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Coincidences

Well. I was writing a short story and built in a few punning references to the Doors' song "Riders on the Storm". I was moved to look it up on you-Tube and give it a listen. Before I did this i reset the radio so that Radio 2 would be on for when we get up for breakfast in the morning. As the YT choice came up on the computer, the radio burst into life. I went to switch the radio ff so I could listen to my online selection. Guess what... the Doors. Riders on the Storm. Almost - but not quite - in perfect synch with my You-Tube choice. This should be noted and celebrated. Is it to do with the altered state of consciousness I've been in (flu-ish) for the last few days?


 
Earlier this evening I got a 're-tweet' for a clothes shop called John Simons at 46 Chiltern St, London. I did a google maps search in case I might visit it next time in London.
At the moment, I'm watching a programme about skinheads on BBC4 presented by Don Letts, and guess where he's just visited!
 
My boss was helping his wife to open up an old Victorian-era, framed family photograph she had recently inherited from her father, just to get a look at any details hidden within the frame that would give them a clue to the year it was from. Scribbled in pencil on the back of the photo was...my boss's name (first initial and second name).
 
I was reading a bit about the Sharknado films, where sharks are scooped up by tornados and deposited inland, when on the radio there came a news story about a shark dropped in someone's back garden (in the UK). They think a seagull dunnit.
 
I was reading a bit about the Sharknado films, where sharks are scooped up by tornados and deposited inland, when on the radio there came a news story about a shark dropped in someone's back garden (in the UK). They think a seagull dunnit.
That's some seagull.
 
There's a nice coincidence in this link, also of note is the story of the missing goldfish further down the page.

Unbelievable but true. I bought a second-hand book in Rathmines, Dublin, in 1982. There was an old-looking negative.... I was in a camera club, so I brought it in and developed it. It was a photo of me at three years old outside my first home, the number on the door visible. Showed it to my mother and she was amazed as she had never seen the photo....
I still have the book, Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen. I often wondered if it had been my godmother’s book. She originally lived two doors up and was an avid reader. There’s no name or inscription on the book, but it’s an explanation and she always gave her old books to charity. Although it was 15 years after the photo was taken, Dublin was smaller then. Still a bit weird but nice. —Anna McManus, Ireland

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/surprising-discoveries-pages-old-books
 
:Givingup:
If they are bigger than Aberdonian seagulls, that it pretty terrifying.
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And therefore I must ask- do you have an alibi for both dates in question?
Pretty sure I'm in the clear for the 1817 case. As for the 1974 death (not 1975, as that article suggests), I might have to ask my mother if she's still got her 1974 diary to see what I was doing that half-term holiday... mind you, I'd've been 5 at the time, so "sound asleep" is my alibi!
 
It's not an earth-shattering coincidence, but perhaps a slightly surprising one. I was searching eBay for old photographs and a press image of a boy intently playing chess in the 1930s turned up. Out of idle curiosity I clicked on the listing and the 'blurb' on the back of the picture gave his name as A. J. Fishwick and then the name of my old school. The combination of initials and name immediately rang a bell and set me off playing with the various possible pronunciations of his surname (it isn't just Fish-wick, is it?) and I got a real sensation of déjà vu while doing so. A lot of Googling turned up the reason: this name appears on a war memorial plaque--in my old school library! I must have gazed up at it for hours when I was younger and probably puzzled over his surname just as I had recently done once more. The plaque bears seventy names, but this one stuck. Further googling and help from some knowledgable people reveal that he was killed (presumed drowned) aged just nineteen as an apprentice on the merchant navy vessel S.S. Goolistan when it was torpedoed by a U-boat in 1942. Further genealogy work turned up that he and his family lived on the same road as I used to live on (years later). His parents must have had a pretty miserable time because Hilda, one of Arthur's two sisters, had already died (aged just 8 or 9) in 1935.

On November 23rd, 1942, the British cargo ship GOOLISTAN, built in 1929 by Short Brothers and owned by Common Bros., on voyage from Archangel to Loch Ewe with a cargo of timber and cellulose, was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-625, between Bear Island and Spitzbergen. The crew, abandoning the burning GOOLISTAN, went for the boats, but 52 people (42 crew and 10 gunners) lost their lives.

Arthur is also commemorated on the Tower Hill monument in London (see below).

Rest in peace, Arthur John Fishwick.

s-l1600-10.jpggoolistan.jpg45947_0008-00849.jpgupload_2018-3-22_11-47-5.png
 
It's not an earth-shattering coincidence, but perhaps a slightly surprising one. I was searching eBay for old photographs and a press image of a boy intently playing chess in the 1930s turned up. Out of idle curiosity I clicked on the listing and the 'blurb' on the back of the picture gave his name as A. J. Fishwick and then the name of my old school. The combination of initials and name immediately rang a bell and set me off playing with the various possible pronunciations of his surname (it is just Fish-wick, is it?) and I got a real sensation of déjà vu while doing so. A lot of Googling turned up the reason: this name appears on a war memorial plaque--in my old school library! I must have gazed up at it for hours when I was younger and probably puzzled over his surname just as I had recently done once more. The plaque bears seventy names, but this one stuck. Further googling and help from some knowledgable people reveal that he was killed (presumed drowned) aged just nineteen as an apprentice on the merchant navy vessel S.S. Goolistan, when it was torpedoed by a U-boat in 1942. Further genealogy work turned up that he and his family lived on the same road as I used to live on (years later).His parents must have had a pretty miserable time because Hilda, one of Arthur's two sisters, had already died (aged just 8 or 9) in 1935.

On November 23rd, 1942, the British cargo ship GOOLISTAN, built in 1929 by Short Brothers and owned by Common Bros., on voyage from Archangel to Loch Ewe with a cargo of timber and cellulose, was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-625, between Bear Island and Spitzbergen. The crew, abandoning the burning GOOLISTAN, went for the boats, but 52 people (42 crew and 10 gunners) lost their lives.

Arthur is also commemorated on the Tower Hill monument in London (see below).

Rest in peace, Arthur John Fishwick.

View attachment 8917 View attachment 8918 View attachment 8919 View attachment 8920

Why was there a war memorial plaque in your old school library? I remember it was a posh school. Are the war dead former pupils?
 
Why was there a war memorial plaque in your old school library? I remember it was a posh school. Are the war dead former pupils?

Pupils and (younger) masters.

Not very posh, but it was founded in the sixteenth century and had a cadet branch for the forces (later dubbed the CCF), so a lot of old boys signed up and gave their lives in the two wars.
 
What's the distinction in If... ?

We were Inkies, not Toffs.

Dunno. I went to the local grammar school. My two universities were stoutly red-brick. Posh I am not!
 
Pupils and (younger) masters.

Not very posh, but it was founded in the sixteenth century and had a cadet branch for the forces (later dubbed the CCF), so a lot of old boys signed up and gave their lives in the two wars.

As I read the word posh in this instance, someone on the tv said in a trailer. A coincidence involving the coincidence thread!
 
Britain's oldest men (110 tomorrow) were both born on 29th March 1908--the same day.


I think that that is too much of a coincedence Yithian - it provokes a curiosity in the realms of astrology, and so of course, the question would be - what times were they both born at.

If they were both born at the exact same time - Consider my mind blown.
 
Synchronicity, discussed on the 'The Unexplained' podcast by US paranormal researcher Dr Gary Schwartz.

Synchronicity

Dr Schwartz sees synchronicity as evidence of the 'connectedness' of the universe and feels coincidences to be important.
 
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