James Plaskett keeps a log of his coincidences.
Coincidences do not happen to me nearly as often,
but, seeing as I have a section on coincidences
on this very site, I thought I'd note down some
of them. So far I have listed the two most intriguing
coincidences, the least amazing one first.
8th Sept 2000: My ex, S, and I were travelling
to a hotel in Solihul (Birmingham) for a wedding
the next day. The plan was to meet S's parents
there. Her parents were driving down from Wigan
(UK); us from
Newport,
Shropshire. Having been on the road for
exactly an hour, we approached the A38/A42 roundabout
east of Birmingham. During the journey, our
conversation had spanned various subjects, but
we had not touched upon S's parents. Spontaneously,
S enthusiastically blurted out that she should
switch on the mobile so they could contact us.
Immediately she reached for her handbag, which
lay by her feet. (I was driving, I hasten to
add). At that moment there was a beep from a
horn as we waited at the roundabout. S asked
if I had undercut someone. then she burst out
laughing. The offending horn had been blasted
by her parents, who were besides us on the adjacent
lane. They had just pulled up as we had been
waiting at the junction. Neither S or I had
spied them. Not only was it a coincidence that
we should encounter them ten miles from our
destination, the really strange thing was they
hit the horn three seconds after S suddenly
mentioned them for the first time of our journey.
Then lots of smaller coincidences began to happen,
as if the big one had satellites, but I won't
bother listing them. I call this phenomena,
of a coincidence generating more coincidences,
a
coincidence nexus. I don't think
there is anything supernatural about it though,
strange things happen sooner or later by sheer
chance.
My next strange excursion into coincidence space
is even weirder. It involves a friend from school
days, Alison (we were never close friends, mind
you, more like familiar classmates/friends-of-friends).
We left school (hurrah!) in 1986 and parted
ways. Circa late '91/early '92, I was travelling
from Bilbrook, a village in South Staffordshire,
to Newcastle Upon Tyne. I got a connection at
Birmingham and read the paper, or some such.
My meditations were interrupted by someone calling
my name. The speaker was Alison, she was sitting
opposite me across the aisle.
Zoom forwards to spring 2002. I was in Amsterdam,
(visiting some dutch friends from Arnhem and
Edam). I had spent the night at a place in Kerkstraat,
the first time I'd used accommodation on that
slightly obscure back street. Next morning I
walked up Kerkstraat to catch a tram into the
town. Not more than 100 meters into my journey,
I hear a faint voice, calling what sounds like
my name. I dismiss it as an illusion. "James
Eadon?" exclaims the more resolute siren
voice, more clearly this time. Of course, it
was Alison, who, by a further coincidence, had
moved into a flat in Kerkstraat only three months
before. She had called out to me as she walking
to her new workplace in Amsterdam. Makes me
smile just to think about it.
Next, a minor coincidence. Late one cold
winters day of early 2003 I was walking in the
direction of my car when I was asked by an aging
gent if there was a place to catch a taxi nearby.
There wasn't, but I offered to give him a lift
to the railway station down the road. I ended
up taking him to his destination a several miles
out of my way. He was travelling on business
and said he would gladly pay me the fare he
would have paid. The very next evening I lost
my car keys. It was dark and I searched in the
driving rain to no avail. In the end I expired
all hope and caught a taxi home. Ruefully, I
asked myself, why in my life of 21st century
luxury, does such a trifle irk me so? Talk about
lack of perspective! The ironic coincidence
was that the businessman I gave the unexpected
lift to gave me a tenner (10 pounds). The following
night my unexpected taxi home cost me a tenner.
Talk about symmetric fate! The coincidence giveth
and the coincidence taketh away.
P.S. I wrote the above yesterday. Today I was
chatting to S on the phone about a missing lead
that is used to charge up my digital video camera.
In vain I had been searching for it for months:
indeed, at lunchtime I was asking at a camera
shop if they had a replacement. As I was chatting
to her, wondering around the house, I looked
down at a set of headphones by the side of the
sofa. Something caught my eye, and sure enough,
beneath the headphone wire coils was the missing
lead!
Also today (at time of writing of course), I received a package from Amazon.co.uk
for SuSE Linux 8.2 - except it contained a Pokemon
game. It isn't a coincidence, but I mention
it anyway, just to let off steam. How the hell
can they confuse Linux with a Gameboy Pokemon
game??? Update - I'm using Mandrake 10 Linux these days.
April 2004 - Was at my mate Madpole's flat in
Poole. He had introduced me to
Grand Theft
Auto Vice City, a PC video game. GTA is
chock full of car chases, often with the cops
in hot pursuit. He had been playing this fairly
obsessively in recent weeks, and I had a half
decent crack at it too. Next morning we stepped
out into the fine spring air when a sports car
screamed past with a dodgy velocity. We glanced
at each other thinking... nah! Then we heard
a siren. A cop car sped past in hot pursuit.
As far as we could remember, it was the first
time either of us had witnessed a cop car chase
first hand, and we were both freaked out. The
virtual reality of the computer game surely
hadn't affected genuine "reality"...
had it?
Tell
me your coincidences, and I'll put them
in one of
these pages.
Jim E.
What do you think?
Add your comment
 | | | | |
| From: |
Julie Williams | Subject: | 2003-09-24 13:26:50 |
| | | | |
| From: |
Jo | Subject: | 2004-02-07 15:37:12 |
| | | | |
| From: |
Jo | Subject: | 2004-02-07 15:39:36 |
| | | | |
help: how to add your comment Page hits: 3868
