• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Coincidences

Last night my SO began saying how sorry she was to have heard about how the popular British TV sports personality and former footballer Kris Kamara has become afflicted with speech apraxia (the tv was on in the background with the sound turned off).

At that exact instant I saw live on-screen, for a fraction of a second, the name 'KAMARA' printed on the back of an American NFL footballer's shirt and said (in jest) "look, there he is, but this time he's playing American football instead of soccer!"-

I knew in that instant it was just a significant coincidence in mentioning/seeing/names/football, but the forgivable reaction from my SO was to say "Aye, right, I don't believe you!"

I suddenly realised that we now have (as of a week ago) Sky Q satellite TV at our house, which allowed me to easily "wind back time" on live tv to then prove to her that I had indeed seen that rare name a fraction of a second after she uttered it.

All of which is quite inescapably...coincidental
 
Last edited:
The Teenager's boyfriend was coming by for a coffee to meet the family. The In House GP said to me, "Stick some music on quietly in the background to cover any awkward silences". I put my phone playlist on. Just before the boyfriend rang the doorbell, the playlist threw up Salt 'n' Pepa, "Let's Talk About Sex." Cue snorts of laughter from IHGP and I, and a quick bustle across the kitchen to move the song on as we felt it might not be the ideal tune for the situation...
 
bugmum said:
The Teenager's boyfriend was coming by for a coffee to meet the family. The In House GP said to me, "Stick some music on quietly in the background to cover any awkward silences". I put my phone playlist on. Just before the boyfriend rang the doorbell, the playlist threw up Salt 'n' Pepa, "Let's Talk About Sex." Cue snorts of laughter from IHGP and I, and a quick bustle across the kitchen to move the song on as we felt it might not be the ideal tune for the situation...
Click to expand...
Breaking the ice with an ice breaking ship, more-like! :)
 
Last edited:
Cochise said:
If he has a sore neck , make sure it gets checked properly. I was in a car crash years ago and just had a sore neck. It turned out three years later I'd cracked a vertebra and not having had proper treatment at the time it's healed with spurs on it that can't be removed. That is something he does not need!

Whiplash is not some imaginary issue invented for compensation reasons, it can be a genuine problem and can seriously impact the rest of your life.
Click to expand...
I reread this earlier today and it set off a discussion with Techy about a suspicious-looking letter he received recently offering him an appointment for attention to a spinal issue. The letter asked him fill in certain details on a website. He reckons it's a scam of some type.

Anyway... when I came to look at the post again on a different computer, I had to take a punt on the page I'd seen it on and picked the right one straight away. Skill. :cool:
 
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.
Click to expand...
1 in 100 gives odds of 99 to one. I'm not backing that horse and I'd advise @uair01 accordingly.
 
We had a brief jaunt up to the Lake District Wednesday/Thursday, mainly so that our younger child could reconnect with a friend who'd moved up there a few months ago. We dropped her off at said friend's house in a tiny hamlet not far from Cockermouth, and went to find our hotel. Pulling back out onto the main road, I noticed a couple of ghost bikes on the other side of the highway. The A595, especially along that stretch, is not a road I'd fancy cycling on: it's straight, but undulating, and the traffic speeds along. I saw quite a few really dubious overtaking manoeuvres just on those two days.

Anyway, as soon as I saw the memorial, a forceful memory came to mind: one of my oldest friends had family in the Lake District (I couldn't remember a more precise location than that); a decade or so ago, she'd lost a couple of cousins who'd gone off on a cycling trip together, and were wiped out by the same coach on their way home. If you've clicked the link already, you'll know the punchline: the memorial I clocked on the side of the road was theirs. At one level, I knew straight away - with utter conviction - that it was, but I confess I had to google it to confirm that conviction. What are the odds that my younger child's friend would move from Leeds to the hamlet at the other end of the minor road that comes out opposite the memorial? Added minor coincidence: the brothers were killed on my significant other's birthday.
 
Chap from the US came over for the Spring Detectival - weekend Metal Detecting Rally in Oxfordshire a fortnight ago - and has just posted his YouTube channel vid which I spotted today. He mentioned the chaos of car parking on a sloping mud field - cue footage of me in a Corolla nearly getting to the top of the slope (captured for posterity).
 
Two people close to me are currently receiving end of life care in different institutions.*
Things're a little fraught. :(

Keep thinking I ought to check if their elevens are up so I can report back to @Dick Turpin.

*One is 66, dying from over fifty years of dedication to tobacco. I looked after lots of similar patients in hospitals.
If you smoke, give it up now.
 
escargot said:
Two people close to me are currently receiving end of life care in different institutions.*
Things're a little fraught. :(

Keep thinking I ought to check if their elevens are up so I can report back to @Dick Turpin.

*One is 66, dying from over fifty years of dedication to tobacco. I looked after lots of similar patients in hospitals.
If you smoke, give it up now.
Click to expand...
Giving up smoking is just a question of getting your mind sorted out, and dropping the HABIT!
I did it, after about forty years of smoking - never ever regretted giving it up - in fact, I had a serious heart attack only one year after I'd stopped. That was well over ten years ago, now I'm thankful that I made that vital decision way-back then.
 
Sid said:
Giving up smoking is just a question of getting your mind sorted out, and dropping the HABIT!
I did it, after about forty years of smoking - never ever regretted giving it up - in fact, I had a serious heart attack only one year after I'd stopped. That was well over ten years ago, now I'm thankful that I made that vital decision way-back then.
Click to expand...

Me to. I was never a very heavy smoker but it took me ages to give up and it was only when I was right in the head (so to speak) that I was able to do it. Over 2 years off them now and I cannot stand the smell of them now. Walking through a smoking are in a pub now makes me retch.
 
Sid said:
Giving up smoking is just a question of getting your mind sorted out, and dropping the HABIT!
I did it, after about forty years of smoking - never ever regretted giving it up - in fact, I had a serious heart attack only one year after I'd stopped. That was well over ten years ago, now I'm thankful that I made that vital decision way-back then.
Click to expand...
I agree with you Sid, getting your mind right is crucial to stopping smoking. I came to the conclusion that smoking had literally taken over my life, and I had become a slave to tobacco. Once I’d got my head around that, then I found it relatively easy to quit. I think you need to be ready to stop, and that time came for me 2017. I haven’t smoked since, although I did try a sneaky puff of a cigarette when I was on holiday last year and found it disgusting.
 
Dick Turpin said:
I agree with you Sid, getting your mind right is crucial to stopping smoking. I came to the conclusion that smoking had literally taken over my life, and I had become a slave to tobacco. Once I’d got my head around that, then I found it relatively easy to quit. I think you need to be ready to stop, and that time came for me 2017. I haven’t smoked since, although I did try a sneaky puff of a cigarette when I was on holiday last year and found it disgusting.
Click to expand...
The actor Robert Downey Jr even used to smoke in the shower.
 
Floyd1 said:
The actor Robert Downey Jr even used to smoke in the shower.
Click to expand...
I wasn’t kidding when I said smoking had taken over my life. Long car journeys, train journeys, holiday flights etc were an absolute nightmare. All could ever think about was when’s my next fag.

If I booked a holiday, then the fist thing on my mind was does the apartment have a balcony that I can smoke on. I even refused to do holiday excursions as I wasn’t allowed to smoke on the coach.

Also, from my early 20’s I used to suffer from terrible migraines that included vomiting and that no tablet no matter how strong would cure. It really was a blight to my life, as I used to get them at least once week. Since quitting smoking though, I haven’t suffered any – not one.
 
Floyd1 said:
The actor Robert Downey Jr even used to smoke in the shower.
Click to expand...
In the words of the late and much-missed Roy Castle, who incidentally died of lung cancer even though a lifelong non-smoker, that's dedication! :nods:

Castle believed he'd contracted lung cancer through extreme passive smoking, when taking in deep breaths during his trumpet performances in smoky clubs.
He was only 62. A lovely bloke.
His Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation has already saved lives by helping campaign for the smoking ban in public places.
 
Dick Turpin said:
I wasn’t kidding when I said smoking had taken over my life. Long car journeys, train journeys, holiday flights etc were an absolute nightmare. All could ever think about was when’s my next fag.

If I booked a holiday, then the fist thing on my mind was does the apartment have a balcony that I can smoke on. I even refused to do holiday excursions as I wasn’t allowed to smoke on the coach.

Also, from my early 20’s I used to suffer from terrible migraines that included vomiting and that no tablet no matter how strong would cure. It really was a blight to my life, as I used to get them at least once week. Since quitting smoking though, I haven’t suffered any – not one.
Click to expand...
My dad was a heavy smoker even to the extent of lighting a cigarette to get a puff or two between changing trains on a platform.
 
escargot said:
In the words of the late and much-missed Roy Castle, who incidentally died of lung cancer even though a lifelong non-smoker, that's dedication! :nods:

Castle believed he'd contracted lung cancer through extreme passive smoking, when taking in deep breaths during his trumpet performances in smoky clubs.
He was only 62. A lovely bloke.
His Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation has already saved lives by helping campaign for the smoking ban in public places.
Click to expand...
My mate gave up for about 9 years and then one night after his divorce he asked for a cigar in the pub. The barkeep passed him one and he lit it up. Not even a hint of a cough, which after nine years of abstinence, I thought was pretty good going.

After about five minutes we both realised that, in the ensuing years since he'd stopped, the smoking ban in pubs had come into place.
The barman hadn't said anything and seeing as we were the only ones in the place and it was past closing time anyway, he let him finish it.
 
Giant R said:
My dad was a heavy smoker even to the extent of lighting a cigarette to get a puff or two between changing trains on a platform.
Click to expand...
When I worked at the Magistrates' Courts one of the Clerks, an old friend of mine, was such an addicted smoker that she'd choose a roundabout route on long-haul flights so she could take smoke breaks.

My question of 'Why don't you just give up?' was met with scorn. :chuckle:
 
escargot said:
Careful now. Discussions of smoking on'ere can become quite heated. :chuckle:

Have to say that, foolish as many of my life choices have been, I have never regretted the decision not to smoke.
Click to expand...

Very wise Scargy. Very wise

I know someone who shall remain nameless, who phoned us up one evening crying down the phone. She’d just woken up from a throat operation in Barts hospital. She didn’t call us because she was in pain or because she was scared, she phoned us up because she was most disgusted that the Doctors and Nursing staff, wouldn’t let her go outside for a fag.!!!!!! Seriously.

I won’t judge, but really….?
 
I have never smoked. As a kid, and with wood heating in winter, when I got a cold, a cough would develop after the sinus symptoms were gone. It was a very dry cough. If I started coughing, it would only get worse and I couldn't stop.

Many times, in class, I would be coughing and getting warmer, which dried out my sinuses and my throat would get scratchier. I would end up barely able to see because of the watery eyes, extremely dry mouth and sinuses and not able to stop it. I would be excused from class to "get a drink", though this didn't really help except to cool me down. I would put cold water on my neck to cool myself off.

I stopped using any cough drops as I realized they only made the incidents of coughing increase.

I was excused from a high school exam when I got into a coughing jag. You NEVER get excused in the middle of an exam. It was the teacher who asked me if I wanted to leave to get a drink. I didn't ask to be excused. Thank goodness she was kind.

So a long time ago, I decided I would never even try it. I don't need to intentionally engage in something that can end up having a chronic cough as a result. That, and because in the 70's, smoking and health information was becoming much more prevalent.

One of my nephews asked me if I have tried cannabis. I looked at him and answered "I don't smoke."

My habit is nail biting.:)
 
escargot said:
I reread this earlier today and it set off a discussion with Techy about a suspicious-looking letter he received recently offering him an appointment for attention to a spinal issue. The letter asked him fill in certain details on a website. He reckons it's a scam of some type.

Anyway... when I came to look at the post again on a different computer, I had to take a punt on the page I'd seen it on and picked the right one straight away. Skill. :cool:
Click to expand...
Sorry a bit late in response. Was the letter from a private health care provider, so that they could bombard him with marketing?
 
PeteS said:
Sorry a bit late in response. Was the letter from a private health care provider, so that they could bombard him with marketing?
Click to expand...
No, it was a genuine NHS letter. The word 'Spines' misled him. It's the name of the appointments department.
Whoever chose that needs the boot.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top