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!

Spatula spookiness

With radio headphones in, I was in the garage and came across an old spatula which should have been in the kitchen. I was just carrying the spatula back into the kitchen when the radio voice in my ear said ".....I'm no chef, I don't go round holding a spatula". I looked down at what was in my hand, not really believing she had just said that, as it is probably something you would never hear on the radio again. Bizarre.

Untwisted hanger

The vacuum cleaner hose had got clogged up, and I didn’t have a stick long enough to unclog it with. The usual thing would be to untwist a metal coat hanger, fashion a little hook at the end of it with a pair of pliers, then try and pull the fluff out from within the tube. But my coat hangers were plastic. So I curled up the hose, put it in a bag and took it down to the garage, hoping I would have something down there I could use instead. I did find an old curtain pole but it wasn’t quite long enough. So I gave up for now and decided to walk down to the beach. The sun was out and I had my shades on to minimise the glare. I didn’t notice something on the pavement and kicked it as I walked past. I looked down and what did I see? An untwisted metal coat hanger with a little hook that had been fashioned at the end – exactly what I wanted. I picked it up, took it back to the garage, and unblocked the hose.

Custard apples

I was reading a Spanish magazine and they were explaining how the Malaga area was increasing yields in certain less common fruits such as custard apples. I had not heard of these before and wondered whether or not I should try one, but soon forgot about it. Two hours later I was listening to a BBC podcast comedy chat with Dave Gorman and the subject got onto fruit. Out of nowhere he suddenly said “Have you tried custard apples?”, then went on to describe how delicious they were and the fact that they did actually taste of custard.

Good vibrations

Turned on the radio which was set to BBC Norfolk to hear them playing Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys. I wanted to listen to a pop quiz on Radio 2 so turned over immediately to hear the quiz master saying “no, sorry, the actual answer was Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys.”

Purple carrots

I was watching Have I Got News for You on iPlayer and they had reached the missing words round. The first sentence was ‘blank’ used to be purple, scrawny and pungent, and the missing word answer turned out to be carrots. Then the picture suddenly froze and so while I was waiting for the bandwidth to return I glanced down at my local paper. It was open on page 37 and the first thing I looked down at was a headline saying ‘Antequera Produces The First Purple Carrot Gin’.

Heading that way

I was looking through some old books, with my earphones in as I also listened to a play on the radio. I found an old book and started thumbing through it, finding a page to read at random. My eyes alighted on the text: “What are we going to do next?” she asked, “do you think we should head that way?” No sooner had I finished reading those words than a character in the radio play in my ears suddenly stated “I wouldn’t head that way if I was you!”, as though answering what I had just read on the page even though it was in a completely different context.

Two songs

I was driving in Spain, and we had Spanish radio on. So far they had played just Spanish songs for the whole journey. One was quite a catchy tune, so I turned to my son and idly said “it’s a shame there aren’t more tunes like that, where you pick up the tune the first time you hear it. It’s a bit like that song last year from Kelly Clarkson, you knew as soon as you heard it that it had a good tune. What was it called now? The …. something… song. Ironic! Can’t remember the title!” As I was racking my brains, the Spanish song finished and the Spanish DJ rattled off a quick-fire Spanish link, none of which I understood apart from his final word (in a heavy accent): “…..Kelly Clarkson y The Heartbeat Song!” at which point the song started playing, even though it had last been in the charts over a year ago. What were the chances? Then the next day I was driving through the Spanish mountains with a different Spanish radio station and we saw lots of lovely purple flowered trees. I absent-mindedly started singing ‘purple trees, purple trees’ to the tune of Prince’s Purple Rain. Sure enough, 3 minutes later the radio started playing Purple Rain by Prince.

Mandela impression

At the time Nelson Mandela died, I was listening to some tributes to him on the radio. They were playing a speech of his that was quite lengthy which I had never heard before. I wasn't really listening to what he was saying as I was sorting out some receipts at the same time, but I thought I would practise my Mandela impression so waited for a pause in the speech as Mandela rose to a crescendo with “…and what I say to you all here is……” at which point he paused so I came out with a random “Let there be peace!” in my best Mandela voice. This was followed immediately by the real Mandela saying “…let there be peace!”. He could have said anything, I had no clue whatsoever what he was about to say and I had never previously listed to a Mandela speech before.

The cat

So, I left my home back on the coast of Croatia, in February 2014, and was helping my friends in Alameda, California, babysitting their child. I was also asked to help with another baby, and family lives on Lake Shore drive, by the beach. There's a 4 lane road, then sidewalk, and a sand beach, with just occasional bushes of some weed, mostly sand. </p> <p>When I was leaving my home, I left 4 cats behind, 2 persian older cats, who lived with me 14 yrs before I left, and their daugther, short hair black cat, and Nero, he was born in 2008, being black with extremely long hair, no one wanted to adopt him because he was black, but then I said I'm not giving him away and kept him. He was the most precious cat, being friend with a parrot and so connected to me. </p> <p>I'm not sure was it 3 or 4 months since I left, I was walking fussy baby in the stroller near shore line on the sidewalk. All the time since I got there I was wondering how come I never ever saw a cat on the street, so common in my own country.

Snow Days in Devon are Rare but ominous

My children know exactly when it last snowed in Devon. Every winter they wish for snow and talk fondly about those few days back in 2010 when snowed in Dartmouth, England. The snow brings happy memories for them oblivious to the backdrop of events that took place that year. I remember the first surprising flakes settling on the grass as we were driving away from the hospital when my daughter Ruby aged 8 had just been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Snow is very rare this far south and it seemed appropriately surreal. A week later the snow came thick and deep enough to play in. My husband, two daughters and I went tobogganing, ironically using the girls summer body boards, they took turns to pull each other up the steep field behind my best friend, Lisa's house. Lisa's four year old son, George and her husband, Stephen had made the biggest snow man I had ever seen. It stood nearly six foot tall and Lisa could see it from her bedroom window as she lay dying from breast cancer. Overall the year 2010 was not a great and we happily put it behind us.

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