Cambridge Coincidences Collection

Well I Never!

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

Meeting on a train journey

Paddington Station the evening commute - the train to Penzance was delayed by 2 hours due to a fatality. Suddenly, we had the go ahead to get on a train the line was now open. There were hundreds of people on the concourse and it was a race to get a seat on the train. I travel second class but when there is a delay and hundreds of people boarding the train with no prospect of a seat I just plonk myself down in first class, as I did this evening. In the four seats facing each other there was me (a woman) and three men.

DIY Tool

A couple of weeks ago I started doing some DIY - building some walls using plaster board fixed to a metal framework. I'd been told that I needed to get a special tool to crimp the sections of metal frame together so I looked on the internet for it. I live in France so was searching in French but didn't know the correct name of the tool and had a stab at various word combinations and eventually came up with pince à expansion; From the picture of the tool it was clear that it wasn't the one I needed although it said it was for plaster board.

Birthdays

My mother gave birth to me, June 12th. My mother Expected to give birth to my brother on my birthday, but delivered 4 months early exactly on February 12th. My oldest sister gave birth to her second daughter on her fathers birthday. May 18th. My my second oldest sister gave birth to her oldest son, March 20th exactly 1 year later she gave birth to another son, March 20th. I gave birth to my son on my 18th birthday. June 12th. My second oldest sister gave birth to another boy, sharing his birthday with his older brothers. March 20th. March 20th is my nephews fathers fathers birthday.

The T Shirt

I belong to a group who puts on a folk music festival (the South Country Fair) the 3rd weekend of July every year in a relatively small town (population less than 3,000) in Southern Alberta, Canada. The festival is not huge by some standards - lets say 1200 attendees or so a year - but we have our own merchandise which includes SCF shirts for our attendees and one in a different colour for our volunteers. In the summer of 2010 my future son-in-law silk screened a batch of SCF T shirts for the directors, let's say 50 or so shirts.

Name on a brick

I have an allotment, in Edinburgh, and of the eight which surround mine (including the ones that touch just at a corner) two have water taps. I've been there for 10 or more years, and filled a bucket or attached a hose more times than I could count. In April 2019 there I was, idly filling a bucket, my eyes wandering over the adjoining plot next to the tap. Some tidying up... some weed-suppressing matting weighted down by bricks. And on the old bricks (an allotment area is full of them - making paths, walls, props, movable weights) are the brick-makers names.

Christmas incident

One year my horrid in- laws were going to visit for Christmas dinner. I had really tried hard and pulled out all the stops. Bought a little picnic table that could fold up into a carry case. I’d put the table up which folded out into two benches and a table with an umbrella. I was in South Africa then so it was warm at Christmas. Well that table looked great in the garden and my small daughter was so excited with the decorations from the middle umbrella to the house roof. And I had put the lamb leg roast and ham out with the vegetables on the table.

Scoot on as scooters do

When I was 11 years old I was over a friends house playing. I rode my razor scooter over to his house that day which was one of my favorite toys. At some point his dad came home and yelled up the stairs that he’s sorry for whoever’s scooter was out front because he had ran it over.

Angie Arcila

2019 has been a rough year for our family ever since my dad’s passing Memorial Day 2016 life has gotten very complicated financially and emotionally so this month October/2019 has been hard I’ve Been out of work due to our disabled child being sick so am out on ny pfl “payed family leave” and my husband has been out of work for almost a year so money has been tight and am just going back to work in three days so unfortunately my gas was shut off and we are bathing with water I heat up in a microwave so then my microwave went dead and about two days go by then on Columbus Day we went out for a

Gut feelings

Met this person for the very first time at a social event just as I was about to leave, they left quite an impression on me and I ended up staying longer, running late to some other place I had to go to. Then, as I left, I had this very strong feeling that they might come to the same place as I was going (there was an event scheduled there too, but it was a very niche kind of event). Two hours later they showed up to event 2 and we crossed paths just as they entered the main room. I was very surprised and almost said "I knew you were coming".

Lost friend's location on front page

In the early 1980s I was in Stockholm and was soon going to go to Paris where an old friend from high school used to live. It had been a few years and I didn't know if she still lived there. I thought I would need to call my parents in Chicago to ask them to call her parents (also in Chicago). That day I missed a train and had to wait an hour for the next one so I bought a Wall St Journal. On the first page (column one I think) the first sentence was "Ellen S...

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