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Strange Coincidences?

escargot said:
Last night I was listening to a reading on YouTube of the novel Stir of Echoes, made into a fillum starring Kevin Bacon.

A couple go to a party in the house next door, leaving their young son alone in bed.
They discuss how they feel able to do this because they'll be right next door all evening and can check on him frequently.

On one check the child's father stands looking at his sleeping son, thinking how beautiful and precious the boy is.

The whole set-up reminded me strongly of how Madeleine McCann's mother Kate described her movements on the night Madeleine went missing. She even did the looking adoringly bit.
Life is like fiction.
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I guess it's not outwith the realms of possibility that Kate may have read the book at some time in the past and the phrase sank into her subconscious. I sometimes write a phrase and think 'ooh, that's a good one, succinct, pithy and witty at the same time,' only to later find that it's already been done in a book. Usually I book I own and have therefore read at least once.
 
catseye said:
I guess it's not outwith the realms of possibility that Kate may have read the book at some time in the past and the phrase sank into her subconscious. I sometimes write a phrase and think 'ooh, that's a good one, succinct, pithy and witty at the same time,' only to later find that it's already been done in a book. Usually I book I own and have therefore read at least once.
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Yup, but it was the situation and parents' justifications that struck me rather than any particular turn of phrase.

Like, the parents left the child alone - justified it by saying they were close by and could easily check on the child - one of the parents when doing a check admires their peacefully sleeping child.

After that it's different of course.
 
I had another spooky coincidence. I have been listening to BBC Radio 4's series 'Killing Victoria' about the assassination attempts on Queen Victoria's life. Messaged a web buddy who is also obsessed about Victorian history to recommend it. She had just come back from her local village fete where she had bought a book titled 'The Death of Queen Victoria'. Got my spine tingling when I read her words.
 
catseye said:
I guess it's not outwith the realms of possibility that Kate may have read the book at some time in the past and the phrase sank into her subconscious. I sometimes write a phrase and think 'ooh, that's a good one, succinct, pithy and witty at the same time,' only to later find that it's already been done in a book. Usually I book I own and have therefore read at least once.
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You're right though. Some things we read get into our heads and live there, as they say, rent-free. :thought:
 
escargot said:
You're right though. Some things we read get into our heads and live there, as they say, rent-free. :thought:
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Yep and I suspect it's what's behind a fortean type incidence that a school friend of mine bragged to me about. I may be wrong of course. Maybe it was genuine,

Because of my history of still births/miscarriages a friend of mine kept insisting (I think just to try and cheer me up it's not easy being pregnant when all you've got is failure to look back on after all) that 'Don't worry everything is alright it's a girl and her name will be XXXX'

Anyway it wasn't alright and even if it had been I would not have choosen the name she was insisting upon. The name she kept on calling my bump throughout.

A few months later I got a birth announcement card from the school friend mentioned above. She who had never really wanted children when we were at school together, indeed she'd jeered at me for wanting them, had just given birth to a girl and you've guessed it called her XXXX. You'll understand why I just tore it up and put in the bin!

So moving forward a few decades. We had kept in touch but only via Christmas cards and a phone call every so often. We were having a phone call catching up as you do and I was mentioning my sadness re the whole childbirth thing and how I'd never been able to enjoy a pregnancy. She said in that dismissive way that she has that it's the same for all woman (which it probably is to a certain extent to be fair) and she was getting really worried about her second pregnancy when she actually heard the baby distinctly say from the womb:-

'Don't worry everything is alright I'm a girl and my name will be XXXX'

This was typical of this school friend always got to have the superlative story. So at the time I took it at face value I am after all interested in that kind of stuff.

Now I don't keep a log of all my phone calls and I certainly can't remember exactly what and when from all the years ago. All I can say is that I would have spoken to her at some point doing the pregnancy and I would have quoted what my encouraging friend was saying as I was indeed taking reassurance from it. However the wording was so similar I can't help but be suspicious that her brain in it's worryment would have made a neural pathway to what I'd been telling her during my pregnacy a few months previously.

Either that or the universe was playing a cruel trick in engineering this coincidence.

In an extra twist of the knife this baby has grown up to become an MP, which is why I'm being cagey about the name, and she pops up on the media from time to time so I can't just forget about it.

AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH
 
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I just don't know where to post this, but this morning when I was just lying in bed I was thinking of the word "lucocardesia" and wondered where I'd heard it. Looking it up, it doesn't exist.

Leuko or leuco - white or colourless
Cardesia - appears to be a name, but more specifically a character in Final Fantasy (which I have never played):
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Jagd_Village

So where did I come up with this random non word? Is there a meaning that may appear later?:dunno:
 
We were in a hibachi-style restaurant in Florida with a Japanese chef, who asked where we are from. When we said "England" she said, "Oh, I have only been to two places in England, Exeter and London."
"We live in Exeter," I said.
"Ah! I was visiting my friend, she was at the University of Exeter."
"I work there," I said. The chef seemed very pleased!

Also, my sister and I bought the identical card for my daughter's 18th birthday. Sis is in Cambridge, I'm in Devon. It wasn't a card from a high street store, I found it in the local farm shop, so the odds of us both buying it must have been pretty slim!
 
brownmane said:
I just don't know where to post this, but this morning when I was just lying in bed I was thinking of the word "lucocardesia" and wondered where I'd heard it. Looking it up, it doesn't exist.

Leuko or leuco - white or colourless
Cardesia - appears to be a name, but more specifically a character in Final Fantasy (which I have never played):
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Jagd_Village

So where did I come up with this random non word? Is there a meaning that may appear later?:dunno:
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I once invented a word in a dream, etemeteasal. It describes the process of looking with envy upon someone in a highly elevated social position (especially a monarch, as in Game of Thrones) and resentfully thinking 'I should be there!'

It can be a dangerous condition. Anyone looking too etemeteasal on Royal Petition Day might be summarily parted from their heads.

All totally imagined by me after a late curry or summat. :dunno:
 
Sollywos said:
Yep and I suspect it's what's behind a fortean type incidence that a school friend of mine bragged to me about. I may be wrong of course. Maybe it was genuine,

Because of my history of still births/miscarriages a friend of mine kept insisting (I think just to try and cheer me up it's not easy being pregnant when all you've got is failure to look back on after all) that 'Don't worry everything is alright it's a girl and her name will be XXXX'

Anyway it wasn't alright and even if it had been I would not have choosen the name she was insisting upon. The name she kept on calling my bump throughout.

A few months later I got a birth announcement card from the school friend mentioned above. She who had never really wanted children when we were at school together, indeed she'd jeered at me for wanting them, had just given birth to a girl and you've guessed it called her XXXX. You'll understand why I just tore it up and put in the bin!

So moving forward a few decades. We had kept in touch but only via Christmas cards and a phone call every so often. We were having a phone call catching up as you do and I was mentioning my sadness re the whole childbirth thing and how I'd never been able to enjoy a pregnancy. She said in that dismissive way that she has that it's the same for all woman (which it probably is to a certain extent to be fair) and she was getting really worried about her second pregnancy when she actually heard the baby distinctly say from the womb:-

'Don't worry everything is alright I'm a girl and my name will be XXXX'

This was typical of this school friend always got to have the superlative story. So at the time I took it at face value I am after all interested in that kind of stuff.

Now I don't keep a log of all my phone calls and I certainly can't remember exactly what and when from all the years ago. All I can say is that I would have spoken to her at some point doing the pregnancy and I would have quoted what my encouraging friend was saying as I was indeed taking reassurance from it. However the wording was so similar I can't help but be suspicious that her brain in it's worryment would have made a neural pathway to what I'd been telling her during my pregnacy a few months previously.

Either that or the universe was playing a cruel trick in engineering this coincidence.

In an extra twist of the knife this baby has grown up to become an MP, which is why I'm being cagey about the name, and she pops up on the media from time to time so I can't just forget about it.

AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH
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:group: Your life just had a different path this time and you did what you were meant to do.
 
Sollywos said:
Yep and I suspect it's what's behind a fortean type incidence that a school friend of mine bragged to me about. I may be wrong of course. Maybe it was genuine,

Because of my history of still births/miscarriages a friend of mine kept insisting (I think just to try and cheer me up it's not easy being pregnant when all you've got is failure to look back on after all) that 'Don't worry everything is alright it's a girl and her name will be XXXX'

Anyway it wasn't alright and even if it had been I would not have choosen the name she was insisting upon. The name she kept on calling my bump throughout.

A few months later I got a birth announcement card from the school friend mentioned above. She who had never really wanted children when we were at school together, indeed she'd jeered at me for wanting them, had just given birth to a girl and you've guessed it called her XXXX. You'll understand why I just tore it up and put in the bin!

So moving forward a few decades. We had kept in touch but only via Christmas cards and a phone call every so often. We were having a phone call catching up as you do and I was mentioning my sadness re the whole childbirth thing and how I'd never been able to enjoy a pregnancy. She said in that dismissive way that she has that it's the same for all woman (which it probably is to a certain extent to be fair) and she was getting really worried about her second pregnancy when she actually heard the baby distinctly say from the womb:-

'Don't worry everything is alright I'm a girl and my name will be XXXX'

This was typical of this school friend always got to have the superlative story. So at the time I took it at face value I am after all interested in that kind of stuff.

Now I don't keep a log of all my phone calls and I certainly can't remember exactly what and when from all the years ago. All I can say is that I would have spoken to her at some point doing the pregnancy and I would have quoted what my encouraging friend was saying as I was indeed taking reassurance from it. However the wording was so similar I can't help but be suspicious that her brain in it's worryment would have made a neural pathway to what I'd been telling her during my pregnacy a few months previously.

Either that or the universe was playing a cruel trick in engineering this coincidence.

In an extra twist of the knife this baby has grown up to become an MP, which is why I'm being cagey about the name, and she pops up on the media from time to time so I can't just forget about it.

AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH
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That's so weird. :thought:

We have a short thread on pre-birth communication with one's unborn baby.
(I typed the above title before locating the thread and remembered it perfectly, how strange.)

Pre-Birth Communication (With Unborn Child)
 
Today, I went to my first football match since the late 1960s.

In the late 1960s, I went to a very small primary school in Cranworth, Norfolk (UK). We went on a school trip to Wembley to watch England play West Germany in a "schoolboy international". England won, 3:1.

Later, we went to watch local heroes, Norwich City, play Hull City. Norwich won 3:1 . I remember at the time, even as a primary-school kid, noticing that I had only been to 2 matches and the home side had won 3:1 on each occasion,

I commented on this to my wife on our journey to Old Trafford today. (She is a big Man Utd fan, I follow them with her mainly to share in her interest.) It was a pre-season friendly match against a French team, R C Lens. The score? 3:1 to Man Utd.

I have been to exactly 3 matches in my life, over 50 years apart, and all three were 3:1 to the team I was supporting.
 
Erinaceus said:
As coincidences go this is trivial but I was at the beach this morning thinking that I hadn't seen a seal for a few months and within fifteen minutes one came up for air.
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This reminds me of one broadly similar, which also reminds me of one somewhat different.

Many years ago, I was walking with a group in Glen Coe. It was not a hike, just an hour or two's amble. One of the group, who was walking head down and just making conversation said, "I think you're meant to see golden eagles around here."

I looked up and far above me, a golden eagle soared out into view from over the top of the cliff. I said, "Yes, look, there's one." Everyone looked up and saw it, then it soared back out of sight.

Now, truth be told, I cannot be sure it was golden. However, it was certainly an eagle, and it showed itself exactly on cue, to the second.


The somewhat different case: I was on a school trip to the North York Moors. There were probably 20 of us, ambling along at very different speeds, with the faster group waiting every so often for the slower walkers.

We stopped on a bridge which, as I remember it over 40 years later, was over a disused railway. Being teenage boys, we started throwing stones.

One of the lads said to me, "I bet you can't hit that bottle," and pointed to one far below and some distance along the track. I said, "What, that one?" as I threw a stone and hit it, just like that. I was never an especially good thrower, and it was pure luck, but I have never felt more cool.
 
Mikefule said:
This reminds me of one broadly similar, which also reminds me of one somewhat different.

Many years ago, I was walking with a group in Glen Coe. It was not a hike, just an hour or two's amble. One of the group, who was walking head down and just making conversation said, "I think you're meant to see golden eagles around here."

I looked up and far above me, a golden eagle soared out into view from over the top of the cliff. I said, "Yes, look, there's one." Everyone looked up and saw it, then it soared back out of sight.

Now, truth be told, I cannot be sure it was golden. However, it was certainly an eagle, and it showed itself exactly on cue, to the second.


The somewhat different case: I was on a school trip to the North York Moors. There were probably 20 of us, ambling along at very different speeds, with the faster group waiting every so often for the slower walkers.

We stopped on a bridge which, as I remember it over 40 years later, was over a disused railway. Being teenage boys, we started throwing stones.

One of the lads said to me, "I bet you can't hit that bottle," and pointed to one far below and some distance along the track. I said, "What, that one?" as I threw a stone and hit it, just like that. I was never an especially good thrower, and it was pure luck, but I have never felt more cool.
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My dad was teaching me and my sister to play darts, I must have been around 9 or 10. I got a treble 20, Dad told me to aim at the the flight, and I actually stuck my second dart right in the middle of the first one's flight; it did fall back out, but you could see the hole I'd made.

Turned out to be a total fluke, I'm awful at darts, and a terrible shot in general!
 
I was in London at the weekend. Happily walking along the South Bank and for no apparent reason I was thinking about the film 'Marathon Man' . There is the famous tale that when filming, Dustin Hoffman was getting too intense concerning how to play his part,: Sir Laurence Olivier suggested " Dear boy, why don't you just try acting?! . A couple of minutes later, I went to a book stall, and the first book I saw was 'Dear Boy', a biography about Keith Moon. How strange.
 
Fluttermoth said:
My dad was teaching me and my sister to play darts, I must have been around 9 or 10. I got a treble 20, Dad told me to aim at the the flight, and I actually stuck my second dart right in the middle of the first one's flight; it did fall back out, but you could see the hole I'd made.

Turned out to be a total fluke, I'm awful at darts, and a terrible shot in general!
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This reminds me of once, I went to a small fair that had popped up across the street from me. I was looking at the games booth with my friend and of course the barker asked if I would like to try the game. I never bother wasting my money on these attractions, but there were almost no people, so I felt that I could at least make him feel that his time was not wasted. it was the game where you throw 3 darts and try to break balloons. He had said that I'd only have to burst one balloon to win a prize.

I threw the first dart and I had the usual and expected outcome of me missing. And even if you do hit a balloon, the dart usually bounces off without breaking it. He said to me "Close your eyes." So I humoured him, though I did wonder how far away he would stand lol. A balloon popped. I really thought than he'd popped it, but he and my friend said that I'd hit it. :omg: Was it a coincidence? If not, what does closing your eyes do to allow you to hit the balloon? He obviously knew something.
 
Reminds me of Mr. R and I visiting the Jersey Shore boardwalk a few years ago, where they have those 'wheels', and one of them is 3 numbers in a row that you have to land on, in order to get the big prizes.
I was walking past that particular wheel and ran up to put my dollar on number '159', because I had a feeling it was going to come out.
It came out, and I chose a beautiful new fishing pole for him, he was astounded!
 
Ronnie Jersey said:
Reminds me of Mr. R and I visiting the Jersey Shore boardwalk a few years ago, where they have those 'wheels', and one of them is 3 numbers in a row that you have to land on, in order to get the big prizes.
I was walking past that particular wheel and ran up to put my dollar on number '159', because I had a feeling it was going to come out.
It came out, and I chose a beautiful new fishing pole for him, he was astounded!
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Another coincidence, my flat number is 159.
 
kesavaross said:
It must be a lucky number then.
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Well, I'll put it this way -
It was the oldest building in town, a Victorian schoolhouse with 6 apartments, 3 on each side, 3 stories.
Had a huge staircase when you walked in, this building looked medieval. And the ceilings were extremely high.
So it was very lucky on the wheels, but right after that it was demolished to make way for a bank, which quickly closed.
 
Ronnie Jersey said:
Is this from experience? :)
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Can't speak for Trev but a boy at primary school (1957 ish) concealed a stone in one he threw at me at home time. Mum happened to be there and picked up a handful of snow and shoved it down his back. She wouldn't get away with that these days things were different then! He'd missed by the way but being bigger and older it wasn't on!
 
I'm mulling over an idea for a new book. I was reading Peter Ross's 'Tomb with a View' and read the section about cillin in Ireland, which set me off on a train of thought for a plot. I'd never come across the word or concept before (cillini were the places, usually liminal zones. where stillborn babies or the unbaptised were buried in Ireland).

All of a sudden every book I pick up relates to either unbaptised children or furtive burials and whenever I put on the TV or radio there's something playing that relates to the subject. I'd think it was confirmation bias, except that one of the books I picked up was one I bought several weeks ago, before the whole cillin thing came up. And IT mentions the burial of the unbaptised.

I am going to have to write this book now, because the Universe says so.
 
Today we went on a pilgrimage to Brussels with our parish. This morning our bus chauffeur drove into a dead end street in the city centre and damaged the back of the bus while backing out of it. Now we've returned, and we saw that another bus had backed into our bus, and the huge front window is broken. This chauffeur had no blessing in the church outing. Hope we get back safe ...
 
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