Cambridge Coincidences Collection

As of the 23rd May 2022 this website is archived and will receive no further updates.

understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining.

Many of the animations were produced using Flash and will no longer work.

Well I Never!

Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University wants to know about your coincidences!

really weird

Since being made redundant, I have been through a bit of a challenging time and at times felt it difficult to motivate myself. One day I suddenly got to my feet and tidied out a cupboard, a job I have been meaning to do for ages. Feeling very satisified with myself, I went to make a cup of coffee and while waiting for the kettle to boil, said out loud to myself "Its time to sow these seeds of change Liz". It really surprised me as it seemed such a strange thing to say and to say it out loud as well as there was only myself in the house. Whilst drinking my coffee, I thought I would keep my sorting momentum going and check the sell by date of some things which had been on my kitchen shelf for ages. I lifted down a pack of spaghetti and nearly dropped it as the label said . . .. . Organic Spaghetti - brand name SEEDS OF CHANGE. I must admit it stopped me in my tracks. I was so impressed with the synchronicity, I cut the label out and stuck it in my journal. (Also, who calls an organic pasta company Seeds of Change!)

My Dad's golf clubs

My dad, aged 89 and who is not at all well, decided he wanted to sell some ancient, left handed, original hickory-shafted golf clubs he had since the 1920s. I didn't really know where to start looking so googled vintage golf clubs and immediately found a site which looked suitable. I sent an e mail off to them and got one back from their chairman saying that by strange coincidence he had been asked a few days earlier if he knew of anyone selling left handed, original hickory-shafted golf clubs. He put me in touch with the gentleman who had asked. After exchanges of photos etc, the man said he thought he would like to buy them but really wanted to see them first. He lives in Wiltshire and my Dad is in North Yorkshire. A week later he rang to say their music group had just been booked to play in Easingwold so he would be coming up to Yorkshire and could he call in, which he duly did. He bought my Dad's clubs. He had been looking for some for 10 years. It turns out he is the ONLY left handed player who ONLY plays using original hickory-shafted sticks AND he plays in plus fours. My Dad and I did laugh as we knew the clubs could not have gone to a better home.

Births, Deaths and Ex-pats!

My poor Mother lost two husbands to heart attacks on the 6th May, 26 years apart. It is also the birthday of one of my nieces. Furthermore, my Father said that he was hoping for a blue eyed blonde little girl for his birthday and I was born (with blue eyes and blonde hair!) the day before his, on the 1st February which is also my nephew's birthday, my best friend's birthday and her husband's (who also has a surname derived from my own and comes from my birth town). My Mother used to live in Bahrain and was a neighbour to Noel Gordon's aunty and when she was shopping in the (old) tiny branch of Boots in Ross-on-Wye, she bumped into her (many years after she'd left Bahrain). My best friend from Grammar School was heavily into travelling during her 20's and ended up working in Hong Kong. She was hanging out with some ex-pats and they were discussing their home towns. When She mentioned Ross-on-Wye, another girl asked if she knew me- she just happened to have been my best friend from Primary school who'd moved back to London before starting Secondary school...........

Old friend

I went to boarding school in Winnipeg Canada in 1956/57 and became friends with one of my room-mates Gayle who married an RCMP. Over the years I lost touch with her but in 1986 went to my High School reunion in Winnipeg and hired a car. I was lost so parked in a shopping mall and went up to a jewellry counter to ask the sales assistant where a certain street was and it was Gayle.

Same Holiday

I was widowed in 1993 aged 55 and 3 years later I started a social club in Cardiff for people on their own in the 50/60 age group. Unbeknown to me there was a similar group in Bath and when they saw an advertisement in the Telegraph about our group, their social secretary, a widower, contacted me with a view to arranging a joint activity. In the course of the telephone conversation with this unknown man trying to arrange a date for our groups to meet, he mentioned that he would be on holiday for 2 weeks in February and I said that was a coincidence as I was going away as well with friends from work. It turned out that we were going on the same holiday, a cruise on the Nile on the same boat! We met at the airport when he came over to our group of 5 women and asked if one of us was called Margaret. We then met again on the boat as he was in the next but one cabin. He sat at out table in th restaurant and we became friends during the holiday and this continued when we got home and our two groups met up for joint skittles matches. 3 years later in 2000 we got married, sold both our houses and bought a new one half way between Bath & Cardiff.

New acquaintance working for same family as me in France

I was an au pair n France in 1967 to a family called Lannaud. The father's name was Bernard. In approximately 1983 I was at a dinner party at my mother in law's house. Her guests included her sister from Ireland and the sister's friend who was unknown to any of us. For some reason the subject of au pairs came up ( odd in itself as none of the guests had young children). It turned out that the sister's friend had been an aupair to the very same Lannaud family when Bernard was a child.

Wedding Car

Around 5 or 6 years ago my friends and I were walking to the shops when a very fancy looking wedding car drove past us. The registration on the car was '** DWG.' One of my friends made a comment something like 'Thats a nice car dawg!' DWG-dawg Please excuse the terrible joke, I would have been about 17 at the time and believe me I would not have included it had it not been neccesary. Literally straight after this we walked to my house just along the road. When we arrived, my sister had taken a box of old photographs out of the loft. One of my friends and I looked through a few of them and stumbled upon a photo of the exact car with the same registration that we had seen 5 minutes before. It turned out it was my aunt's wedding car in 1990. She was married in Stepps in Glasgow and I live 20 minutes from Glasgow but I don't think this should take anything away from the coincidence as I didn't attend the wedding. Also, my dad has many boxes of photographs in the loft of which my sister could have chosen any to look at.

Duvet

Tuesday January 23, a particularly miserable morning weather wise. I went down stairs and texted a friend to say that the weather makes me want to go and hide under the duvet. I switched on Radio 4 and within two or three minutes a passage from a book called 'Midlife without a crisis' was being read and the author had made reference to wanting to hide under the duvet for six weeks.

barn owl

At the time I was living in Lincolshire , which I have been told has a reasonable popultion of barn owls. I like driving, we had been reccommended to try The Pie House, a pub near Wainfleet, by a work colleague, for an evening out for my partner and I. Although I like owls and had seen a few at various times of the day, there seems to be a time in the evening when there is an increased chance of seeing one and this has been jokingly referred to by myself and others as " barn owl time". After the meal we set off from the pub to wend our way back towards Boston, taking the back roads to enjoy the countryside. Only a mile or so from the pub I made the comment, "It looks like barn owl time" and within no more than 5 seconds a barn owl flew low across the road in front of us. With the weather conditions, time of year, (summer) and time of day, the odds of seeing a barn owl were quite good, but to have one fly across in front of the car within 5 seconds of me saying that really gave us a good laugh.

good ole Elton

at home I, like lots of sad men have my own study full of men things like vinyls, tapes, cds, DVDs, computers, magazines, loads of books etc etc, it's my room. I'm apt to play music very loud on my very loud music playing device. My room is covered in shelves and on top of those shelves are my large heavy speakers. Well a few years ago I arrived home from work, got fed by my beloved wife and retired to my room. I decided to put a cd on and the track playing at the time of my coincidence was turned up really loud, after turning away from my music system to look for a book on a shelf, pulled out the book and turned around to sit on my seat. As I did this movement the speaker came off the shelf and missed my head by width of a hair, I felt the downward draft of the heavy speaker, and crashed on the floor. A very near miss. My head would have been very very sore possibly a bit more serious that a severe headache. And the track playing on the music system..........Someone saved my life tonight by Elton John this is a true story, trust me regards Malcolm Carter Braintree, Essex

Pages