Let's compare uncanny coincidences.
Years ago I was working on the medieval Chantry in Buckingham. I spent one night in the chantry itself, but then booked into a pub hotel. I wasn't spooked, I was just very cold and uncomfortable.
In the evenings, I would go to a small bar owned by a former racing driver to spend my spare time. Over the bar were photos of him driving cars around the tracks, and in pride of place was a small steering wheel which had been bent into the shape of a flaccid rubber band during a high-speed accident. He had hit something immovable and had not bent his elbows for the impact, wrenching the solid aluminium wheel into a form you would not have thought possible using nothing but flesh and bone. It was this crash which put an end to his racing days.
One night I needed to call a friend about something or other, and since these were the days before mobiles, I used the bar payphone. My friend lived over 100 miles away from Buckingham with a dialling code to match the area. I had written the number down on a piece of paper and dialled it up.
The voice on the other end sounded familiar, but it wasn't my friend. As I was apologising for calling the wrong number, the voice said, "Tom? Is that you?"
It was my brother, who had moved to a completely different part of the country without telling anyone either his forwarding address or - more relevantly - his new phone number. His phone had only just been connected and I was the first person to call it.
I would be so pleased if you could beat that.
Have you listened to Sideways on Radio 4? Statistics and probability.
ReplyDeleteYes. That and More or Less are good ones.
DeleteBut... God preserve us from expert witnesses.
DeleteI don't think it is possible to beat that Tom. Can't think of a single coincidence.
ReplyDeleteNot many people believe it, but it's true. My brother would confirm it but he's now dead.
DeleteDefinitely a Cosmic Chuckle
ReplyDeleteOne of many.
DeleteWell, we used to get calls intended for the washing machine repair man. Does that beat it?
ReplyDeleteA close second.
DeleteWell, that is unbeatable. XXXX
ReplyDeleteHave a try!
DeleteThat's an amazing story!
ReplyDeleteI was amazed.
DeleteI had a girlfriend ( yes) when I worked in York that was in 1986
ReplyDeleteWe lost touch completely
When I was out walk with my dog Finlay in Sheffield in 2003 I bumped into her in a part of town I never really walked . She was pushing a pram.
Her son was called Finlay
Were both Finlays 17 years old?
DeleteSomebody emailed me to change a meeting time to a different day the other day just as I emailed them with a revised meeting timetable that fitted in perfectly with their request but that's small fry by comparison!
ReplyDeleteOnce, two men drove their cars round the wrong side of a bend at speed on a mountain road. They got out of the cars, shook hands wordlessly and continued their journies.
DeleteNot really a coincidence, I guess, but I have just been watching an episode of Time Team filmed in Bath, What a beautiful place you live in.
ReplyDeleteI know that episode. A friend threw a Roman coin into the trench at night.
DeleteOh! That is both sad (for archaeology) and hilarious! Mostly hilarious.
DeleteArchaeologists are very easy to dupe. They rarely think outside of their own expectations.
DeleteNaughty!
DeleteAt work I dialed a number given as contact for a sale my company made. The phone was answered "Ed xyz's desk. Can I help you?" I was stunned. I knew Ed from college, twenty years before. I asked he be located and we had a long chat. He was working for the FBI in DC. They were moving office at the time, and in a small uproar. We hung up after half an hour, and never asked for the other's phone number. I don't give his last name because it is Polish and very, very distinctive.
ReplyDeleteI think that a lot of these rare encounters happen with phones. If he was Polish, then you have probably given us half his name with 'xyz'.
DeleteAmazing story. What is the probability of something like that ever happening? Slim to none. My odd experience is boarding a plane in Boston, Logan Airport to go to Heathrow only to find an ex-lover on the plane also headed to London.
ReplyDeleteI am also intrigued that there have been many instances when long-lost relatives meet for the first time and find each other physically attractive. We sort of know there is a connection.
DeleteWhen I was a child, I was playing in the creek behind our house. I found a spur, very old, very rusty. And of course my imagination went wild with how that spur came to be there. But the thing that I wished is that I could find the other. And months later, I was playing in the same creek. I noticed for the first time, the curve of the creek, and the way that there was silt and gravel pushed up against a bank. I went to it and looked at it, and suddenly I knew that I would find that other spur. I remember that feeling of 'knowing' that it would be there. And I dug down in ever widening circles. In a matter of minutes, I'd found it. But I'll never forget that 'knowing' that it would be there.
ReplyDeleteThat's wonderful.
DeleteWhen I had my son, someone rang up to congratulate. After me and son's dad talked to him for about fifteen minutes, all three of us realised he'd dialled the wrong number. He was trying to call a couple called Sarah and Dave who'd just had a baby boy.
ReplyDeleteMy story won't beat yours but it will easily come in 2nd place. Some years ago I was working a 12-month contract at the South Pole Station, Antarctica. While getting a bite to eat in the galley, I overheard a young man at my table say he was from the same state in the U.S. that I was. We started chatting and found that he had graduated from the same high school as I did, but twenty years after I did. And he could name many of the same teachers that I had... at least the ones that hadn't yet retired! What do you think of that?!
ReplyDelete