Village Idiot

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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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My wife Liz' and I married in September1989. We had our honeymoon in Jamaica. On our return Liz needed to find a job. After a few months working in a dairy she found another job processing claims for an insurance company. She was one of dozens of people doing this. Some months passed when Liz' heard that one of the girls, Jo' and her partner John were trying to sell their house. Liz and I were looking to buy a house so Liz asked her about it. Arrangements were made to view and it suited our needs so after some negotiations spanning several months we eventually bought it. (This was in the early 90's during the property crash). As well as buying their house we struck up a great friendship and the 4 of us regularly went out together. About two years later John and Jo' announced that they were going to get married. We were obviously very pleased for them and we used to talk often about their plans. One night I asked John if he had arranged a Honeymoon. He said no because he didn't know where to go. I told him that Liz and I had been to Jamaica. He told me that they had already been there on holiday a couple of years earlier. We got talking and gradually it started to dawn on us that we had all been in Jamaica at the same time. We had flown out and back again on the same flights. They stayed at a hotel about half a mile away from where we were but would come to some of our hotels caberet nights as nothing much happened where they were. After a while of sharing annecdotes of the same things that we had all seen, we got our photographs out and there we found some of our pictures clearly showing John and Jo' in them. We have continued to be great friends and are God Parents to each others children. Not sure if this is what you would class as a coincidence or maybe fate. As if we were mean't to be friends ?
Total votes: 290
Date submitted:Sun, 15 Jan 2012 18:23:46 +0000Coincidence ID:4803