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Coincidences

Coincidence in the News

In a few hours Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski play each other in the third round of the Australian Open. So what? I hear you cry!

Well, they both have the same birthday, 6th September (Greg is one year older than Tim), and both got married in December to women named Lucy.

Last night in UK there was a TV documentary on the difficulties and dangers of predicting volcanic eruptions. At the same time a volcana in the Congo erupted, covering many villages and a major town in a lava flow. Casualty figures haven't been given yet, but tens of thousands of people are now homeless. There is also a danger that the lava, on entering a nearby lake, will cause a deadly release of sub-surface gases.
 
Strange isn't it. I saw the Horizon doc. on Volcanoes and then to see the volcano in the congo struck me as a odd coincidence. Did they manage to predict it with long period events?

Didn't know about the Henman/Rusedski connection - then again I don't like them too much so I wasn't paying attention. Sorry.:)
 
Yesterday, on a TV news report about whether the queen mum would be able to attend today's funeral, they showed an 'ambulance' which was just an ordinary car, with the addition of reflective flashes, lettering, blue light, etc., and I thought that was unusual, and perhaps something special for the Royals.

As we had wall-to-wall sunshine yesterday, I went out for a stroll, and saw a car-ambulance not far from home...

It must have been an odd vehicle day: I also saw a fleet of FOUR electric invalid carriages, like mini golf-carts or self propelled wheelchairs. They were being driven by young people, so I assumed they were being road-tested. And then, parked in a local boatyard, I saw a LH drive Winnebago - don't think I've ever seen one for real over here before.

More wall-to-wall sunshine forecast today - who knows what wonders might appear...?
 
Re: Winnebagos

If, as I suspect, these things wander about at random (have you seen the way some of them are 'driven'?), then, sooner or later, they'll all end up in the same place.

Keep yer eyes peeled, Jane!

PS Jane, since I'm a gentleman, I won't even think about your furry tail..... :D
 
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PS Jane, since I'm a gentleman, I won't even think about your furry tail.....
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Well, since I'm a lady I won't ask how you would like to see me hop :)

Jane
 
On Saturday I posted about "Flog it!" in Truro, a sort of poor man's Antiques Roadshow.

And on Sunday, AR itself also came from Cornwall (although presumably filmed months ago).
 
In a house on a certain street in Royston Vasey today (Monday) is Nude Day
 
rynner said:
On Saturday I posted about "Flog it!" in Truro, a sort of poor man's Antiques Roadshow.

And on Sunday, AR itself also came from Cornwall (although presumably filmed months ago).
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Oddly enough Antiques Roadshow came from my home town of Witney last week. Nobody I've spoken to remembers them filming it... spooky.

Jane.
 
I've mentioned before that I sometimes Google on my own name, to see if my websites are visible, and just out of curiosity. But I got a morbid surprise today when when I turned up a page of Obituaries, with my name in large letters at the top!

In fact the obit was for a boy with the same name as myself (all three names) who went to the same school as I did back in the 50s (he was two years ahead of me). We were not related.

Ask not for whom the Bell tolls....
 
The obit mentioned above was on my old school website. Searching it, I found a page that didn't display properly, so I emailed the webmaster, explaining who I was and how I'd found the site.

I soon got a reply: the webmaster had been a friend of my namesake from primary school days, and when he first saw my email he thought it was a message from the grave!

I have now located the school photo from June '59, and there is little rynner sitting in the front row! This is part of it - I'm the one in the middle. (Who'd'a'thort that happy little chappie would grow up into the miserable old sod I am now?)
 
Most interesting

1919 "Tidal Wave" of molasses 15 metres high x 25 metres wide kills dozens, Boston
I also share a birthdate with quite few famous people - some I wish had never been born, or at least kept their gobs shut.
 
I'm reading a very Fortean book called the Solitaire Mystery, by Jostein Gaarder. It's a sort of fantasy that's very heavy on philosophy and coincidence.

I'm also reading the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. "The sun grew dark" in 664 sounded like an eclipse - checking up, there was an eclipse that year, but the date was 2 days before the one given in the Chronicle. This interested me, and I prepared a letter to the translator about it. I said I supposed the date difference was because the modern calculations extrapolate the Gregorian calendar backwards into the Julian period.

Returning to Solitaire, the story then went into an idea about a calendar based on a pack of cards, and one of the characters then comments on the change from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian one! This was within 30 minutes of my writing about the subject. Spooky, eh!
 
Note to Rynner re: Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Rynner
I've got the Michael Swanton translation. His translation reads 'Here on 3rd of May the sun grew dark'. Is this the same as yours? I've no idea when the eclipse is supposed to have happened. Could you please update me on the results of your investigations? You can PM me if you like.

Sorry to interrupt the thread everyone:eek:

Thanks Rynner:D :D :D
 
Deus Ex Machina (or massive flukes)

Has anyone ever benefitted by a strange bout of fluke or good luck or been the recipient of divine intervention or convenient coincidence?

Here's one of mine:-

When i was still at school time came round for the tetanus boosters. I hate injections to the point of obsession and because of other factors at school that are too complicated to go into here I was determined I was not gonna get mine.

Well the day drew tortuously ever nearer and despite efforts to sweet talk my parents into letting me have a raincheck it was more inescapible as ever. My hysteria and melancholy had even effected my best friend who normally didn't mind pain (in fact liked it rather too much) was now getting as anxious as me.

Our forms were reluctantly filled in properly (my mother made sure to check mine, trustworthy soul) and there was nothing to stop our fate.

The day came and we all filed out into the hall to stand like arrivals at Belsen and wait for our names to be called out. One by one the people dwindered, disappearing and reappearing holding numb arms and some with tears in their eyes.

Expecting a dead faint or heart attack any moment I waited until only my friend and I were left. Stupidly but honestly we approached the nurse and asked why we hadn't been called. Checking her paperwork she claimed ignorance and then mumbled something about someone must have called to cancel our injections or something in way of explanation.

We couldn't believe our luck and both went home to express our graditude to our parents.. who didn't have a clue what we were talking about.

I still don't know why only myself and my friend were the only people to miss our injections but I know that it made a big difference to my mood and well being at that time to know that someone or something was looking after me.....


Does anyone have anything similiar? I'm not really interested with scrapes with death or lucky escapes from accidents but situations very much like that one, especially if it seems that someone unknown was behind it.



Be seeing you.... :eek!!!!:
 
A worrying story.

What if it was Old Nick who arranged for you to miss your jabs, because he's planned a horrible but ironic death for you from tetanus....?

Wooo!
 
You should all get a tetanus booster every ten years without fail, particularly if you ride a bike/motorbike, garden, or have pets. My friend's dad died of tetanus in his thirties and it's a pointless, nasty, avoidable death. :(
 
I had the same thing happen with the polio vaccine at junior school. I found that I had someone elses card & so escaped the injection.

When my name finally came up, I was given one of the first doses of the oral vaccine, they even gave us a free suger cube to have it on!!!!!

Oh Yes!!!! I know this really dates me...............

Incidently beakboo, I had my tetanus series back in 1981 & could never get a booster injection, I was always told to come back if I had a serious cut!!!! As a community nurse during a serious mumps outbreak in the early '90's, I was also refused vaccination!!!!

Maybe, this is why the NHS can't retain it's staff??????:hmph:
 
lucky u had the sugar....... i was handed a little tube when me wife had visited the midwife and told to swallow the contents. Twas Polio vacine (cos u can get poilio from changeing nappies)... and it was vile! oily and bitter and a taste that stayed for days... its made from sheeps brains isnt it?
 
sidecar_jon said:
lucky u had the sugar.......
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I got that later sidecar....

Went into Occupational Health to scrounge a cup of tea & mate of mine who's the O. H. Nurse, mumbles: "Oh it's you! Let's see yer' tongue" & wacks a drop of polio vaccine on it!!!!!

"That's you done for the next few years" She mumbled, as I gagged!!!!!

Never trust a nurse & stay clear of them bloody doctors!!!!!!!
 
David said:
When my name finally came up, I was given one of the first doses of the oral vaccine, they even gave us a free suger cube to have it on!!!!!
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When I had a polio booster as an adult, I had to take my own sugar cube!

When we lived in Nigeria we were supposed to have cholera jabs every month, but the state of their medical care was such that it was honestly safer to bung somebody a few quid to stamp our vaccination cards rather than have the jabs . . .

My husband and I got engaged just before he went off to Nigeria. We went to buy the ring on the day he had his jabs. When I met him to go to the jewellers, his arm was all stiff and painful. Of course I was very concerned . . . concerned in case he couldn't move his arm to sign the cheque for the ring . . .:rolleyes:

Carole
 
carole said:
When I met him to go to the jewellers, his arm was all stiff and painful. Of course I was very concerned . . . concerned in case he couldn't move his arm to sign the cheque for the ring . . .:rolleyes:

Carole
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WIMMIN..!
 
Marion said:
I've never had a vaccination for anything in my life , ever!
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i been jabbed for all sorts of things involentarily...but the only time i actively sought it out was one winter.... we were liveing on a converted lifeboat and it had pulled up its anchor and driffted sideways on the mud birth we lived on. I had to dig a huge pipe about 4ft into the Penryn River mud, to use as another anchor. (a charming conglomeration of centuries of sewage and asnic) the wind was howling, the tide was comming in and i was haveing a hard time even standing up about 60ft out in the knee deep mud. the spade just got clogged up. So i took to digging with my frozen hands. And i found a but if glass!... i looked down at the blood oozeing out of the mud covered hand and decided i needed to cary on.... only later i washed my hand in a river did i see the nasty hole id made in myself..... i went and got a tetanus jab prity quick!
 
carole said:
When I had a polio booster as an adult, I had to take my own sugar cube!Carole
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Yes Carole, but by then the NHS had got a lot meaner!!!!!!

Later I can remember all those families who never used suger cubes, but had to buy a whole box for the kids vaccination!!!!!

On the subject of cholera jabs, before we went off to India, my wife & I had our jabs on the same day & were sick as dogs the next day. :cross eye

Likewise, arms massivly swollen, I am told that bubonic plague vaccination is even worse.:cross eye :cross eye :cross eye
 
I just sat down to watch that mad Aussie trying to feed himself to Komodo Dragons on ITV, and I noticed that FT, which arrived today, was on the sofa and open at page 28 - which has a story called "Eaten By Lizards"!

(PS to Mana - I've been distracted from eclipses by other stuff, but I will get back to it sometime!)
 
Funny old day. Thought of going to Truro, so thought I'd ring the bus company and ask what the fare is now. At the same time I could clear up the time-table cock-up in Penzance last week, so I checked the t-t again, and sure enough the weekday times were missing. But then I got no reply on the phone. Checked with BT, etc, etc, still no joy 40 minutes later, so went out to the ATM to get some cash to pay a bill - but the ATM was dud, blah, blah.

Then went to library, took out a few books. Back home I finally got the bus company, explained the t-t prob, and she checked her copy and said the info I wanted was on page so-and-so - but mine had no page numbers, so she said she'd send me another one. After I put the phone down I checked my copy again. In fact most pages were numbered - it was just the particular 'Sundays and Bank Holidays' page I'd been looking at that was one of the exceptions! And then I found the 'Mon to Sat' page I wanted...! Did I feel stoopid! (I think my brain is wearing out fast. And I forgot to ask about the Truro fare...)

Then I started one of the library books, one on Cosmology. Damn me if on page 2 the writer didn't mention Bus Time Tables... That's what I call synchronicity, which is the universe having a good laugh at my expense.
 
Census or Actuarial Charts

Anyone have access to either census information or insurance company actuarial charts? It would be interesting to know what days see the most and least births, etc.

I've heard it's Mondays and Tuesdays, regardless of dates, stateside, because Wednesday is most doctor's golf day.
 
cranium said:
I often find that I will read about a particular subject that I have never heard of only to find the next day that there is an article in the paper, a documentary on the news about the exact same subject!
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A few days ago I was reading a whodunnit set in a gypsy camp: yesterday, and again today, I was approached by gypsies trying to sell me lucky charms...
 
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