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Coincidences

At a time when a thread of meringues is running on the MB, I was not entirely surprised* to find a curious but not especially funny riff on the spiritual life of meringues in a story I read last night. It is posted in the thread now.

Mention of meringues alone would not be worth mentioning but an enquiry into the nature of their souls is properly Fortean.

*I am so acclimatized to synchronicities that I only occasionally record them. It seems that no stack of documentation will ever help us fathom this contructional feature of our perceived world(s). :shock:
 
The psychoanalyst Lacan posited the idea of the "neurological grid". If something - a subject in any area - is mentioned to you on a given day and you note the number of repeated mentions of that subject anywhere in the press or everyday life the number of concommitant coincidences is staggering.
E.g if I mention "vikings" or "frisbees" and you look for the amount of mentions of them that come your way from disparate sources in the coming week - you may log more than ten.
 
JamesWhitehead said:
...*I am so acclimatized to synchronicities that I only occasionally record them. It seems that no stack of documentation will ever help us fathom this contructional feature of our perceived world(s). :shock:
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Same here. Although I recently had one which was interesting.

While working in Edinburgh last month I idled away a few minutes reading and article entitled Pablo Fanque’s fair - which is on Mike Dash's excellent blog, A Blast from the Past. I'd never heard of Fanque before.

The next day (a Sunday) I went for a long and meandering walk down into Leith, which included in its entirely unplanned route a diversion around Edinburgh's Dean Cemetery. I've been before but had never noticed this remarkable memorial to a John Leishman:

IMG_3113a.jpg


I thought something like this might have caused a stir in stuffy old Victorian Edinburgh and searched the internet later that afternoon to see if I could find any references to it, and to the meaning - if any - of the weird subject matter of the design.

I didn't. Although I did find an online copy of an action in which Leishman - a lawyer - was involved. Directly below is notification of action in relation to Pablo Fanque's bankruptcy. (Here, top right.)
 
Spookdaddy said:
While working in Edinburgh last month I idled away a few minutes reading and article entitled Pablo Fanque’s fair - which is on Mike Dash's excellent blog, A Blast from the Past. I'd never heard of Fanque before.
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That immediately reminded me of the Beatles song, mentioned in your first link.

Did you never hear Sergeant Pepper?! :shock:
 
rynner2 said:
That immediately reminded me of the Beatles song, mentioned in your first link.

Did you never hear Sergeant Pepper?! :shock:
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Actually, yes, I suppose I was kind of vaguely aware of the name Pablo Fanque before I read the articel, and that it had something to do with the band - but it didn't register as a precise reference. I've never been a huge fan of the Beatles.

(While we're on coincidences - the pub playing in my local last night did a cracking version of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.)
 
Just a small coincidence. Last week I was shopping and noticed a set of 2 books I'd like to read but decided not to buy them till after Christmas. Just as well because 2 of my children bought me the same set so I'll have to return one.
 
Yesterday I had to work (boo!) and Techy dropped me off. He didn't know what time to collect me as I was likely to be coming home early.
At home time I tried ringing him for a lift home but got no answer, so I set off on foot, bein' super-dooper fit an' all. ;)

Just down the road I spotted his car crawling along in the heavy traffic, and jumped in. He thought he was being carjacked. :rofl:
 
At the hotel near Stonehenge where we stayed for the Solstice I admired a large print hanging on the wall. Soon after we came home, there it was, in the FT! :D

It's Pollard's Mail Coach in The Snow

Hadn't seen it before, then it popped up twice. Lovely.
 
Yesterday my husband got a DVD from Netflix (a DVD rental service) and I got a package from a friend of mine who works at a magazine that gets lots of review books, and raids the trash for them to send them to friends who might be interested.

The Netflix disc was Downton Abbey II.

The book package contained Below Stairs: The Classic Kitchen Maid's Memoir that Inspired Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey, by Margaret Powell.
 
Last month, I was in Hayle watching the bridge building progress, and I saw this machine. It wasn't actually in operation at the time, which left me wondering what it does.

CP1.jpg


Next time I visited, it was gone, but yesterday it was back again and working, and all became clear - it's a flexible pipe for transferring wet cement from the delivery lorry to where it's needed (in this case the reinforced piles and support for the south end of the bridge).

Cementpipe.jpg


So much for the Prologue!

Now I've never seen one of these before (or I'd have known what it was), so imagine my surprise when today I saw another one, at building works on the University Campus at Tremough!

(I say "another one", but it could even be the same one - there can't be that many of the contraptions in Cornwall! I did get a snapshot, but it's still in the camera - I may upload it later if the football on TV is not too exciting...)
 
Yesterday I attended a class at a nature center in a nearby town. I've been before, but it was a long time ago and my husband was driving, and the internet directions were terrible, so I got lost. Then, on the way back, I made a left when I shouldn't have. It wouldn't be accurate to say that I got lost, but it was one of those half rural, half urban areas where strangers aren't expected to be so nothing is set up for someone who just wants to get back to the highway, and I had to find my way through a bit of a maze.

During which time, the Holes soundtrack in my CD changer played its final song, which contains the lyrics "Good Lord, show me the way." Then the Dylan compilation started, asking how many roads a man had to walk down.
 
OK, here's the machine at Tremough.
(Picture snapped through the window of a moving bus!)

Tremoughmachine.jpg


Close examination of the full-size images seems to show that the machines, although made by the same constructor (Pochin), are different - so there are more than one of these contraptions in the county! (And I saw two of them, on consecutive days!)
 
Cambridge don launches bizarre study into coincidence
By Jo Macfarlane
Last updated at 12:31 AM on 15th January 2012

A Cambridge don is appealing to the public for tales of striking coincidences – so he can analyse just how strange they really are.
Professor David Spiegelhalter hopes the exercise will help him calculate the odds of such peculiar events occurring.

The professor of public understanding of risk at Cambridge University told Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I usually deal with risk stories, the arbitrary accidents and illnesses that befall us.
‘This time we’re looking at the upside of the way chance works, these strange things that happen to us when we say, "What are the odds of that?"
‘We want to work out some of the chances. This isn’t a formal research study at all – we’ve just set up a website where people can send in their stories.They’re obviously riveting.’

The professor said the ‘classic’ coincidence involved being abroad and bumping into someone you know.
He told of one story submitted to the website which involved a man on holiday writing a postcard to a friend and then seeing him on a street in the South of France – allowing him to simply hand over the postcard without needing a stamp. 8)

Another coincidence involved a woman standing in a queue talking about actor Derek Jacobi, only to find the man himself standing in front of her.
Prof Spiegelhalter said: ‘I like the little quirky ones. Someone had a double-yolk egg for breakfast and then found out her friend was adopting twins.
‘I had one happen to me yesterday – I’ve become sensitised to them.
‘Someone phoned me about a news story concerning pancreatic cancer and bacon sandwiches, and I was eating a bacon sandwich.’ When presenter Sarah Montague joked about whether he had finished the sandwich, he quipped: ‘Of course.’

Prof Spiegelhalter also explained that sharing a birth date with several other family members is not as surprising as it might appear.
In fact, he says there is a one in 35,000 chance that a child will share a birthday with a parent and grandparent – better odds than winning the lottery.

After the interview ended, fellow Today programme presenter James Naughtie added his own bizarre experience.
Describing a trip to New York to produce a programme on the first anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, he said the production crew had asked to see the length of the recording.
Naughtie, adopting a hushed tone, said: ‘We pressed the button to see how long it was and it was nine minutes, 11 seconds. Woooo! 9/11. There it was – it came up.’

Some of the other stories already submitted to Prof Spiegelhalter’s website include one in which a driver noticed the mileage on his car stood at 8,888 on August 8, 1988.

Another reported: ‘I have two unrelated godsons, for whom I was chosen a few years apart.
‘Both are called Edward. Both were born on October 4 (four years apart). Both their fathers are called Graham.’

Another recalled how, after his daughter had moved to Sheffield and advertised for a flatmate, he was standing by a cash machine in his home town in Derbyshire when a female driver pulled over to ask him directions.
It transpired she was the new flatmate and was looking for his daughter’s address.

To take part in the study, and read examples of the amazing coincidences submitted by others, visit the website www.understandinguncertainty.org/coincidences

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1jXPOT9Cj
 
earlier on today i was changing the beds in my daughter's bedroom. As they share a room they have a bunk bed with a double bed on the bottom and a single on the top. In order to change the sheet on the top bunk i climbed up there and put a clean one on, in the process noticing how uncomfortable the mattress felt and thought to myself that i'd have to buy a new mattress, how long had this one been on the bed, how much would a new mattress cost-i'd have to check them out online later when i had time etc.
Having finished changing the beds i left to pick them up from school and on the way back noticed there was a van in the road with a man talking to the driver. As we walked past the man said something to me which i didnt catch and then pointed me to the driver of the van before walking off. Assuming he wanted directions i went to the window and the driver leaned out and said 'hello, just a quick question, do you want to buy a mattress?'
As it turned out though it was a double not a single. :?
 
Yesterday I watched "Hustle" on iPlayer, the episode about Dexter Gold, the dodgy gold dealer.

So when I got back to town this afternoon I was amazed to find a gold-coloured coach parked on the central 'plaza', certainly the biggest vehicle I've ever seen there! (It's normally a place for local markets, etc.) It was doing publicity for some Deluxe coach tours.
 
Anonymous said:
I like coincidences, me. I've read all the well known ones that float about in books and on the web. Does anybody have any good 'uns they want to tell us about?..
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Coincidences, or to give them their fancy name "synchronicities" are fairly common, some are what you'd expect by the natural laws of chance, but a small proportion are real humdingers which fall into the "I can't believe that just happened!" category.

I've averaged about one humdinger per year over many years, and they're usually connected in some way to numbers, usually i come upon a number in something i'm reading at the exact same instant somebody says it on the TV or radio across the room.
Here's the best example i've ever had-

Round about 1996 I was visiting my mother and i was reading the local paper while she was watching the TV quiz show "Blockbusters" in the same room.
A big news story in the paper that day was one about Legionnaires bacteria being found in the air-conditioning of a tower block, and there was a photo of the block, so for no real reason i began counting how many floors there were in it, starting at the bottom and moving my finger up the picture as i began counting- "1,2,3,4,5 etc"
Then as i reached the floors "16, 17," I heard the numbers 16 and 17 come out of the TV set, making me look up in amazement thinking "I can't believe that just happened!"

What happened was that quizmaster Bob Holness had asked a contestant some question or other, and the guy had replied "16".
"No" said Holness, "the correct answer is 17".

Coincidence? Maybe. But the factor that made the incident so memorable is that the numbers 16/17 came out of the TV at the exact instant my finger reached floors 16 and 17!
If there'd been a difference of just a few seconds I wouldn't even have noticed the synchronicity!
Also, if just one number had come out of the TV, that alone would have raised my eyebrows, but for the two numbers to come out together was a real noteworthy double-whammy, because of all the hours in the day, the odds of the synch happening at that same precise instant in time must be astronomical.

Theory-wise, here's one i've come up with-
Our reality is a dream, and unknown entities can manipulate that dream to produce synchs, either as a way of trying to let us know they're there, or because they're "cosmic jokers" who like having fun with us by stage-managing synchs for their own amusement.
Incidentally, the Blockbusters show wasn't live, it was a recording which makes the incident all the more intriguing, as if the "cosmic jokers" still had the ability to arrange the synch across the time-barrier..:)
 
Incidentally, has anybody noticed how the date April 22nd crops up regularly through the centuries in history books?
For example-
"The party set off through the jungle on April 22nd.."
"A bombing raid occurred on April 22nd.."
"He was born on April 22nd.."
"April 22nd was a feast day in the region.."
"Construction of the building began on April 22nd.."
"They set sail on April 22nd"
etc..etc..
 
Waymarker said:
Incidentally, has anybody noticed how the date April 22nd crops up regularly through the centuries in history books?
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Er, no!

Do you have any stats on that, or is it just that the date also has some personal significance for you (birthday,anniversary, etc)?
 
PeniG said:
Yesterday I attended a class at a nature center in a nearby town. I've been before, but it was a long time ago and my husband was driving, and the internet directions were terrible, so I got lost. Then, on the way back, I made a left when I shouldn't have. It wouldn't be accurate to say that I got lost, but it was one of those half rural, half urban areas where strangers aren't expected to be so nothing is set up for someone who just wants to get back to the highway, and I had to find my way through a bit of a maze.

During which time, the Holes soundtrack in my CD changer played its final song, which contains the lyrics "Good Lord, show me the way." Then the Dylan compilation started, asking how many roads a man had to walk down.
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Yeah something like that happened to me on the road a few years ago but it was a song coming out of the radio rather than a CD.
I was one of a team of conservation workers being driven back to HQ in a van at the end of the day, the radio was playing pop music, and we were discussing how much longer our 13-week contract had to run (we'd lost track because HQ had messed up the paperwork), so i said "It'll be over when it's over, but I'm pretty sure this is week 13"

We continued chatting and shortly after, the radio DJ announced the next song titled "It's not over til it's over", but i was the only one to notice the coincidence.
A couple of minutes later we passed some derelict buildings and i saw a graffiti artist had sprayed '13' in big white letters on one of them, but my mates failed to pick up on that coincidence too.

We got back to HQ and it turned out that this was the 13th week and that it really was over..:)
 
I tend to notice April 21 (Hitler's b'day), July 11 (My birthday - also Lizzie Borden's, alas), and May 25 (an important date in Tolkien's calendars in LOTR).

All dates show up regularly in history, by the nature of dates and history. After all, there's a lot of history, and only 365 dates in a calendar. It's only once in awhile you get a dating coincidence spontaneous, large, complicated, and meaningful enough to regard it as a synchronicity.

The big one in my book (as an American) is the Independence Day on which friends/rivals/allies/opponents/ex-Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died, each remarking with their final words on the fact that the other still lived. If they'd been two random ex-presidents dying on the same day, if it had been any other day, if their personal relationship had been less complex and significant, and if they hadn't each used their last breaths to mention the other, it'd just be a random date coincidence. Put it all together, and - whoa. Just, whoa.
 
PeniG said:
The big one in my book (as an American) is the Independence Day on which friends/rivals/allies/opponents/ex-Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died, each remarking with their final words on the fact that the other still lived.
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I'd not heard that one before, Peni, although there are a lot of other Presidential coincidences. Quite a lot involving JFK, for example.
 
Most of the JFK ones are pretty contrived, though, especially the ones comparing him to Lincoln.

I did that last post from memory; when I looked it up in David McCullough's bio of Adams just now (Adams is a hero in our family, though I'm afraid this is partly due to his characterization in the musical 1776, which we watch every year), I see that Jefferson, who died at 1 PM after apparently deliberately holding on till the Fourth, spoke his last words to the "servants" (i.e. slaves; my storytelling mind leaps to the conclusion that these were his slave children) and are unrecorded. Meanwhile, Adams, who died about 6:20, followed his remark that "Thomas Jefferson still survives" with a plea to his granddaughter "Help me, child, help me." So the story's not quite as good as I make it.

Still really good!
 
Another type of coincidence/synchronicity which i'm sure many of us have experienced is when we come across a word twice in one day that we'd never heard before!
In fact it happened to me only a couple of days ago, almost as if it was fed to me by "cosmic jokers" so that i could mention it in this thread!
What happened was that I posted a picture in a military history forum on Jan 20th of an iced-up Russian port called Pillai, a place i'd never heard of before
(Here's the thread, scroll down to post #434, i'm 'Poor Old Spike')
http://forums.gamesquad.com/showthread. ... tos/page44

Then guess what? Yup, I came across the word Pillai again later that day while browsing Fortean threads, scroll down to the picture of a TV reporter whose surname is 'Pillai'..:)
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=46240
 
This morning, I read this article:
Warning issued over computer scammers
8:10am Monday 23rd January 2012

A Helston man has warned people to be on their guard against “worryingly professional” con-artists trying to gain access to their computers.
Andy Edwards was called at home by a man claiming to be working on behalf of Microsoft Windows, who claimed his PC was infected with a virus and needed fixing.

Andy said: “The man sounded very convincing and told me there was an issue and that he needed to gain access to the machine to fix it.
“He directed me to a website, which was worryingly professional, and he was also very believable.

“After looking at my PC for a while, he then said I needed to pay £200, but when I told him I didn’t have that sort of money, he said it was up to me, and that if the computer broke it was my fault.
“That did not sound very professional to me, and I realised I had not given my phone number to Windows, so they should not be able to contact me.
“I had not heard of this scam before, and I just want other people to be aware of it so that they do not fall victim to it.”

Microsoft have told customers not to fall for the con, stating they do not make unsolicited phone calls. The company’s website states: “Microsoft does not make unsolicited phone calls to help you fix your computer.
“If you receive an unsolicited call from someone claiming to be from Microsoft tech support, hang up. We do not make these kinds of calls.”

http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/94 ... rs/?ref=mr
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And just now I got one of these calls myself! I gave them a right earful down the phone, and told them to B*gg*r off!


I'd previously posted something about this scam, so I wasn't going to bother this time, but getting that call changed my mind!
 
We get a lot of those calls here in Australia. Haven't had any since I told the last girl who called she would get bad karma for being evil.
 
A minor co-incidence. I was reading an article in The Anomalist 13, the TV was on in the background. On the TV someone mentioned Henry Winckler at the exact same moment I read a line with the name Hugo Winckler. I know its not amazing though. :D
 
I get a thing where, I'll see someone that I don't know, but for one reason or another I happen to notice someone while out, then I'll keep seeing that same person throughout the day. I might see them in several different shops, going about there shopping as I'm doing mine. But, I know, if I planned to see someone, I'd probably miss them. :?

My mother calls this coincidence "God's extra's". She say's "God runs out of background people, so he makes the same extra's do more and more background work." :lol: :roll:
 
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