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Coincidences

Listening to the cricket on the radio and Joe Root has just become the second English batsmen to score 10,000 runs.

The coincidence?

He achieved this at exactly the same age - to the day - as the only other player to achieve that feat, Alistair Cook.
 
cycleboy2 said:
Listening to the cricket on the radio and Joe Root has just become the second English batsmen to score 10,000 runs.

The coincidence?

He achieved this at exactly the same age - to the day - as the only other player to achieve that feat, Alistair Cook.
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I came here to post that.

Each player was 31 years 157 days old when he scored his 10,000th test run.

More than that, Root scored his 10,000th run with the same stroke as he scored exactly his 100th run in the match, [Edit: and in the 10th year of his test career.] which was his first hundred in the 4th innings of a test, his first test after giving up the captaincy, and the first test of the season, at Lord's, the home of cricket.
 
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This week is Chester Heritage Festival and I have this morning been on a guided walking tour down a road just south of the centre, Lower Bridge Street. The tour began outside the Falcon pub (for those of you with local knowledge) and the guide started by indicating where the Roman Southgate would have been - "where that gentleman is crossing" by St Michael's Church over the road. He then explained that in the 1960s, the Lower Bridge Street area had been very run-down and dilapidated; but a pioneering report about conserving Chester's heritage had resulted in the council making a number of changes to policy and planning, that had led to the area being restored and even in some cases rebuilt in replica.
One of the group then pointed out that the gentleman who had been pointed out as an indicator of the old Roman gateway was, in fact, the author of that conservation report...
Even without the coincidence, it was a very interesting walk.
 
OK, like this is well weird innit n'ah mean bruv?

I am on a family holiday at the side of Coniston, a lake in the north of England.

My wife and I were pushing our toddler grandson in the shallows in a kayak and my wife started to sing quietly, "Row row row your boat gently down the stream."

A minute or two after she finished, we heard the full musical arrangement of the same song. A bunch of young people on the jetty half a mile away had a portable audio player which they were playing as they lounged, dived, and swam, and the tune came up. This is a song that is essentially a nursery rhyme, and not one I'd expect to be played by such a group in such circumstances.

My wife wasn't singing loud enough for them to hear, and I am certain it was not playing when she started to sing it.
 
Just happened, a news story about Cat Deeley flashed up on my news feed and it made me think about if she was still married to Patrick Kielty (don't know why) so I checked it on Wikipedia (she is) and when I came back out of that page the very first story i seen was on about Patrick Kielty being caught speeding in the 90's.
 
From Twitter (not me!) - wholesome story:

Dan Hicks @profdanhicks
✨I finally buried my mother’s ashes this morning in Birmingham—and after I explained I’m an archaeologist the most remarkable, unexpected, erudite, expansive conversation ensued with the gravedigger about funerary practices from the Neolithic/Bronze Age to the medieval/ modern✨
he really knew his stuff — a very full discussion of all aspects of mortuary practices from long barrows to round barrows to inhumations and to modern cremation practices
a most unexpectedly positive twist on an otherwise sad day, and a reminder of how much archaeology matters beyond the lecture theatre - a sincere thank-you to him ✨
and yes, after our long conversation he let me break the rules and take the shovel and backfill the hole myself, which meant so much ✨❤️
 
How often does a random set of goods yield a nice round total?
Wouldn't know how to calculate that. Does anyone know?

round.jpg
 
uair01 said:
How often does a random set of goods yield a nice round total?
Wouldn't know how to calculate that. Does anyone know?
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Ignoring the possibility that prices ending in .99 might be more common sometimes (but apparently not in this particular Netherlands store) the probability of the total ending in .00 ought to be 1 in 100 ... so not that unusual.
 
rpkemp said:
Ignoring the possibility that prices ending in .99 might be more common sometimes (but apparently not in this particular Netherlands store) the probability of the total ending in .00 ought to be 1 in 100 ... so not that unusual.
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I didn't think it could be so simple. I was thinking about some complex combinatorics or knapsack problems.
I'm an idiot :)
 
Went up to Stirling for an errand (I live near Edinburgh), then decided to have a coffee. Took my seat and sneezed. The woman next to me said 'bless you'. I explained it was hay fever, which is crazy as I'm a botanist. To which she answered "so am I" and it turns out she had studied at the place I lecture. Anyway, got talking about all the places we have worked, when she said she works in Essex often as that's where she was born. The guy who had just sat at another table (there were only us three at that café) says he was also born in Essex. A further conversation reveals he was born in Rochford. So was she. In the same hospital. Weirdly, in the same year (1955). He was stopping in the town on the way to the Highlands, so another day and we would all have never met.
 
While watching the Commonwealth Games coverage a boxing commentator mentioned a previous fight which involved a boxer from Mozambique. Being a Monty Python fan this made me think about the Colin "Bomber" Harris sketch, with Harris being from Reigate in Mozambique.

Looking at the screen I noticed that one of the boxers in the current match was Welsh boxer Rosie Eccles, Eccles being one of Spike Milligan famous characters from the Goon Show.

A little bit later I was watching the Women's Javelin event, two of the competitors had the surname Rani, the commentator, completely deadpan, mentioned there were two Ranis competing in the event.
 
On this day of the Queen's death, I was teaching music to a class of 8th Year girls. It was the last period of the day and I was winding-down the session, collecting headphones from keyboards and the usual stuff.

I had been monitoring the news since lunchtime; it looked like her life was drawing to a close. By three-thirty, it was clear that the BBC had entered its long-rehearsed "London Bridge is Down"* mode, cancelling normal programming, for rolling bulletins on the health of the monarch.

I planned a few words to prepare the girls for an evening of sombre news but one girl, sans headphones, played out loud "London Bridge is Falling Down" on her keyboard, before I could start. She was oblivious to the connection, when I asked if she was psychic! :oops:

*This was a code, prepared long in advance. When it came from on high, the media were to prepare for the news of a monarch's death. The original versions, I believe, involved the blacking-out of all entertainment shows for two weeks. The plans were first formulated when the BBC was a monopoly broadcaster in the UK. They have been diluted, somewhat, since; to what extent, we are about to discover.
 
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On Wednesday, on a whim, I went in search of a folly I'd heard about in the woods in Beckett's Park, near Headingley in Leeds. When I found it, I likewise found out it had been built to commemorate the visit of Queen Victoria to Leeds in 1858. Check the date.

Screenshot_2022-09-09-08-32-07-560_com.miui.gallery.jpg
 
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I am in rehab after a knee operation.across the corridor is a friend from Probus and her friend who is also in has a family connection to a girl I was friends with at school. Sadly she died 5 years ago.
 
Krepostnoi said:
On Wednesday, on a whim, I went in search of a folly I'd heard about in the woods in Beckett's Park, near Headingley in Leeds. When I found it, I likewise found out it had been built to commemorate the visit of Queen Victoria to Leeds in 1858. Check the date.

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I had a new toilet (throne) installed yesterday afternoon:)
 
Was at Edinburgh Fortean Society and chatting to some friends during the break. One announced that at the weekend he had done something crazy and asked if I could guess what it was. I looked at him and said "paragliding" to which he replied that was correct and he then went on to tell us about the unusual set of circumstances the led hIm to go paragliding for the first time ever. It had not been planned, it was not something he had always wanted to do, nor had we ever spoken about paragliding and he has not yet posted about it online... now, lottery numbers...
 
I've just seen a post on FB from my best friend at Uni, talking about the fact that today (26/9) was his parents' wedding anniversary; his mum died a few years back and his dad last year. Strangely enough, today was also MY parents' wedding anniversary. I've known him for over 30 years and this is the first time we've ever realised this!
 
Some years ago I was sitting at a slot machine at the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas, and a man walked up to me with his family. He was someone I worked with in New York years earlier. Making it even more unlikely is that he doesn't gamble, but was just passing through on his way to the restaurant section of the hotel.
 
The US Postal Service inspector who'd investigated a New York identity thief who'd been on the run for a year ran into the fugitive while vacationing at Walt Disney World (and had him arrested).
New York Fugitive Busted After Vacationing Fed Spots Him at Walt Disney World

Walt Disney World calls itself the “most magical place on Earth,” but one visiting fugitive must’ve felt cursed when his trip to the resort ended in a stroke of mind-blowing bad luck last month.

Quashon Burton, 31, from New York had been on the run from the law since November 2021. United States Postal Inspection Service officers tried to arrest him over an alleged identity theft scheme used to steal around $150,000 of federal COVID loans, but he wasn’t at his Brooklyn home. ...

Federal postal inspector Jeff Andre, who signed the complaint against Burton, wrote that Burton had built a “complex web of identities that made his crimes difficult to investigate.” “He has clearly demonstrated an ability to mask his true identity to evade law enforcement. So too has he demonstrated a willingness to lie about this identity to avoid arrest.”

Fast-forward to Oct. 20 and Andre is on vacation at Disney World in Florida. At around 3:05 p.m. in the resort’s Animal Kingdom, Andre spotted Burton, recognizing the fugitive by a distinctive “H” tattoo on his neck.

Andre then alerted the Orange County Sheriff’s Office that a fugitive was in the park. Security staff at the resort tracked Burton before a deputy arrived to find him waiting at a bus stop outside the Animal Kingdom with two family members ...

The deputy says he ultimately took Burton “to the ground” during the arrest. They added that Burton was charged with resisting an officer without violence over the encounter. Federal documents also state that Burton was visiting the park under a fake name and refused to acknowledge his true identity even even after fingerprints proved he was Quashon Burton.

He was taken to Orange County Jail before being handed into federal custody. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-y...cactioning-fed-spots-him-at-walt-disney-world
 
Iris said:
This morning I sent an email about petroleum jelly to my youngest as her son has developed excema again.
My oldest has just rung and said that her doctor had recommended it instead of haemorroid cream as it lasts longer.
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Does haemorrhoid cream work on eczema? Why would the doctor recommend that?
 
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