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Strange Coincidences?

I have never had much time for anime films until very recently. Last weekend I watched Howl's Moving Castle and looked up the author. None other than Diana Wynne Jones, who Ulalume has just mentioned!
 
Ulalume said:
You may enjoy this from The Daily Grail, about authors who have come across their characters in real life -
https://www.dailygrail.com/2015/04/...fictional-characters-turning-up-in-real-life/
It's not mentioned in the article but Diana Wynne Jones had said this kind of thing happened to her all the time, too

You may think I'm full of woo (which no doubt I am) but I think these things can manifest on multiple levels and in different ways, if the stars (or whatever it is) are right.
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Very interesting, thanks.
 
onetwothree said:
I have never had much time for anime films until very recently. Last weekend I watched Howl's Moving Castle and looked up the author. None other than Diana Wynne Jones, who Ulalume has just mentioned!
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This implies you are in the enviable position of being able to watch the rest of Studio Ghibli's output for the first time. Whatever else you are doing can wait.
 
Thought I would add in my own experience that seems like a bit of a coincidence: I went to school and was good friends with a girl, lets call her A
We left school and went to different universities in totally different places. I got placed in a room in halls next to a girl, lets call her B who was from the other end of the country - we became really good friends and still are to this day. So i was friends with both, but neither had anything to do with the other - A was a school friend from my hometown and B was a uni friend, there was no link between the two
Both A and B have younger sisters (i was familiar with both sisters) - both sisters moved to France for totally seperate reasons from their respective ends of the UK in the years that followed
One day i was on FB and noticed that me and B were mutual friends with A's sister - turns out that both sisters had met and become friends in France - what are the chances of that?!
Mine and A's friendship faded away and we no longer speak, and I' ve only heard anything of note in recent months through B (the coincidences and similar themes in these friendships are a story for another day)
 
I've been talking to an old friend on facebook in the last few days, we went to see Huey Lewis and the News in the late 80's and he was regretting that he hadn't kept his old ticket stub for that night. I'd kept mine from that night but he didn't know this, he told me (I already knew this) that Chris Hayes, the guitarist in the band was the reason he took up playing the electric guitar. I was also with him the day he bought it, a cherry red Fender Strat ..

I'd resigned myself to sending him my ticket stub in the post, I had a sneaking feeling I actually had two of them so was delighted to just find out now that I have indeed got two of them. Then I noticed the date on the stubs, 21.11.88 .. exactly 30 years ago today.

On a slightly more nerdy level, we would have listened to them play their song The Power Of Love that night .. as you all know, the film Back To The Future starts in 1985 then Marty travels back in time 30 years to 1955. Weird coincidences but very very cool, he's going to be buzzing when he reads the message I've just sent him, we were 15 years old that night, he now plays in a thrash metal band :cool: .. GREAT SCOTT !!

ahueyticket.jpg
 
Swifty said:
I've been talking to an old friend on facebook in the last few days, we went to see Huey Lewis and the News in the late 80's and he was regretting that he hadn't kept his old ticket stub for that night. I'd kept mine from that night but he didn't know this, he told me (I already knew this) that Chris Hayes, the guitarist in the band was the reason he took up playing the electric guitar. I was also with him the day he bought it, a cherry red Fender Strat ..

I'd resigned myself to sending him my ticket stub in the post, I had a sneaking feeling I actually had two of them so was delighted to just find out now that I have indeed got two of them. Then I noticed the date on the stubs, 21.11.88 .. exactly 30 years ago today.

On a slightly more nerdy level, we would have listened to them play their song The Power Of Love that night .. as you all know, the film Back To The Future starts in 1985 then Marty travels back in time 30 years to 1955. Weird coincidences but very very cool, he's going to be buzzing when he reads the message I've just sent him, we were 15 years old that night, he now plays in a thrash metal band :cool: .. GREAT SCOTT !!

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I'd have been down the road from you, that night.
 
Ghost In The Machine said:
I'd have been down the road from you, that night.
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You lived near the NEC ? .. I was given a couple of passes for the car show they used to do there one year, I knew a bloke who worked at a printing firm so he did me a few copies of it for free, the deal being he could make some for him and his mates as payment. I made quite a bit of money selling those forgeries.
 
Another slight coincidence which makes me ponder - years ago i read that my birth tarot card was The Star card, i'd always remembered it because i liked the image & what it meant.
Anyway this summer, me and my friend (friend 'B' from my previous story) went out for 'one drink' in her hometown (which turned into drinks, shots of sambucca & dancing all night when we were due as well presented wedding guests the next day!).
She wanted to try a pub she'd been recommended and being unfamiliar with the area I said lets go for it - it was called The Star and we had a great time. Pinned behind the bar they had tarot cards of the star card, and i joked with her that that was meant to be 'my' birth card.
We made it (just barely) to the wedding and had a great time - I travelled back home the following day, on the Sunday
I had the Monday off work and woke up, went down stairs and opened the curtains - and there tangled in the bushes right by the back door & bobbing around is a gold star shaped helium balloon! Now bear in mind I have never seen a balloon anywhere near my house, and out of all the gardens locally it had landed in mine.
Not the oddest thing in the world, but it struck me (bright gold as i opened the curtains) and made me wonder (just don't know what about!)
 
Swifty said:
I've been talking to an old friend on facebook in the last few days, we went to see Huey Lewis and the News in the late 80's and he was regretting that he hadn't kept his old ticket stub for that night. I'd kept mine from that night but he didn't know this, he told me (I already knew this) that Chris Hayes, the guitarist in the band was the reason he took up playing the electric guitar. I was also with him the day he bought it, a cherry red Fender Strat ..

I'd resigned myself to sending him my ticket stub in the post, I had a sneaking feeling I actually had two of them so was delighted to just find out now that I have indeed got two of them. Then I noticed the date on the stubs, 21.11.88 .. exactly 30 years ago today.

On a slightly more nerdy level, we would have listened to them play their song The Power Of Love that night .. as you all know, the film Back To The Future starts in 1985 then Marty travels back in time 30 years to 1955. Weird coincidences but very very cool, he's going to be buzzing when he reads the message I've just sent him, we were 15 years old that night, he now plays in a thrash metal band :cool: .. GREAT SCOTT !!
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Hi Swifty - what a brilliant synchronicity!
 
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Minor coincidence : my brother does a bit of gardening and in September a client asked him to pick up a couple of Indian Bean Trees (not beans, not from India), from a local Garden Centre. We looked but couldn't find any (apparently all sold out) and no other Centre stocked them. Oh well.
Yesterday I was walking up from London King's Cross to Work and spotted several large soggy pods in the gutter - they were still there this morning so I picked one up to examine. It was a pod from an Indian Bean Tree with 25 seeds in it. Looked up - there was the tree, no leaves just pods. Will see if they germinate.

Bean Tree.jpg
 
Bad Bungle said:
Minor coincidence : my brother does a bit of gardening and in September a client asked him to pick up a couple of Indian Bean Trees (not beans, not from India), from a local Garden Centre. We looked but couldn't find any (apparently all sold out) and no other Centre stocked them. Oh well.
Yesterday I was walking up from London King's Cross to Work and spotted several large soggy pods in the gutter - they were still there this morning so I picked one up to examine. It was a pod from an Indian Bean Tree with 25 seeds in it. Looked up - there was the tree, no leaves just pods. Will see if they germinate.

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Today I was ransacking the joint looking for something important and came across a toiletries bag which we used in Bath in the summer. Looked inside and found what looked like a load of fluff off the floor! but I soon realised that it was a load of seeds from some canalside plant we'd admired. I'd like to cultivate them, do you leave them out for a bit to get cold before they'll germinate?
 
escargot said:
Today I was ransacking the joint looking for something important and came across a toiletries bag which we used in Bath in the summer. Looked inside and found what looked like a load of fluff off the floor! but I soon realised that it was a load of seeds from some canalside plant we'd admired. I'd like to cultivate them, do you leave them out for a bit to get cold before they'll germinate?
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My Flat is so cold that it isn't an issue, although you've reminded me I have Oyster mushroom spores in the fridge for safe-keeping. My beans are going into pots on the window sill so I can keep an eye on them. I suspect your canalside seeds will grow like weeds under any conditions.
 
An indian bean tree appears to be a northern catalpa but your pic looks like honey locust tree branches. Both hearty trees but the catalpa is much cooler.
 
(...three's a charm)

Clocks.

Stopped clocks, broken or flat battery. In three entirely-different random locations, that I've been at, over as many days....have been sitting at exactly the right time, for when I've looked at them.

Very odd...as if The Matrix was ensuring the continuity of my narrative view irrespective of absent references. Like when Wile E Coyote is walking in mid-air, on nothing, because he knows it's there...up until he notices it's not.
 
Ermintruder said:
(...three's a charm)

Clocks.

Stopped clocks, broken or flat battery. In three entirely-different random locations, that I've been at, over as many days....have been sitting at exactly the right time, for when I've looked at them.

Very odd...as if The Matrix was ensuring the continuity of my narrative view irrespective of absent references. Like when Wile E Coyote is walking in mid-air, on nothing, because he knows it's there...up until he notices it's not.
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All the clocks in my house have stopped, on different occasions, at 11.40, give or take a minute or two(but no more than that). Strangely the exact time someone I loved dearly died. I like to think it's not esoteric in nature but she loved clocks (brought them back from all over the world) and her sense of humour was wicked.
 
tastyintestines said:
An indian bean tree appears to be a northern catalpa but your pic looks like honey locust tree branches. Both hearty trees but the catalpa is much cooler.
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Very interesting, thank you. The tree would have bean easier to identify if there were leaves maybe, but still an odd find at Kings Cross - usually there are only the odd Plane and bin-bag trees
 
Ermintruder said:
(...three's a charm)

Clocks.

Stopped clocks, broken or flat battery. In three entirely-different random locations, that I've been at, over as many days....have been sitting at exactly the right time, for when I've looked at them.

Very odd...as if The Matrix was ensuring the continuity of my narrative view irrespective of absent references. Like when Wile E Coyote is walking in mid-air, on nothing, because he knows it's there...up until he notices it's not.
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Is that time around 8.45, 9.45?
 
I went to see a Kate Rusby performance last night in York at the Barbican. Never been down that side before, so went early, which meant we were in our seats early too. People came in and sat around us, I wasn't paying much attention until the interval, when I realised that on the other side of the friend I'd gone with was another friend who'd come up from Doncaster for a couple of days break in York.

The Barbican wasn't quite full, but nearly, and there wasn't one other person there (that I saw) that I knew, so I was quite impressed with the coincidence of two people who know each other randomly buying tickets that seated them together (I'm from North of York so the tickets weren't geographically allocated).
 
Ringo said:
Is that time around 8.45, 9.45?
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To be clear: what I meant was whatever the local time happened to be, variously, at these locations, was being faithfully-reported by those broken clocks.

So (for example) the carriage clock in our kitchen, which has been without a replacement AA battery for many a month & day.... it told me the time was 12.40am this morning (0040Z HRS GMT)....which in it's universe it is permanently-stuck at. And indeed that was the exact actual time, in the local slice of reality I was occupying.

I do need to be careful, though. It's like having had three sets of lights change to green, just as you reach them. You ARE a god, with powers beyond all mortal comprehension. Maybe.

But don't floor it through the fourth red light, just on that belief basis. Alternatively: maybe we all should just push the envelope (hey- did I just reactivate a '90s bullsh!t phrase, there? No envelopes have been metaphorically 'pushed' in my world, perhaps since before the end of last millennium)
 
Ermintruder said:
To be clear: what I meant was whatever the local time happened to be, variously, at these locations, was being faithfully-reported by those broken clocks.

So (for example) the carriage clock in our kitchen, which has been without a replacement AA battery for many a month & day.... it told me the time was 12.40am this morning (0040Z HRS GMT)....which in it's universe it is permanently-stuck at. And indeed that was the exact actual time, in the local slice of reality I was occupying.

I do need to be careful, though. It's like having had three sets of lights change to green, just as you reach them. You ARE a god, with powers beyond all mortal comprehension. Maybe.

But don't floor it through the fourth red light, just on that belief basis. Alternatively: maybe we all should just push the envelope (hey- did I just reactivate a '90s bullsh!t phrase, there? No envelopes have been metaphorically 'pushed' in my world, perhaps since before the end of last millennium)
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You were clear enough in your first post, I just read it incorrectly. It used to be that most clocks that run out of battery stopped around 8.40 or 9.40, as there wasn't enough juice in them to get the arms to complete the upswing.

It used to be a Mentalism thing/effect - get someone (over the phone) to look at a stopped watch and you guessed the time. Another good one is to ask someone to find a magazine with an advert for a watch. ask them to look at the face and then you tell them what time they are thinking about. It's always 10.08 or 10.10.
 
Apologies if I’ve posted this before, I forget things these days, when my dad died he had left his granddaughter clock to my daughter. It’s just a small grandfather clock, with a pendulum and chimes. It got left here when she moved out and as it’s not a very big house I never wound it up as a clock chiming every hour all night would have driven me mad. Anyway one night it chimed three times at 3am, when I thought about it I realised it was the third anniversary of his death that day. It had never done that before and has not done it since.
 
Bit of a mildly irritating coincidence just now. We saw a few buzzards while out today and I was thinking about how maybe evangelicals were waiting on a typo and they were going to be whisked away by the Raptors, Lord of the Rings Eagles style. I thought, I might photoshop that when we get home.
Then I check Twitter... Someone I follow retweeted someone tweeting MY JOKE. Before I'd even thought of it, too. Grr...

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1080780616885592064
 
Ringo said:
.............It used to be that most clocks that run out of battery stopped around 8.40 or 9.40, as there wasn't enough juice in them to get the arms to complete the upswing.
..........
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Not coincidence as such, but you've reminded me of something clock related, from back in the mists of time, around 1985 when I was a student, working part time in a Gateway supermarket.

At some point, I noticed that if you took a tea break at half past the hour instead of on the hour, the time went much slower, presumably due to some loose play between the minute hand and the workings of the clock on the canteen wall. If you went in there and the clock said 2.30, it would stay on that for up to 7 minutes before time started moving again. If the manager or assistant manager came in, they could see the time as well so it was rare for anyone to get criticised for their 15 minute tea break lasting a bit longer. They must have known there was something wrong with that clock, but nothing was ever done about it while I was there.

Or maybe the staff canteen was a different time zone. Anyone taking a tea break on the hour found their 15 minutes whizzing by very fast. If you went in at say 3.58, the minute hand would get to the top, then jump to about 7 minutes past. I'm not sure it was just a worn out clock, or a joke shop one, or if someone had taken it home one night and messed with it.
 
Re authors meeting their characters - I have a different problem.

Things in some of the books I have written have 'come true'. It has made me very suspicious now, and careful of what I write. I can't, for instance, write a character's brother dying, just in case...
 
My dad was taken into hospital after complaining of severe back pain, and died three days later. Afterwards, we found out that he'd had cancer in his left kidney - our family doctor told us that it was one of the most virulent strains of cancer he'd ever seen. My mum gave me the novelty keyring which my dad kept on his car keys, and for a long time it was the only one I used.

Three years later, I started driving lessons and the instructor gave me a promotional keyring which I put on my keys next to my dad's. A few months passed, and my driving instructor began to cancel our lessons. This got progressively more frequent, until he rang me one day and told me that I'd have to find someone else as he'd been diagnosed with terminal cancer, most notably a large tumour in his left kidney.

So, the two keyrings which had been keeping my keys together both came to me via different people who had ended up dying from cancer of the left kidney. I quietly took them off my keys and put them away, and even though this must have been around twenty-five years ago, to this day I keep my keys loose in my coin purse and won't put a keyring on them in case it means taking a gamble with whoever has given it to me. Superstitious, probably, but I'd rather not tempt fate.
 
Astracadia said:
My dad was taken into hospital after complaining of severe back pain, and died three days later. Afterwards, we found out that he'd had cancer in his left kidney - our family doctor told us that it was one of the most virulent strains of cancer he'd ever seen. My mum gave me the novelty keyring which my dad kept on his car keys, and for a long time it was the only one I used.

Three years later, I started driving lessons and the instructor gave me a promotional keyring which I put on my keys next to my dad's. A few months passed, and my driving instructor began to cancel our lessons. This got progressively more frequent, until he rang me one day and told me that I'd have to find someone else as he'd been diagnosed with terminal cancer, most notably a large tumour in his left kidney.

So, the two keyrings which had been keeping my keys together both came to me via different people who had ended up dying from cancer of the left kidney. I quietly took them off my keys and put them away, and even though this must have been around twenty-five years ago, to this day I keep my keys loose in my coin purse and won't put a keyring on them in case it means taking a gamble with whoever has given it to me. Superstitious, probably, but I'd rather not tempt fate.
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I'm sorry you lost your father.

Some years ago I decided to prune my collection of DM boots by giving some away. Three grateful recipients died within the year!
The rest're now safely stashed under the stairs.
 
Ulalume said:
You may enjoy this from The Daily Grail, about authors who have come across their characters in real life -
https://www.dailygrail.com/2015/04/...fictional-characters-turning-up-in-real-life/
It's not mentioned in the article but Diana Wynne Jones had said this kind of thing happened to her all the time, too

You may think I'm full of woo (which no doubt I am) but I think these things can manifest on multiple levels and in different ways, if the stars (or whatever it is) are right.
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There is definitely something in this. I write books and I've had many experiences over the years of my imagination becoming manifest in real life.

In my most recent completed book I wrote about an incident where a man grabbed a woman between her legs, using the crude p**** term as he did so. Then of course the Trump "p**** grabbing" incident happened, and I felt I had to make reference to Trump in the book, because that's what someone would do in real life.I wasn't that happy about it tbh because it made it look like I was trying to be a bit current affairs, when I wasn't.

There's something else in that book that I made happen as well, but I can't remember what it was now.
 
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