would be sure to have 'loos etc....!

So my friend being the gentleman that he is, hoisted the roll onto his shoulder, once that is, i had checked the plastic wrapping for attached slugs/snails! Aw! He then ran off down the road to take it to my house, then returned to accompany myself down the hill, I had somehow walked up! He was only gone about 2minutes, which was more than enough time for the mogs to scare the wits out of an hapless hedgehog, then homeward we all sauntered!

Now eager to see in the light of my porch where he had left the carpet, I once home began to rip the plastic bin liner from it to see the exact colour of the stuff! Whilst he was still nervous that 'reckless invertebrates' might be occupying the central tube of the roll, I was not so! So to scare the Be-Jeebus [Homer - Simpson] out of him I stuck my arm down the centre of the roll feigning discovery of slugs with his name on 'em, [I'm a good shot! This he knows!] So he was squirming like a 'girlie', however it was not slugs, snails or puppy dog tails I found concealed there, but a Marks & Sparks Bag! This I pulled out and to continue the 'scavenger' theme, though it felt flat and empty, I felt a weight of some sorts at the bottom of the bag when it was free of the carpet roll! A snail! I laughed to himself!
A 'weapon' I sniggered internally!........

No! NO! NOOO! A bloody ball! Not to put too fine a point on this description, oh alright,.....A bloody Superball! Bicoloured? I hear you ask! Oh yeah! Bicoloured......Blue and Bloody Green!

This from a home where there are no kids, no cats, the humans are seldom there and I would'nt say I have seen them passing my house in their cars, 4x4's etc that often! Helll! I have never seen them walking, they could be as bad at it as I am for all I know?

What the ............The End............? Oh no! This is where it gets weird!

But that was weird enough for the time being eh? Come On Rain!


[My poor mate nearly fell over with surprise......or mebe relief....not a slug an all!]

edited for general readability - stu
 
we've got a biiiiig coincidences/synchronicity thread kicking around somewhere

I had a little coincidence earlier. For ages this morning, all I could think about was Denmark. I know. Then I put up some flatpack furniture, which turned out to have been made in Denmark.
 
Earlier this evening I posted something about USA Eastern Time...
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewt ... 702#719702

Less than an hour later, the main character in the book I'm reading, Finding Davey, by Jonathon Gash, is also wondering about ET...

Rather odd. (Especially as other unusual things are happening to me right now...)
 
Yesterday I posted a story in the Twins thread about a mixed race couple with 'mixed race' twins.

At work that day, my first sale was to a mixed race couple.

On my way home, I thought that was statistically odd, as we don't get many mixed race couples in this town.

Today we had another such couple!
 
ANTS

Yesterday I had a little invasion of ants on my bedroom windowsill. The window was open, and at first I assumed they'd come from outside, but then I found a small hole in the wall from which they seemed to be emerging. (I blocked the hole with Blu-Tac.)

Today, my crossword had a clue involving ants.

And then in my latest crime book reading , a detective has to investigate an exotic pet shop, which can supply many strange creatures - but happily not ants, which the detective hates!
 
rynner said:
(Especially as other unusual things are happening to me right now...)
Click to expand...

Gracious, rynner, how can you write lead like that but say nothing else? Tell, please!

Had a noticeable coincidence, yesterday (Sunday). A local retail space has had a "for lease" notice in the window for several months; however, last week the sign was changed to "for sale." The realty company handling the sale is Monterey Properties--a company that rarely handles property in our town. However, that same evening, Monterey Properties ran a splashy advertisement on the channel we were watching; first one I'd ever seen for them.
 
Sorry to all of you who found my 'epic' hard on the eyes, but this is the first thing I have ever posted, don't know a great deal about formatting for posts, just getting the tale down was the important thing to me! I myself have visual problems and appreciate any difficulties had, with 'knobs on' so to speak!

Just an afterthought, but was a certain person taking the 'mick' out of my 'catwalking', I can't tell as I don't have the 'in speak' experience, a thing which has often prevented me from taking part in such things in the past! Anyhoo! If so? Then my moggies [all 7 of them], plus a couple or three 'tag alongs', issue a very 'mewling' miaow!

By the way, I don't walk well either, so they are more than patient with me on these sojourns! But with their company, whilst it may be the middle of the night, I at least, get outside. A rare event these days for myself! Anyhoo as I said before 'will do better' next time, should there be one!
foad!
 
You should still be able to edit your first post

- click on the - er - Edit button!

Stick in a few line breaks (Enter, carriage returns, whatever) just to break up the mass of solid text into paragraphs. This makes it much easier to read.
 
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