Coincidences

[Slim]

While on our cruise last month, the Mrs and I spent evenings after dinner in a bar at the front of the ship called the Crow's Nest, with a panoramic view.

Most nights there was a piano player in attendance later on. One night before she arrived I was idly gazing at the piano, leaning back in a comfortable chair, Scotch in hand, idly wondering: what would happen if I went and sat at the piano to knock out a quick tune?

I was pretty sure I'd be asked to desist fairly quickly. Not only because I wasn't authorised to use it but because I'm a terrible keyboard player; arguably even worse than Geddy Lee.

But my mind continued to wander, and I mused on this: what if Michel Legrand was a passenger on the ship, and he walked up to the piano, sat down and started to play his best-known composition Windmills Of Your Mind? What would they do then?

No more than two minutes later the piano player turned up, sat at the piano and as she was setting up her iPad on the piano, a gentleman in his 50s who'd been having a drink at one of the tables nearby came up to her and had a quiet word in her ear.

A minute or so later she's wishing us all a good evening into the mic atop the piano as usual, and she announces that she's going to start with a request: Windmills Of Your Mind.

My jaw dropped. I'm a rational person and I don't really believe in thoughts and ideas radiating around telepathically, but that certainly gave me pause for thought. I hadn't heard that song for months and I'd never heard it performed live in person before.

She murdered it unfortunately.

[dom]

While on our cruise last month, the Mrs and I spent evenings after dinner in a bar at the front of the ship called the Crow's Nest, with a panoramic view.

Most nights there was a piano player in attendance later on. One night before she arrived I was idly gazing at the piano, leaning back in a comfortable chair, Scotch in hand, idly wondering: what would happen if I went and sat at the piano to knock out a quick tune?

I was pretty sure I'd be asked to desist fairly quickly. Not only because I wasn't authorised to use it but because I'm a terrible keyboard player; arguably even worse than Geddy Lee.

But my mind continued to wander, and I mused on this: what if Michel Legrand was a passenger on the ship, and he walked up to the piano, sat down and started to play his best-known composition Windmills Of Your Mind? What would they do then?

No more than two minutes later the piano player turned up, sat at the piano and as she was setting up her iPad on the piano, a gentleman in his 50s who'd been having a drink at one of the tables nearby came up to her and had a quiet word in her ear.

A minute or so later she's wishing us all a good evening into the mic atop the piano as usual, and she announces that she's going to start with a request: Windmills Of Your Mind.

My jaw dropped. I'm a rational person and I don't really believe in thoughts and ideas radiating around telepathically, but that certainly gave me pause for thought. I hadn't heard that song for months and I'd never heard it performed live in person before.

She murdered it unfortunately.

"Arguably worse than Geddy Lee" - great line!

[captainkurtz]

I think you should be the next Bond, Slim.

[Slim]

Too old now, unfortunately

[Matt2112]

The only story I can offer on this topic is a "small world" incident:

I was in the bar at a Ramada on International Drive in Orlando, in the early-mid '00s. I heard accents like mine from a bunch of folk on the adjacent table and struck up conversation with a middle-aged chap nearest to me.

Turns out he's a fireman based in the station 50 yards down the street I lived on at the time.

Okay, it's not a mind-blowing one but slightly uncanny all the same.

[Fishy]

The only one that happens to me every so often is that someone comes to mind that I haven't seen for a long time and within a day or so I see them.. and it's not friends or acquaintances just random people that pop into my brain...

[Slim]

The only one that happens to me every so often is that someone comes to mind that I haven't seen for a long time and within a day or so I see them.. and it's not friends or acquaintances just random people that pop into my brain...

I used to get that one as a kid, when I was about thirteen. Seemed uncanny and it used to freak out my mum. I'd mention some friend of the family or relative to her that we hadn't heard from for months, and later the same day or the next there'd be a telephone call from them.

[Nickslikk2112]

Took my plate into the kitchen after lunch and I burst out singing Avril Lavigne's Sk8er Boi,  not part of my usual repertoire. Went back in again twenty minutes later and what should come on the radio but Avril Lavigne's Sk8er Boi,..

[Slim]

On my 42nd birthday in 2002 I treated myself to a trip down to London. I'd been back in Derby for a few months by this time and often used to go there on a Saturday. Although this was a Tuesday as it happens but anyway ..

In the car on the way down I turned the radio on to find a documentary about The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and Douglas Adams. The number 42 was discussed. Adams had chosen it at random to be the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything.

Later, after I'd arrived in London I realised the significance of the limited edition IWC watch that I was wearing. It was number 42 of a limited edition of 50, and had 42/50 engraved on the back. I did wear if reasonably often but hadn't thought about the number when I'd put it on.

On the way back to Derby I turned the car radio on again and switched to Radio 2. They were broadcasting a documentary about the musical 42nd Street.

[Matt2112]

It's always startling when I'm reading something while the telly is on and the word I'm reading is said on the telly.

Chances are it will happen occasionally, of course.

[Ali]

About six years ago, I was on holiday in Cyprus during November- when the temperatures are ginger-friendly enough!😂

I was staying in Larnaca and decided to get the bus out to Ayia Napa, never having been before but realising it would be all-but-shut.

At one of the bus stops, a Mum got on with a toddler and buggy and being the gent I am (very occasionally 😄), I offered to help bring the buggy on board and did the same as we got off in AN.

Anyhow, we got chatting and it turns out she was a Borussia Dortmund fanatic (the baby was wearing a BVB babygro 😉) so we had a good natter about footie 😎 Her hubbie was spending the day diving around wrecks apparently.

As it turned out, we both got the same bus back to Larnaca later that day (they were pretty infrequent off-season, so not that surprising) when I helped out again.

Turn the clock forward 3 months and I'm in Lagos on the Algarve visiting a mate who spends most winters out there. One morning we set off for a clifftop walk taking in the amazing rock formations and grottos along the way, for some reason I decided to pop in to a small gift shop next to the lighthouse and who should I bump into...the same German girl 😳, this time her fella was with her.

So what are the chances of that, off-season both times at the opposite ends of Europe

[The Picnic Wasp]

From 1977-1980 I worked as an apprentice chartered surveyor for a local firm. The senior partner / owner was a gentleman of about fifty. After I left I kept in touch with one or two colleagues for a couple of years, but eventually lost touch. In November last year I sat one evening wondering what became of those I had worked with. I decided to do a Google search of the owner only to discover it had been his funeral earlier that day. He was 91.

[Slim]

About fifteen years ago one of my stepdaughters, after digging into her family history, decided that she wanted to see the house in London where her great grandfather had lived. He'd walked from there to Leicestershire in the 1920s, to look for work.

So we went there with her mum and her sister, and it turned out to be in the same secluded little street in Fulham as an ex-girlfriend's place. Almost directly opposite. Apart from my own flat, I didn't regularly stay at any other place when I lived in London.

There are more than 60,000 London streets within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross Station.

[Fishy]

On our way over to arran on Friday it got me thinking of a retired radiologist consultant who I often bumped into when I worked on site before covid who had his own place in Arran.. took a while to remember his name... not seen him for quite a long time
We came back on Sunday and was coming off the ferry and who do I see waiting to board.. none other than Dr D Rawlings..

[The Picnic Wasp]

I've had a number of small, word related coincidences this week. I've been a bit under the weather for a few days and gave Wordle a miss, however a couple of nights ago I realised I hadn't checked to find out if my permanent starter had come up trumps. As I searched through the alphabetical list, my eyes fell upon a particular word just as the TV threw out that same word. And it's today's solution.