Cambridge Coincidences Collection

Well I Never!

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

Day of Song Release

I have been working with a producer who had struggled with my song due to the melody timing and key. But, after persistence, we finally got a completed song that I can proudly release. I have never met her in person as we do communicate completely online and don't know each other. I made some changes to the song, mainly the choruses, and then I sent her a private link to let her hear the changes. She liked them. I had also sent a 2nd message as I forgot to let her know the date of the release. She got back to me and said something like this, "What a coincidence!

Travelling coincidence

Many years ago (too many now! – 1990) a friend and I were travelling to East Africa to visit a mutual friend of ours and to do some climbing (Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Kenya). We all knew each other from the save university caving club. Being recent graduates, our flights were cheap and cheerful ones with Aeroflot. The route took us from Heathrow to Nairobi via a change at Moscow. At Heathrow our seat numbers were allocated: we were sat together.

Book shop

My brother was browsing in a second-hand bookshop and picked up a golf book that he had been wanting to buy for some time to replace one he had lost. On looking in the front cover he was astonished to find that there was an inscription from our father on the lines of "To Geoff, Happy Christmas 1975, Love Dad". It was not just a copy of the book he had lost, but the actual book itself.

Holiday coincidence

We were in an ice cream parlour in the Algarve when our next door neighbour came in. Neither of us knew we were going to be in Portugal at the same time. Neither of us were actually staying in the town where we had the ice cream.

Family member found years later

Our family, from Idaho, paid for our grandparents (accompanied by their son-my uncle) to fly to Honolulu, Hawaii for a vacation in the mid 1980's. While visiting the tourist spot Pearl Harbor, A picture was taken of my grandparents near the "USS Arizona" memorial. The picture was put in an album and never saw the light of day... Until. Flash forward to 2010, my cousin was talking to her new husband about Honolulu, Hawaii and he mentioned that he's been there when he was a kid. In the mid 1980's.

Car with Plate

In 2006, near a Wegmans grocery store in Rochester, New York, United States, I spotted a "BGG666" New York license plate on a winestone-colored Subaru sedan as it passed by me while I was walking. I then followed this car into the parking lot of the Wegmans to examine the car and confirm the letters and digits on its license plates. As far as my coincidence, "BGG" are my initials, and I owned at the time a winestone-colored Subaru whose model and year were identical or nearly identical to those of the sedan with the "BGG666" license plates.

The photo

I was filling out a background verification form for a new job, and wanted to list an old colleague as a reference. I called her, she didn't pick up and she called me back. We started talking, and she said she was interviewing someone called Leah from another firm i used to work with and she mentioned a name. I googled the name cause i was curious and the girl seemed familiar. I hung up and went back to filling out my form.

Life changing decision

After finishing my bachelor I wanted to study script writing as a Master degree, I applied at a lot universities, also got invited to interviews but I did not get accepted. I was very disappointed and self critic. By chance my dad found the Master Mediapsychology, as I read the description I felt like I found my right way. I am shure I wouldn't have become that happy with learning about writing good scripts, I love studying this area of psychology and can't imagine to do anything else anymore! Ony by chance I found my destiny :)

a chance meeting

I was let go from a God awful job. Things were not going well, but I found a posting in an area were my father was from, where I used to visit him as a kid. The area was a little familiar to me, but this part doesn't matter. I was hired as a Technology Specialist in a school district. Upon being hired, I was summoned to report to an orientation early in the summer. When I entered the room the tables were set up in a large square. I was one of the first to arrive and I went to the left far corner to take a seat.

Oblique strategies card

I've been curious about Brian Eno's oblique strategies for some time, and one day I decided to visit a website that randomly shows one of the cards. The card that showed up was "cluster analysis", which was the topic of my Master's thesis, which I was finishing at the time.

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