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Coincidences

Just finished a novel on kidnapping. The two main female characters turn out to have the same birthday (not unusual - novels love coincidences). But this birthday was also that of my ex!

One of the kidnap victims is a young girl called Jessica, which chillingly echoes the name of one of the two missing girls in Cambridgeshire the last two days. The girl in the novel is recovered unharmed - let's hope that is a good omen.
 
Magical Thinking?

While I hope any and all kidnap victims are recovered unharmed and the kidnappers caught and dealt with swiftly and justly, I don't think you reading a given novel, semi-coincidences or not, has anything to do with it.
 
Re: Magical Thinking?

No, wishful thinking. (But I am interested in coincidence.)
 
Here is a very long article (7 pages!) on the nature of coincidence from the New York Times.

I haven't read it it all myself yet, but it seems pretty thorough.
 
Excellent article, rynner.

It even mentions our very own Paul Sieveking and a little magazine he edits. What are the chances of that, eh?

Jane.
 
Rynner

Looks interesting, I'll read it when I've a chance and comment.

Ever read The Roots of Coincidence by Arthur Koestler?
 
Re: Rynner

FraterLibre said:
Ever read The Roots of Coincidence by Arthur Koestler?
Click to expand...
Yes, that was what got me into this thing in the first place.

I just experienced a weird one - I was just reading the Holy Wells thread when the TV news summarised the headlines and mentioned the missing schoolgirl Holly Wells...
 
Call Carl

You may be entering into synchronicity, then, hm? Wake Mr. Jung.
 
A long shot coincidence.

I was on my bus home from work last night in Glasgow. Being a bit sad I was reading the September issue of Astronomy Now. A man one seat back and two over asked me if I was reading Astronomy Now, assuming he was another Astronomy fan I said it was. He then informed me he was the author of the opinion article on the last page. There was a picture of the author and it definitely was him. Any guesses as to the odds of sitting next to the author of a magazine article you were reading on public transport ?
 
Some recent weird coincidences in Sproutland...

A couple of coincidences for you...

My girlfriend's currently doing some temp work packing envelopes, in a massive ad campaign for a new product, which requires putting a few million (no exaggeration) mailshots into envelopes. A few days ago she was doing a batch, and actually ended up packing an envelope for her own mother.

Another good coincidence... a mate of mine lent his cashcard to someone else to get him some money, and forgot to take it back. So it was passed on to a second mate of mine, who would be seeing him the following day, and it transpired the first guy's card number (the long one in the middle of the card) was only one digit away from the second guy's - and it was in sequence (one ended with an 8, the other with a 9).

Any recent spookiness, folks?
 
Okay, here's some sproutishness for you: I lost my Smiths best of CD....and today I noticed your sig line. *DING* the lightbulb goes on over my head and I recall whom I loaned it to, and got it back posthaste. TY you evil thing you!
 
The first girl I ever dated had a phone number that was almost identical to mine. It was off by one digit and only by a factor of one.
 
Four threads on coincidence (including one I hadn't seen before!) have now been merged into this one.

(There are other, more specialist, coincidence threads that I left alone.)
 
In my last job all the employees were pulled into a site meeting and told that within 3 years the place would be shut down. We were then told to "have fun" in the time remaining *grumble, grumble*. Well anywho, I got home really fed up and decided to phone my friend and tell her about it. I ring what I thought was her number, it rang and was answered by someone who sounds just like her. For about 10 mins we sat and chatted until the other caller asked me if I was **** ****** (insert name here). To my amazement I was talking to a complete stranger who had the same name and sounded exactly like my mate. She then told me that I had the same first name and sounded exactly like her friend. What's really odd is the fact that I'm not originally from around here and I have a quite distinctive accent.
 
I video'd the latest 'Silent Witness', and watched in on Monday morning. One house in the story had a copy of that well-known picture of an Asian woman with a green face. (Sounds awful, and I think it is, but it was amazingly popular a few decades ago.)

A short while later I saw 'Bargain Hunt', and dang me, a copy of the picture turned up there too!
 
My son enjoyed the fillum 'Girl, Interrupted' on TV last week and I told him it was based on a book. Next day I was working on a ward where the staff donate books to sell for ward funds...
You've guessed.

So he read the book and then I did. At one point I glanced up at the TV in time to see a bit of a car ad where the doctor taps a bloke's knee and his car outside twitches. Back to the book, where the knee-jerk reflex was being discussed....

Did I mention the sausage?
I was sending text messages from a website. The most absurd thing I could think of to say to my mate Kath was 'Put that sausage down- you don't know where it's been!'

As it happened, the message arrived when she was in town eating a sausage bap, and she read it when she'd finished. She knew from the message that I was at home and nearly dropped dead from fright.
 
A word was bugging me the other day, so I picked up an encyclopaedia to look it up. I flipped the book open randomly and the page heading was "Gymnopaedes" (Sp?) The good bit was, my girlfriend was watching a programme about ballet at the time and the music playing was Gymnopaedes. Whoooooooo spooky
 
not long ago i turned a mag page to something about the league of gentlemen... and then the theme music started to waft (completely to my suprise) from the other room, where it was on TV (unbeknowst to me)

sorry, that sounds crap. But it was odd at the time.
 
Doesn't 'Gymnopaedes' mean 'naked children'..........?
Hmmm.

A nice coincidence- I was watching a serious but disturbing Discovery Channel prog last night about the FBI's 'body garden' where research is done with corpses varioiusly buried or left lying around.
There was an interesting segment about a lawnmower-shaped machine which can be run over the ground to locate buried corpses by X-ray. I tried hard to remember the name of this gadget so I could look it up later on the 'net.
When the ad break came on I turned to the book I was reading and there I found a description of the selfsame gizmo, right down to the 'lawnmower' nickname! (Daren't tell you what book I'm reading!)
 
For years I'd wanted a pair of roller blades but always chickened out of going in a shop in case the assistants laughed at a twentysomething trying to act like pre-teen!
2 years ago I was in the pub on a Sunday afternoon and someone was selling roller blades off the back of a lorry. Everyone was buying them for a tenner a go. I was just about to hand over my money when I had a sudden feeling that I would be badly injured by them. So I went home empty handed and everyone teased me, knowing my fascination for skating.
The next day, a monday, I was at the trainstation waiting to go to work and a man came along on crutches, his leg in plaster. I thought of the roller blades and what might have been. A lady nearby was taking up all the room on a long bench, putting shopping bags all along so that no-one else could sit. When the crippled man stood by her she did not give up room.
I went crazy, shouted at her, called her all kinds of names and basically forced her to move her bags off the bench for the man. Believe me, I'm never normally so frank.
Well, I moved away from the bench and crossed the platform. And a teenager on prohibited roller blades flew past, knocked me flying and broke my foot.
 
Erik Satie's famous Trois Gymnopédies of 1888 were named after
the Gymnopedia, a religious festival of ancient Sparta, where naked
youths worshipped their Gods in song and dance.

I don't think much is known about Satie's sexuality, though his largest
work was the symphonic drama Socrate which deals with the suicide
of that most famous "corrupter of youth". :confused:

Incidentally Satie had some occult associations later in life - he
became official composer to the Parisian Rose Croix sect. :eek:
 
Fayyaad said:
"Synchronicity of Information"... The theory goes that if you're gonna need the information at some point in the future, you'll get it in the past
Click to expand...

Thank you for the concise definition!

I've had some evidence of such activity in my life. Sometimes, when I'm driving, I'll suddenly notice a street name that I've never seen before. Usually, two or three days later, someone--stranger or friend-- will ask me where that particular street is.

I know that when I go pass the street sign, the image of the sign stays in my mind, not just the street name; almost as if the street sign were capable of saying "Remember me, I'll be important in a couple of days!"
 
Call Centre Coincidence

Here's a coincidence (or message?) that happened to me on Thursday just gone (21st Nov 2002)....

I work for a Bank in a call centre. There are five main call centres in the uk with about two or three floors full of call handlers, roughly about 300-400 staff taking calls non stop. I take about 70 to 80 calls a day but the more experienced staff probably take more than 100.

On Thursday it was not very busy with about five to ten seconds between each call. I received a call in the afternoon and after I had confirmed and entered the customer's account number the first screen appeared with the customers details on, including the address. This customer lived on a street with the same name as me! My surname is not very common (nope it ain't Friday!!) and I had known of this street and a council headquarters named after it in this certain town right down the other end of the uk.

I was quite amazed as you can imagine and pointed it out to a few of my colleagues. After this excitement I settled down to take the next call. Again I took down the account number, confirmed it and entered through to the next screen.

This person lived on a street with the same name as my mother's maiden name!!!! As you can imagine I was unable to speak for a while (not good in my job!).

I write down all my calls on a pad, in order, in case I need to refer back to something - so I'm happy to prove this to anyone (not sure how this would sit with the Data Protection Act but what the hell).

Can anyone offer any odds on this happening? Remember that those two calls could have gone through to four other centres and including mine about 300 staff in each.

Do you think the UltraTerrestrials are trying to tell me something? :eek!!!!:
 
With 5 call centres, with hundreds of staff taking up to a hundred calls a day, for hundreds of days a year, I'd be amazed if this sort of thing NEVER happened!

As they say, "It could be you!" - and it was!

But I agree it still seems weird when it happens! Enjoy!
 
Some years ago, a peacock escaped from a local park and landed in my mother's garden. It spent most of the day moving from garden to garden in the area (to the great consternation of the local cats!)

It finally roosted, and was caught, in the garden diagonally opposite to my mother's. The lady who lived there was called Mrs Peacock.

Carole
 
The chinese takeaway next to my flat is called "Happy Day". When on honeymoon in Venezuela, we went into town, and the only chinese takeway on the island? You guessed it, "Happy Day".

Also, the other week, I went to the shops, and while waiting at the lights, I had my walkman on.

The song playing was Memo From Turner by the Rolling Stones, and right at the line, "You'll still be in the circus when I'm laughing, laughing in my grave..", and hearse passed me, the coffin coming into view right on the word 'grave'.
 
I once had a BF whose mother lived in Conwy, N Wales. She died, I met & married someone else, and years later I visited Conwy with my husband & kids and bought some books from a second-hand bookstall there.

A few days later we were discussing Conwy and I said how much I loved the place but hadn't been back since Mrs X had died and I'd broken up with her son. I'd bought about 5 books, including one which I didn't really want but took to take up the numbers. It was 'The Count Of Monte Cristo' and I opened it at that exact moment and, yes, it had Mrs X's name written in it.

Whooooooooooooooo
 
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