Communication coincidence

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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.

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I was working in Locarno, Switzerland as a disc jockey and my girlfriend who made unique exotic leather handbags, lived in Neuchatel, also in Switzerland. Neuchatel is a three and a half hour drive – some three hundred kilometers away from Locarno on a very indirect route. I was missing my girlfriend and was hoping to see her over the weekend but there was a problem with the telephones and I was unable to confirm her coming. On Friday night I was working in the discotheque unaware of my girlfriend’s movements when a young girl came in and sat next to me in the discotheque control booth. On her table she placed a uniquely exotic handbag that only my girlfriend could have made. “Where did you get this?” I asked her. So she told me that a couple of days previous she had been in Neuchatel and had seen this girl making handbags. She asked her if she could come by and pick one up at the weekend but the girl told her no because she was going to see her boyfriend over the weekend. The coincidence was extraordinary because the young girl was just a tourist, could have gone anywhere but bizarrely came to Locarno and then chose to come into the very discotheque where I was working and then told me that my girlfriend was indeed coming to see me! She had no idea of our relationship or of my girlfriend's destination.
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Date submitted:Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:51:42 +0000Coincidence ID:4853