BS: A coincidence I found amazing

Subject: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Oct 12 - 04:17 AM

I start each day by downloading the Guardian Crossword online and printing it out, so that I can do it early before the paper comes. I keep a pile of old letters etc with one side blank by my printer for such ephemeral purposes.

The theme of this morning's puzzle was the plays of Alan Bennett. "Bennett" was the solution to one clue, and titles of four of his plays or tv or film scripts, each of several words {"Me, I'm Afraid of Virginia Woolf", "Kafka's Dick", A Private Function", "The History Boys"} accounted for another 10 lights.

When I had finished the puzzle, I happened to turn over the page; and found that, of all the blank-one-side old docs there might have been on the printer pile, I had printed this one on the back of an e-mail from my late wife Valerie, who was a writer, dated May 18 2005, asking her agent to place a book she was about to start work on, under the working title, Alan Bennett: an Appreciation. (She never in fact finished this book; it was one of the projects she was engaged on when she died two years later in 2007.)

A coincidence I find quite mind-blowing. Does anyone agree that this was remarkable? Can anyone match it with quite so specific a concatenation of discrete elements as an email sent 7½ years ago meeting entirely by chance the theme of this morning's crossword on the two sides of the same sheet of paper randomly placed in a pile?

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 05 Oct 12 - 04:44 AM

Very interesting coincidence. Thank you for sharing.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 05 Oct 12 - 04:49 AM

I'm always re-using paper but have never seen anything interesting on the other side.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 05 Oct 12 - 05:12 AM

If you print out the crossword daily, that would be 6 per week, 52 weeks of the year for however many years you have been doing this and yet, presumably, this is the first time such a coincidence has occurred. The fact that a theme used in the newspaper of your choice matches one of the interests of your late wife is not really that surprising.

Add to that the number of people who did the same crossword that day, using scrap paper to help them, who did not have any connection to the theme. Extend that to the people doing any themed crossword or, indeed, any themed word puzzle. It would be amazing if someone, somewhere didn't hit on such a mind-blowing coincidence.

What is more surprising to me is that you have a pile of unused scrap paper in excess of 7½ years old.

It is what it is, Michael. A coincidence.



DC

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Oct 12 - 05:18 AM

Indeed, Doug. All coincidences are. But I don't quite understand your point. You seem to use statistical chance to suggest that the concatenation was not all that surprising: when it seems to me that they just emphasise how much so it was.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Oct 12 - 05:20 AM

I mean ~~ "It would be amazing if someone, somewhere didn't hit on such a mind-blowing coincidence" were your words. But, actuarily now, what do you think might be the odds?! Googol-to-one?

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 05 Oct 12 - 05:23 AM

It depends on how many Bennett themed puzzles there have been and how many letters she wrote about her book. I am assuming both numbers are quite low. MtheGM does not strike me as the type to be all that easily amazed.

It it an interesting coincidence, I think because of the touching personal story. If the puzzle had been about for example Bill Gates and the paper had been say a page from a Windows manual, it would not have been nearly as interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 05 Oct 12 - 06:12 AM

"It would be amazing if someone, somewhere didn't hit on such a mind-blowing coincidence"

The delightful thing from our point of view is that it wasn't just someone, somewhere. It was a person we know on this forum.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: gnu
Date: 05 Oct 12 - 07:11 AM

I think it's amazing.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: bobad
Date: 05 Oct 12 - 07:41 AM

I find it incredibly amazing - but I`m sure some "spiritualists" would not.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Oct 12 - 08:29 AM

Coincidence is a very interesting topic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence

Here's a thought. I just flicked a loose eyelash from my face at exactly the same time as I read the title of this thread. I bet that's never happened before and will never happen again.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Musket
Date: 05 Oct 12 - 08:39 AM

I am sure that the word "coincidence" describe coincidences. After all, if you think about it, everything boils down to probability.

That said, the coincidence Michael describes must have made him do a bit of a double take, and I assume it must have been a nice experience for him.

Thanks for sharing it. Nice to hear such experiences.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: GUEST,MtheGM
Date: 05 Oct 12 - 09:50 PM

I can tell you still miss her and are proud of her interest in writing books. Naturally the coincidence brought all that back to you.

One day, after a co-worker's mother had been dead several years, the co-worker remarked sadly to me that when something nice happened, she would still think to herself, "I'll have to tell Mother about that."

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Oct 12 - 10:27 PM

In 1974, several friends & I from Kansas helped a guy in Iowa move from one town to another so he could accompany us to Wash DC for a meeting. (I had never met him before)

We were there several days and then we all went home.

In August 1975, I was asked to bring a friends car to Juneau, Alaska on the ferry. On my 2nd day in Juneau, I was downtown in a store when I heard someone say.."Bill?"...and there stood the guy from Iowa. Not only the timing to be in Juneau the same week, but to be in the same store at the same moment.


Then.... about 12 years ago, after I moved to Wash. DC area, I was visiting friends in the Seattle, Wash. area and went to downtown Seattle to see some fancy turned wooden art at a gallery. Two weeks after I got home, a woman I know in the local folk society asked me: "Bill, were you by any chance recently in Seattle? I was driving downtown and thought I saw you walking there."

It seems when I "go west, young man", people find me! Odds? I don't even want to know.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 12:22 AM

Guest MtheGM above was not me sans cookie. Thanks to whomever for understanding comments.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Bert
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 12:32 AM

Coincidence? Nah! She is coming back to haunt you.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 12:44 PM

I'm not a great believer in 'coincidence'. Serendipity, yes.   I have had many such and have witnessed others. I don't understand them but I treasure them.

(Bert, I don't for a moment consider such a thing a 'haunting', but - maybe - a brushing of wings...) (Sorry, Bill D.:)

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 01:00 PM

How can you not believe in coincidence?

From a statistical perspective, coincidences are inevitable and often less remarkable than they may appear intuitively. An example is the birthday problem, where the probability of two individuals sharing a birthday already exceeds 50% with a group of only 23.[1]

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Mo the caller
Date: 07 Oct 12 - 05:07 AM

What are the odds that I happened to do the crossword in question BEFORE I read this thread.
Well, to calculate these odds consider
a) I don't go onto the Guardian crossword website every day
b) When I do I look for any Arucaria puzzles that I haven't done
c)Arucaria sets about 1 puzzle a week at present
d) Although I come on Mudcat almost every day i don't always go below the line and certainly don't read every thread.

No, I can't work it out. But please don't tell me the answers to todays Prize crossword.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Oct 12 - 12:22 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Dec 12 - 11:45 AM

Another one today: not quite as amazing maybe. But true.

I happened to be sitting here at the keyboard, & some train of thought brought me to people's names which, if mispronounced from their spelling, can have a sort of meaning. I thought of the French tennis player, for instance, whose name, pronounced in English as spelt, would mean a man who {ungrammatically} has a bad memory. Then I went down & switched on the Statoil [oldies'] Tennis Masters at the Royal Albert Hall on ITV4.

And what match should I find in progress but Guy Forget v Jeremy Bates!

True, as I live & breathe!

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 08 Dec 12 - 04:13 PM

How about this? A friend who was staying with us yesterday just happened to be standing by the front door when the post was delivered. She was stunned to see her own handwriting on a postcard that hit the mat, as she had posted it in San Francisco back in June, six months ago.

OK, post can get delayed between the USA and UK, but to be delivered on the one and only morning this year when she was staying with us.....

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: gnu
Date: 08 Dec 12 - 05:22 PM

Rusty... spooky!

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 09 Dec 12 - 03:37 AM

The kind of coincidences that I've experienced have been when I've been discussing a certain topic and I switch on the radio and tune into say radio 4 and lo and behold the same topic is being discussed word for word with the same viewpoint, that I find mindblowing. That has happened to me a couple of times and as I am not an avid listener as such only tuning in when I have time I don't make a point of planning what I am going to listen to.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 09 Dec 12 - 10:43 AM

When people experience an odd coincidence, they often ask, "What is the chance of that happening?"

I know someone who is fond of answering, "Since it already happened, the chance, in this case, is 100%."

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Feb 13 - 06:37 AM

Another coincidence has come back to my recollection, concerning two of my colleagues at Peckham Manor School, where I taught in the early 1960s. Both were about 12 years older than me, and had been army officers in the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1943, one in the Royal Engineers, one in the Royal Artillery; and both had served with gallantry and efficiency such as to win each of them the award of the Military Cross. Exchanging recollections one day, they discovered that the Gunners officer had won his MC by resourcefully leading his company from a tight spot under fire across a temporary bridge which a platoon of Sappers had built shortly before, also under fire, to enable the escape of those withdrawing from this heavily outnumbered exchange, under the command of the RE officer - for which he had received his MC. But they had never met until they found themselves teaching in the same South London school about 17 or 18 years later.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Feb 13 - 12:56 PM

I love coincidence!

Two friends of mine were schoolteachers, one of shop and drafting, the other of physics, both musicians, one of mando, the other banjo. They had been friends about a year before they found they shared the same birthdate.

We had been in a band together for several years before this little 2-year-old kid still in diapers, started 'playing' with us, leaving the action only when he'd go over to his mother for a saltine cracker.

Yep. Same birthday.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 18 Feb 13 - 01:26 PM

Can it be simple coincidence that dog is god backwards and that Rover rhymes with Johova?

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Gurney
Date: 18 Feb 13 - 02:16 PM

A Kiwi co-worker was travelling through England, went into a shop and happened to get chatting to another customer. It turned out to be my father, himself 10 miles away from home.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 May 13 - 02:54 AM

I venture to revive this thread as some found it interesting and those who didn't can ignore it, to relate another which, like my OP, relates to printing off a Guardian Crossword from online. On Sundays, I have to go back in the archives to get my daily cruciverbal fix, and today I happened to fix on the Prize Crossword of Saturday 10 Jan 2010. The answer to once clue concerning "Coleridge's prison" was 'Lime-Tree Bower', a ref to a poem of Coleridge's that for some reason I had not come across previously. Ten minutes later, reading a feature on The World's Top 50 Museums from yesterday's [11 May 2013] The Times, I found that #40 was Coleridge Cottage in Somerset reviewed by Richard Holmes, who ended: "Don't miss the enchanting garden, where you can retreat to Coleridge's arbour and listen to a recording of the poem he wrote in its shade, This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison. Two refs within minutes in editions of two different newspapers published over three years apart to a poem I did not know previously. Not bad, as coincidences go!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 May 13 - 03:03 AM

Love it!

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 12 May 13 - 03:53 AM

With a world population of more than 6 billion, coincidences are inevitable - for example in a room of 23 people it is 50% probable that they will have the same birthday. But that doesn't make happy coincidences any less wonderful.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 May 13 - 04:21 AM

"in a room of 23 people it is 50% probable that they will have the same birthday."
.,,.
What, all 23? Honestly?

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 May 13 - 05:49 AM

When I was in my mid forties I was having a problem with Erectile Dysfunction and had been to several doctors with only limited success. I mentioned this to an old farmer friend named Thomas MacDonald who often had given me good advice in the past. As an odd coincidence, he said that he too had been through the problem and what worked best for him was a folk remedy. mixed up the recipe for this poultice of tomato paste, onion powder, pickle juice, and ground mustard. After four applications, I no longer had the problem and was able to maintain an erection just as before.

Now here's the odd part. Every time I drive past a McDonald's I get a boner............


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: GUEST,c.g.
Date: 12 May 13 - 08:19 AM

As Terry Pratchett says, million to one chances happen nine times out of ten . . .

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 May 13 - 10:10 AM

One statistic I always find amusing/interesting is the 'once-in-a-century' one. When that 'once-in-a-century' event happens in the third year of the new century when may one expect the next one?

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Bill D
Date: 12 May 13 - 11:30 AM

In 1977, in the very early days of digital watches, I bought one with red LEDs where you had to push the side button to turn it on...one push for time, two pushes for date.
One day I was helping a friend do some work when I wanted to check the time until lunch...pushed the button and got 11:11


?? says I. Pushed it twice and got 11:11


Is this watch already broken, I wondered? Pushed it several more times... same result: 11:11


Then it hit me... it was 11:11 AM on November 11!

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 May 13 - 11:32 AM

I dunno' Ebbie...............Michelle Bachman keeps getting elected to Congress. That should have been a "NEVER" in a Century event and it keeps happening.


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 May 13 - 02:50 PM

Being an avid book collector, when I lived in London I used to try to have my tea, dinner/breaks near a bookshop.
One of my favourite shops was on Fulham Road, almost opposite the gates of Brompton Cemetery - it specialised in religious books but would buy up whole job-lots from convents, seminaries etc - which often included Irish books of general interest.
One day I pulled up, went in, and found on the shelves a 1st edition copy of Jeremiah Curtin's 'Irish Folk Tales' at a ridiculously low price.
Delighted with my find, I bought myself a cup of tea and a sandwich and, as it was a beautiful day, headed for the rather pleasant graveyard, sat on the grass and began to read the book.
After a while I looked around at the rather magnificent tombstone behind me - Jeremiah Curtin's
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 May 13 - 07:58 PM

I've found a number of coincidences in my Solitaire game (correct name Klondike) that came with an old Windows version.

When the first Ace is shown there are twice as many Aces of the opposite color remaining to be dealt, so the second Ace should be the other color twice as often as it would be the same color as the first, but in my game the second Ace dealt is the same color as the first Ace slightly more than 84% of the time. (Based on keeping a written record for 300 games.)

It has also been observed that the "deuce" that matches the first Ace dealt is always one of the bottom two or three cards in the last (deepest) pile dealt face down, but I only kept track to confirm that about 100 times.

Unlike many "coincidences" these (and others for the same game) do have deep significance of some importance:

1. One might take the obvious conclusion that "the game is rigged," although the real significance is that "Microsoft doesn't know how to generate usefully random numbers," which places several of their more serious programs in questionable territory.

2. One MUST CONCLUDE that if I had two games on my computer maybe I'd quit paying enough attention to this one to compile statistics and be annoyed by the results.

Since I usually only get bored enough to play the game when I run out of "things to fix" by making notes in my files, or rarely by posting commments, it is apparent that "insufficiency of annoyances" is one of my real problems, and that this one game is sufficiently annoying to provide all the necessary diversion of that kind that I need, so I don't really have a significant requirement for another game.

So like most coincidences, "it doesn't really matter."

John

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Bill D
Date: 12 May 13 - 10:52 PM

John.. I'll match your weird aces with my TV timing. I can be fixing lunch, working in my shop, reading Mudcat... whatever.... and decide to go watch TV for awhile. I sit down, push the ON button, and about 60-70% of the time hit a commercial!
Now I KNOW that commercials take 'only' about 10-15% of each hour, but I seem to have the knack of finding them.
I suppose folks will say I subconsciously head for the TV at certain times... but it doesn't feel that way.

Veddy strange.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: GUEST
Date: 13 May 13 - 01:25 AM

Michael, in regard to your original post, it's not not a coincidence at all. It's a sign. It's your wife's way of saying, "I'm still here with you."

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 May 13 - 01:26 AM

Bill D -

You're just too old (like me). Research not too long ago showed that 80% of people under 30 can't tell the difference between the commercials and the programs.

You're probaly just getting perfectly good (as good as there are) programs and they just look like commercials to us "elder citizens."

But like with my coincidence, "if you can't fix it, it doesn't matter." Be assured it can't be fixed.

John

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 13 May 13 - 01:42 AM

Coincidence??...Naw, it was just another manifestation of love, and the chance to share it with us..just like the times you were proud to be seen with her, and known by how much you loved (read: love) her. As long as she is in your heart, she really hasn't completely passed on, has she?
You can't see it...but it doesn't mean it ain't there!

.....and the story isn't over......yet.

Regards,

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 May 13 - 03:13 AM

This morning, both 1 across in The Guardian crossword and question 1 in The Times quiz had the same answer ~~ "Dirham", a unit of currency in several African countries of which I had never previously heard.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: GUEST,hg
Date: 21 May 13 - 04:42 AM

Lothar Schafer says, "we can expect that synchronistic events will occur if the universe is mind like wholeness."

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 21 May 13 - 12:17 PM

There are certain TV series (any US-ians remember "My Three Sons"?) where I've seen only a few of the many episodes aired. "Nick at Night" used to run old B&W programs late at night, and it seemed like any time I happened to catch "My Three Sons", it was always one of the two or three episodes I'd already seen. It's happened with other programs on other TV channels as well. I always wondered what the odds were on that kind of thing...

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Max Johnson
Date: 22 May 13 - 05:58 AM

Carl Jung wrote a paper on what he called 'synchronicity' that is worth a read if you're interested in co-incidence. He used his theory in an attempt to explain partly the seemingly consistant accuracy of the I Ching.

Jung was asked to de-bunk the I Ching but subsequently said that he could be made to believe that "a god lives within its pages".

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: GUEST
Date: 22 May 13 - 07:50 PM

Michael,

Synchronicity is meaningful coincidence. I don't think that same word in the same slot of a crossword puzzle is a meaningful coincidence unless you're heading to Africa soon.

I'm not sure coincidence is a word I would use to describe "meaningful coincidence" since I believe there is some intelligence, some orchestration behind meaningful events that occur simultaneously. The universe speaks to us in our own language. It only requires that we be receptive.

My grandfather used to do the crossword puzzle every morning. He'd make his coffee, do his puzzle. Kept him sharp. He was very well read and knowledgeable. I miss him.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 23 May 13 - 09:38 AM

'Synchronicity' is not a word I have used. I am simply relating some coincidences, without any interest in whether such occurrences are 'meaningful'. I am far more interested in the fact that your grandfather was a fellow cruciverbalist.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: GUEST
Date: 23 May 13 - 11:11 PM

Cruciverbalist sounds like someone who crucifies words :-)

My Scottish grandfather, the cruciverbalist, was a big tall man who never lost any of his hair. It was white for all the time I knew him. When my parents got divorced, we went to live with my grandparents for a few years so I got to know him pretty well. He was stern at times but mostly a lot of fun, a merciless tickler. I can't remember him ever losing his temper. He never drank. He had a sweet tooth and so there was always a chance of him sharing cookies or candy. He was the first one up every morning, very early- making coffee, getting the paper, doing the crossword...

Grampa never made it to college because he could not afford it (they had no financial aid back then) but still he was very literate and knew everything about everything,-especially history. He kept a huge Bible that had been in his family for several generations and could trace his family back further than any of my other grandparents. He had a box of very old pictures, so old that some of them were copper plates.

Even though Grampa went stone deaf at about age 35 from working in a machine shop, he could still pick up the vibrations on a dance floor. He could waltz; he was a graceful dancer. He could fix anything and did a lot of repairs around the house and he was very meticulous in the way he went about them. And he loved cats! We had several over the years. I remember how he made a big production out of feeding them.

I remember so many things. Life goes fast.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 24 May 13 - 08:09 AM

What wonderful memories! He sounds like a good man - and a brilliant grandfather.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Aug 13 - 03:10 AM

This morning, I added to the ongoing "Who invented UK folk clubs?" thread with some observations on the skiffle craze of the early 50s, in particular the impro'd instruments used in that genre; a topic I have not thought on for a considerable time.

Then this morning's Times came, & I turned first to the anagrammatic 'Polygon' puzzle on the back page of Times2.

Today's solution I solved in a few seconds as "WASHBOARD".

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 16 Aug 13 - 10:34 PM

Jimmy Page, pre-Zeppelin:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lx_7do9UR9Y&feature=plpp

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 12:45 AM

That would have been more appropriately posted on the other thread I ref'd, "Who invented folk clubs?". As we have drifted a bit from coincidence with that, tho: I would remark that, whatever they chose to call themselves, that was not taxonomically a genuine skiffle group, which would have had washboard & teachest-string bass instead of the standard drum-kit & double-bass they used: an adaptation of the skiffle sound to a more conventional lineup.

Mamma don't allow no category-errors here! (But you, I daresay, don't care what...)

Very nice video nevertheless, for which many thanks!

~M~

Now, to return to coincidences...

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 01:31 PM

In regard to amazing coincidences, this is the most amazing one that has ever happened to me. True story.

St. Patrick's Day 2011. I was spending a very quiet evening at home. I remember thinking to myself, "This is nice," because over here in America, people get crazy on St. Patrick's Day. Then I felt a little chilly.

Now we had a Waterford fireplace insert- propane- made in Ireland. Because they had stopped selling Waterfords here, parts for repairs were unavailable. My boyfriend had a special method of lighting it because the ignitor did not function properly and we couldn't get a replacement. He had already turned in and I thought, "How hard can it be?" I had watched him do it several times.

You guessed it. It blew up in my face which was like inches from the thing. Glass flying everywhere! I was wearing my reading glasses at the time and all the shards that were heading straight for my eyes were deflected. One or two minor scratches on my face. I didn't catch on fire. No fire at all in fact. Just an explosion. All that happened to me was a face full of soot- comical, like in the cartoons :-)

Irish stove, St. Patty's Day, lucky me!!! It was as though I had received a visit from the great saint himself! St. Patrick is actually British if memory serves.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Rumncoke
Date: 18 Aug 13 - 10:14 AM

I just had a shower of coincidental findings and readings of my home town in Yorkshire.

I read the name three times the same day, the evening before I was writing a song and decided to include an actual person - and found that he had gone to work there straight from school - before he was famous - which I thought strange enough at the time.

I left home forty four years ago, and I don't often see it mentioned....

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Dec 13 - 03:47 AM

My wife Emma was in Manhattan last week for a friend's party. She was staying in a hotel just over the river in Weehauken NJ. Returning at 0130 in the morning thru the Lincoln Tunnel, she & a friend overshot their bus stop, and found themselves about 5 miles into Jersey City in the rain in the small hours; no buses, no taxis. "We'd better ask someone the way," Emma said, and asked one of the few passers-by for help. "Where are you staying?" the lady asked. "The Sheraton Lincoln Harbor," Emma replied. "Why," said the helpful lady, "I work there. Come up to my apartment and I'll call a taxi for you."

Now, what were the chances of finding an employee of the very hotel they were staying at 0130 5 miles away in he middle of Jersey City! Emma sez she must have a Guardian Angel.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Nov 14 - 05:19 AM

I start every day with crosswords, together with The Times anagram polygon on its puzzle page. Yesterday's was a nine-letter one, with a couple each of Ts & Hs & Os + two more letters. I stared & stared, & it just wouldn't work -- especially as I was a bit distracted by the discomfort caused by my only remaining lower left molar having worked a bit loose in the gum.

Suddenly, after leaving it & returning five or six times, the letters fell into place as I stared at them, as they always will if one persists long enough.

The word was 'toothache'

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Nov 14 - 07:53 AM

Here's a synchronicity about a house that my friend Larry lived in.

(Michelle is Mary's daughter/Larry's niece. Mary is Larry's sister.)

Says Larry:

Before my family rented the place in 1960 or thereabouts, Steve Deason's family (Steve is Michelle's father) lived in exactly the same house. And it gets stranger....

After my father passed away, Mary and Steve took over the place for a couple of years before moving elsewhere. Ten years later, by pure coincidence, Joe (Michelle's brother) rented exactly the same place. He didn't realize he's rented the same unit until he told Michelle the address later.

That house has at least three generations of accidental Cunningham/Deasons.

Joe's wife told me she's certain there's a ghost in that house, too. It seemed to lurk in the doorway to my father's room (though she didn't know that was his room until I told her today).

He didn't seem like the haunting type, but I'm not privy to those rules and regs.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Nov 14 - 04:39 PM

There are rules about old tv shows, one being if you've only seen one episode of something, when that something rolls around on late night tv it will be the one episode you've already seen. Another is that if you want to show someone a show you like, the episode that comes on is always the one you hate.

These are pre-Internet rules, obviously.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Apr 15 - 12:16 AM

We were shopping yesterday and had cat-food on the list. I picked up a jelly-pack labelled "For Senior Cats -- 7 years old and over".

"I don't think she's over 7," my wife said.
"Oh, yes, I think she is," I replied.

I have just checked her documents, and found that today -- this very day -- is actually her 8th birthday. We shall have to have a party for her or something.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: meself
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 11:31 PM

So this morning, searching for something on youtube to occupy my mind over breakfast, I chose at random a lecture on Wordsworth's "Westminster Bridge", the full title of which, I had forgotten, informs us that it is set in "London, 1802". Fast forward eight hours or so, I put on a DVD of the movie version of 'Vanity Fair' - the opening scene has at the bottom, the words, "London, 1802". Flash forward another few hours, and, waiting for someone to do something, I'm reading just a couple of pages from a memoir by the Prince Edward Island writer Lucy Maud Montgomery - at this point in her story (July, 1912), she has just arrived in London, and is staying in a hotel "in Russell Square, the haunt of so many of the characters in Vanity Fair", the more important of which she goes on to name and reminisce upon.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 03:46 AM

Seen this kid of thing all the time, sometimes the coincidence is amusing. Like the advert for BPAS (British Pregnancy Advisory Service) and above it a sign with arrow pointing the way to "Ace Tube Manipulators"
What I have not correlated is the number of times it does not happen.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 05:08 AM

a party for a cat, i hope it does not create caterwauling

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 05:10 AM

if you provide the cat with catawha be careful it might produce cataplexy

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 08:20 AM

We used to know a Northern Ireland piper living in London.
He told us the story of his being booked to play at an Irish pub in the northernmost part of London.
He set out in good time and arrived outside the pub early enough to set up ready for the night's performance, but when he came to get his pipes from the boot of the car, he found it open and the pipes missing.
Desperate, he leapt into the car and began re-tracing his rout - without success.
After about an hour, he gave up and called into a pub on his rout for a drink to calm his nerves.
On explaining his plight to the governor, he was told that an hour or so earlier two young lads had come in with a set of pipes they had found lying in the road - not knowing what they were, they had tried to sell them
Apparently, a set of traffic calming 'speed bumps' had caused the boot of his car to fly open and the pipes to disgorge themselves into the road.
The landlord, knowing that there was an Irish music session in a neighboring pub, has sent them over to see if anybody could identify them
Paul turned up at his original destination, only to find his pipes had arrived an hour before he did
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 09:47 AM

A lovely story, Jim , good that it had a happy ending

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Thompson
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 05:52 PM

When I was a teenager I discovered a magical antique shop on Dublin's quays. I used to save up my pocket money and anything I earned babysitting, and buy birthday and Christmas presents, and presents for myself, there.
One of my discoveries was an amethyst ring - a pale amethyst, oval, set in silver with an unusual setting surrounded by a rope-twined spiral. I gave it to my mother, who wore it a lot - she had beautiful hands with perfect nails.
I got to know the woman who ran the shop a bit, and she quizzed me in the Dublin way about my seed, breed and generation. It turned out that when she was younger my mother used to visit the shop, and when she was younger again, so did my grandmother and her sisters. "All beauties," she said dreamily.
Years passed, and one day I visited my mother and found her surprised and shaken. She told me an odd story. "I woke this morning," she said, "and looked at my hand, and thought, 'There's my ring.' Then I woke up a bit more and thought, 'Of course that's my ring!' Then I realised…"
When she had been 17 or 18 or so, she had got a present of a ring from her aunt Kay: a pale oval amethyst…
One day it fell off her finger - she missed it later and retraced her steps and searched and searched, but concluded that it must have fallen down a drain.
Somehow the same ring must have found its way back to the shop, where I bought it and gave it (back) to her.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: GUEST,dáithí
Date: 01 Jul 15 - 07:39 AM

I was on holiday in Paris many years ago (first time there) and happened to mention to my wife that a colleague from work had left a few months ago and gone to live in Paris, working as an au pair.
I said what a coincidence it would be if we bumped into her.
My wife snorted with derision at this..."Do you know how many people there are living in Paris?"
A few minutes later, walking down into a Metro station, we met that colleague on her way out - and exchanged a few stunned words!

D

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Mr Red
Date: 01 Jul 15 - 11:29 AM

what was the exchange with the wife a minute later? I bet that was no coincidence.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Jul 16 - 04:39 PM

Things happen every now & again to bring me back to this old thread of mine.

Flicking just now thru a film guide, an intermittent odd-moment practice, I was reminded of the 'Halloween' film franchise of some years back, aspects of which have spooked me since seeing the first one:-

in which 6-year-old called Michael Myers [I was called Michael Myer at 6} murders his big sister Judith {my sister, 7 years my senior & now 91, is called Judith} at their home in Haddonfield {I have lived for the past 40 years in the Cambridgeshire village of Haddenham}.

'The franchise predominately focuses on the fictional character of Michael Myers who was committed to a sanitarium as a child for the murder of his older sister, Judith Myers. Fifteen years later, he escapes to stalk and kill the people of Haddonfield' - Wikipedia

An odd concatenation of near-enoughs....

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Jul 16 - 06:09 PM

Mourning a niece, I asked after organ donation, which kinda freaked out a nephew/cousin, so as I was explaining that "I'd like someone to have her eyes" I turned on the TV - to a close-up shot of a disembodied eye being held by a fictional doctor or cop. Which freaked everybody out.

Smallest world story is a friend goes to an out-of-state wedding and meets *my* mom's best friend from back where I was born, nowhere near either where my friend and I now lived, nor my mom then, nor the wedding venue...

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Jul 16 - 06:28 PM

Some might give a dispassionate odds of this scrap paper having a special application, but the incident is an affair of the heart that has no other equal in the world and deserves to be appreciated as amazing.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: frogprince
Date: 05 Jul 16 - 09:47 PM

A few years ago my wife and I found ourselves with some spare time in Flagstaff Arizona. We had noticed a nearby pioneer museum, so we checked it out. There was a sizable display of antique woman's hats;
My wife got into a conversation about them with another woman. My wife mentioned that her aunt lived near a large hat factory in Upton, Ma., in a house built by a man who manufactured hat boxes. The other woman had been life-long friends with said aunt.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: DMcG
Date: 14 Jul 16 - 03:50 AM

I was driving to work this morning and spotted the model of the vehicle in front of me was MGL2560, which seemed to qualify as an amazing co-incidence.

No? Well, normally for an alphanumeric code you would set A=1, B=2, C=3 and so on, but suppose you started at A=2, B=3, C=4,D=5, E=6.
And then (racking your brains a bit) you remember that in the ANSII code that would put 0 as meaning a question mark. So the whole thing is MCGLADE?

Which happens to be my surname.

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Jul 16 - 09:23 AM

god moves in mysterious ways, and someday we all have to meet our maker ,take heed , you greedy capitalists

Subject: RE: BS: A coincidence I found amazing
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Jul 16 - 02:37 AM

Some things are not meant to be understood.

Some years back I visited my hometown in Virginia from which I had been gone 12 years. A friend of my brothers' had then lived in a hamlet five miles from town. I stood on a street corner debating with myself whether I wanted to ring him up just to say Hi- he had not been a particular friend of mine so there was no real reason to do so.

Something made me turn and look at the other end of the block just as that friend came into view. He was on his way to get a haircut so I told him I'd tell my brothers we had met and let him go. He was not nearly as mind-boggled as I.