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Coincidences

Yesterday I was walking on a country path and came across a dead sparrow. There was no clue how it had died, but it must have happened recently. Don't think I've seen a dead sparrow before, although pigeons and gulls are frequent roadkills in these parts.

This morning I was sitting at the computer when there was a bang on the nearby window. I turned my head just in time to glimpse a small bird fall from the pane. Looking out, I saw it had come to rest on the window sill - it was a groggy looking sparrow. As I watched, the thing toppled over and fell into the undergrowth below. (Shouldn't laugh, but it did look rather comical.)

It would have taken me several minutes to get around the building, so if it had been just stunned it would have probably have moved by then, and if it was dead I couldn't have done anything for it anyway, so I stayed where I was.

So, two sparrow incidents in less than 24 hours.
 
The Cosmic Joker had another go at me today...

For the past several days, I've been out on long walks. As the forecasts threatened showers, I took a brolly with me. Amazingly :roll: the weather reamined fine, hot, and dry.

Today I had to go to Truro. Same forecast of showers from one source, but the BBC local forecast didn't mention rain, so this time I went without my brolly.

In Truro, it rained, I had to seek shelter under various trees.

On the bus on the way home, a young woman two seats behind me parked her brolly on the seat behind me. When the bus braked, the brolly fell forward, and the handle hit me on the head.

And when I got home, the BBC local forecast had changed to 'Heavy Showers'....

I really think the CJ is taking the piss..... :evil:
 
My lack of a TV, and the current 'Pop-up Unpleasantness', means I'm reading more books right now, and this almost always brings up unexpected links from one book to another.

The latest one is quite amusing:

Previous book, British crime novel (2006); a woman police officer talks about 'getting your tits caught in a mangle'.

Current book, American crime novel (1991); a woman P.I. talks about 'getting your tit caught in the wringer'.

:shock: :D
 
Immediately after posting the above, I went to the Telegraph and the Matt cartoon, which turns up an even more unlikely coincidence...

In the American book I mentioned, there is a description of making a drink called a Tequila Slammer, which I'd not heard of before.

In the Matt cartoon, a father is taking his son to a children's party. Outside the house the father is startled to see a parked van, marked "Mr Tequila Slammer - Children's Entertainer"

(The cartoon refers to this story "Parents advised over children's alcohol limits"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/2064280/Parents-advised-over-children%27s-alcohol-limits.html )

Quite a remarkable coincidence, I thought! 8)
 
Another good one linked to a library book...

But let me tell it in order:

Outside my windows are pleasant gardens, with flower beds, trees and flowering bushes. But last autumn much of it was rather brutally cut back by council workmen. In fact, I thought they'd killed off two of the bushes, but now finallly they have sprouted fresh green leaves again (but no flowers as yet).

Recently I noticed that one of these bushes was getting overgrown with some kind of creeping weed, so I spent some time pulling the weeds out. (They came out easily, roots and all.) Now being a rookie gardener I didn't know the name of bush or weed, but I did find from the internet that the bush is a hydrangea.

So to the book, another crime story. And a vital clue turns out to be the colour of hydrangea blossoms! :shock:

Apparently, if there is iron in the soil the blossoms are blue rather than pink, and in the book this leads to the discovery of a buried vehicle that's been missing for decades!

So this coincidence is not just book intersecting with book, but book intersecting with my life... 8)
 
rynner said:
My lack of a TV, and the current 'Pop-up Unpleasantness', means I'm reading more books right now, and this almost always brings up unexpected links from one book to another.
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That reminds me of a book-related coincidence that happened (almost exactly) 20 years ago. In my mid-teens, I went through a major Stephen King phase, devouring everything the man had written at the time. On June 21, 1988, I was quite excited to find one of King's newer books, The Tommyknockers, in our local bookshop. I bought it, and went home right away to read it. I hadn't counted, however, on the goosebumps already starting with the first paragraph, which had the sentence:

Anderson literally stumbled over her destiny in the small town of Haven, Maine, on June 21, 1988.
Click to expand...
 
Another one involving books. On a Good Read recently I wrote about a book from the crime shelf that turned out to be about the paranormal, as the lead character, a young woman, could see the future.

Into my next book from the crime shelf now. This seemed at first like a more conventional whodunnit, with murders to solve, etc. But halfway through, a new character enters the story, a young woman who also has a psychic gift - she can hear (and sometimes see) events from the past, connected with places she visits. (The book is Jacquot and the Angel, by Martin O'Brien.)

So that is two consecutive 'crime' books which both turned out to have a strong paranormal thread in them.
 
My hubby has a Voco talking alarm clock. Rather than waking you up with a beep, it wakes you up with Stephen Fry as Jeeves. (better than it sounds).

The other morning he said, 'Your horoscope was most auspicious this morning sir, shall I lay out your suit for the races?'
When I put the TV on as I was having breakfast I found it was the first day of Ascot!
 
Comic day. We had a compilation disk in the CD player and a song ended as we parked. When we came out, I pulled out the comic I was most eager to read - Knights of the Dinner Table - and as my husband started the car we examined the cover, which shows Weird Pete and Squirrelly the chimp playing cards as they tool down the highway, above the issue's title: On the Road Again. So, guess what the next song on the disk was?
 
Although synchronicity has been prevalent recently in my life, a couple of things stand out...

I've been needing a desk lately but haven't found anything cheap that I could do hand drafting on. Enter HGTV.

I've been watching the occasional remodeling and redecorating show. One day I made note of an interesting modification to an old piece of furniture. They took an old dresser and ripped out the drawers (indeed, all of the guts) and it made a perfect desk.

The very next day I looked across the street and one of my neighbors was getting rid of a beautiful dresser. Now I have a perfectly serviceable desk which fits exactly where I need it to. I'm going to write an Instructable on how I made it.

Next, yesterday, whilst cleaning out some boxes I discovered an old Nokia cellphone I had used quite a while ago. Knowing that I *should* recycle it, I pondered where to drop it off in my area. Today I got a birthday present from a friend, shipped to me from Amazon, with a handy little envelope for CellphonesForSoldiers postage paid and everything.

Just some more of the things which make me smile :D
 
I was looking for the web-editing software called "NVU" and while googling it I discovered that here in Holland there are more organizations using this acronym:

- Nederlandse Volks Unie - Dutch People's Union, a very right wing organization
- Nederlandse Vereniging van Urologen - Dutch Urologist's Union

:D
 
I've already posted a couple of Beatles stories today.

And just now, on Classic FM, there was a classical guitar piece which I eventually twigged was actually a version of "Here Comes the Sun".

It may well have been from this CD, George Harrison Remembered:
A Touch of Class ( http://www.breznikar.com/livepages/remembered.html )

- if not, there are other classical guitarists out there doing George's stuff!

(Is today a significant date in the Beatles calendar?)
 
rynner said:
(Is today a significant date in the Beatles calendar?)
Click to expand...
No, but Beatles Day is coming soon:

Gordon Brown reveals favourite Beatles song
Last Updated: 10:52AM BST 01/07/2008

Gordon Brown has revealed his favourite Beatles song - All My Loving - because he played it on the piano as a child.

A public vote to find the all-time most popular Beatles song has been launched by the Liverpool Echo
Tory leader David Cameron picked the Long and Winding Road and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg opted for A Day in the Life.

The politicians were asked for their Fab Four favourites as part of Liverpool's Beatles Day celebration.

A public vote to find the all-time most popular Beatles song has been launched by the Liverpool Echo.

Mr Brown told the newspaper: "It is so hard to pick one because there are so many but this was my early favourite because it was the first I learnt to play on the piano when my parents sent me for lessons when I was young."

Chancellor Alistair Darling picked Strawberry Fields because, "It reminds me of the 60s at their best - in the words and music they are describing real life, unlike so many other songs of that time."

Mr Cameron said: "I'm a McCartney fan and the Long and Winding Road was one of his last with the Beatles. He wrote it in Scotland where he always found inspiration.

"The road he was thinking of was the B842 which runs down Kintyre to Campbelltown, but the song is about much, much more than that. It has a wonderful melody and emotion and pretty much sums up the life of the Leader of the Opposition."

Mr Clegg said of A Day in the Life: "Even after all this time, it still sounds innovative and radical.

"The dramatic shift of gears musically leading to the powerful piano chords at the end are frighteningly effective, while the lyrics are incredibly effective by combining the mundane everyday life with the tragic death of someone in a car crash. It shows the Beatles at their edgy best."

Beatles Day, on July 10, will mark the 44th anniversary of the Fab Four's triumphant homecoming to Liverpool after they conquered America in 1964.

It has been organised to raise money for Alder Hey children's hospital and Liverpool Unites, which is raising money for a community centre in memory of murdered schoolboy Rhys Jones.

A series of street events are planned followed by a concert which will see invited guests perform the top ten Beatles songs chosen by the public.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... -song.html

EDIT: A reader comments:
I think "Yesterday" would be the most appropriate for Gordon Brown. The lyrics just seem tailor made for his situation. :D
 
This is a Music one...

Tuesday morning, as I'm driving the kids to where they needed to be and listening to Radio 2, Wogan said to Alan Dedicote, "You know the song 'Big John', don't you?" and proceeded to read out a parody of it, "Big Al", sent in by one of the listeners. It made me smile because it's a song I associated with being small, but I hadn't heard it for years.

Tuesday afternoon, we went to a funeral - my next-door neighbour, John - and as they were preparing to carry the coffin out to the car, the vicar stood up and said, "We're going to finish with a piece of music. I'm just warning you that it's a bit unusual, but John's daughter promised her dad years ago that she would play this at his funeral".

And so the coffin was carried out to the lugubrious tones of..."Big John". :)
 
Another in my recent series of whodunnits with Fortean connections...

The main character in my latest book is given a present - a crystal skull!
(But this turns out to be purely 'decoration' - it's not part of the plot.)


Yesterday, purely by chance, I learned of a cruise that could replace the one I should already have taken, but which was cancelled. One of the ports of call of this new one is Cork, and one of the excursions offered includes a photo stop at Charles Fort!

(But another one offers a visit to the Jameson Distillery - decisions, decisions!)
 
The library angel is obviously on my case.

Yet again, my latest library whodunnit has heavy Fortean overtones. This time it's the presence of evil, as symbolized by Old Nick, from his earliest manifestations in ancient history up till now, with excursions into symbology, semi-secret societies, and the rest of it.

(I don't consciously look for these themes - I just scan the blurb and maybe the first page to make sure it's not something I've read before.)

Even better, it involves severed hands - Doctor Who tonight, anyone? :shock:
 
I was once at a festival and it being the last day, I was broke. So, I took to wandering around the crowds of people with my empty stomach, just killing some time.

As I was walking along one of the dirt paths, I look down and lo and behold, a fiver! Needless to say, I ended up buy a dodgy burger with the dusty five pound note.

Years later, I was walking with a friend through Euston, telling her the very same story and I look down and there on the ground is a fifty pound note!


I went through a phase of finding money quite often, 100 quid in a pub, fivers on the ground, stuff like that.

Doesn't really happen so much now! :cry:
 
More coincidence linking successive whodunnits: in the first, some rare seashells are stolen from a museum. In the second, a seashell is found in the throat of a murder victim, which is an important clue...

But my current crime book seems (so far) to have broken the run. No coincidences, no Forteana, just hard bitten and foul-mouthed cops getting on with the job!
 
I get lots of uncanny coincidences all the time, and then forget them ;)

I've just remembered one though. A few weeks ago we were all discussing Leonard Cohen quite earnestly for a bit. The radio was on, and just when we finished, the DJ put of a Leonard Cohen song.
 
More library book stuff: the last two have both had references to Hilaire Belloc, a writer you don't hear much about now.

The latest book is a collection of short stories. Two of them concern food poisoning, which I think (and hope) is what's been ailing me since Sunday night. (If I'm not recovered tomorrow, I'll have to get help. :( )
 
That's a long time to have food poisoning, rynner! Normally your body expels the toxin violently and then you're done except for the weakness. Better get help now.

Meanwhile: top exit - bland food, ginger ale, highly-processed stuff. Protein drinks are made for this.
Rear exit - cut the fats, sugars, and dairy; consume soluble fiber (the insides of plants and highly-processed plants). Instant oatmeal is good for this.
 
I'm more or less recovered now, but today I had an odd related experience.

I had to do some shopping, and one thing on my list was a new can of air-freshener. So I whizzed round the supermarket, grabbing things off shelves, and just made my bus home.

But when I unpacked I discovered that instead of picking up air-freshener, I had picked a can of carpet de-odouriser!

This was rather ironic (and showed the hand of the Cosmic Joker) because during my illness I had in fact soiled the carpeting here in two different ways (I'll spare you the details :oops: .)

Perhaps CJ was hinting that my earlier clean-up wasn't good enough? :shock:
 
Ah, the dangers of an over-active imagination! 8)
 
when I unpacked I discovered that instead of picking up air-freshener, I had picked a can of carpet de-odouriser!
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I once hurriedly sprayed the pits with green shaving foam.
 
Picked up the tube of Valderma instead of toothpaste....very strange taste..
 
Once, as a quite young child I ate a tube of Algipan muscle embrocation, because the name was similar to marzipan.

Imagine, as a 7 year old, eating a handful of fresh 'scotch bonnet' chilli peppers. :shock:
 
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