Almost (but not quite) spooky

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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 died last year. I'm now in the very early stages of seeing a woman I've known on and off for 30 years, all going nicely, very low key. So last Saturday, I was out for dinner with some friends in a completely different circle, when the wife of the couple asked me how Christine is. I talked about Christine for a bit, then she explained to my friend's sister, who was at the dinner and is in yet another social circle, that I am in the early stages of going out with this woman, and what she did for a living. The sister then turned out to know her from a yoga group. This was mildly surprising, given there are 8m+people in London, but it happens. But then my friend's sister started looking as if something was troubling her. She denied there was anything up, but she was clearly concerned about something. Over the next week, it turned out that after my wife's death, my daughter had invited a few women to pick over my wife's jewellery in case they would like a keepsake. My friend, the host of the dinner party, picked a very distinctive and unusual necklace. But when she got home, she decided she wasn't keen on it, and, weeks later, gave it to her sister, who loved it. However, when she got home, she decided she, too, wasn't that keen on it after all. So a few weeks later still, she gave it to her friend - Christine, the woman I'm now seeing. She had been shown it and immediately loved it - and had been keeping it in her jewellery box to wear one evening when she went out with me. So over a year, the necklace had passed from my wife to the woman I am now seeing, passing through two other women. The three, I should add, all live in widely different parts of London.
Total votes: 300
Date submitted:Sun, 25 Nov 2018 22:22:20 +0000Coincidence ID:10138