Jarvis Cocker’s dead? 😩

Don’t know how well this will come across but the chances of this are slim-

I’m a lorry driver from Leicester, one day I was in Manchester at a job and got talking to a German lorry driver over from the continent who had his own lorry with a fancy paint job.

A few years later I was driving south on the M1 and was randomly thinking about that chap and his lorry and trying to remember what was unique about the paint job, at that exact moment I looked over to my right and there was the German and his lorry going North on the opposite carriageway!! Chances of that?

(It had a huge angel painted on it).

When I was a kid we lived at 52 ‘street name’…

Years later my uncle traveled around the world, meet an Australian girl in Australia, married her, moved back here to the UK…

Chatting about her life, it turns out years before she’d traveled the world, visited the uk…visited my home town… Visited my street… Lived for a few months with the couple in number 50…

Yep…she’d been living next door to us for a bit…

Odd.

DrP

Reminds me of a story from my college days back in the very early 90s.

A note in the register summonses me to the Principles office. A very tall fiery lady.

Upon entry to her office ,and despite my protestations that there must have been a mistake, she proceeded to read me the riot act about being seen smoking weed in the college grounds and that I was to be suspended after speaking with my parents later that day.

All day spent crapping myself as my old man was not the type to let that go.

Afternoon came, again summonsed to the Principles office to meet my doom.

Another chap was sat in their looking ashen. Turns out he shared my very uncommon name (christian, middle and surname) and was the guy seen, not me!

Needed a spliff and lie down after that, I can tell you!!

Chatted with a bloke about surfing and surfboards in a car park in Narooma in 1992. Conversation lasted about an hour. Later I decided to track down his campsite and tent to invite them over for a drink. On my return I found a note under my windscreen from the same bloke inviting us over for a drink.

Drinks went well and we exchanged addresses. I returned to Sale and promptly lost the address. A week later he rolls by, decided he would eat his sandwich lunch with us on his way back to Ocean Grove. I didn’t lose his address this time and then stayed with him in Victoria and Queensland and since then have flown back to visit him in Australia a couple of times and he’s just recently been staying in my place (in England) for the third time.

He used to rib me mercilessly about worrying about sharks in the surf. Whilst staying with me in England in 2002 his then step son was on a scientific driving trip off Adelaide and one of his colleagues got taken by a great white. Step son switched his post doc studies from oceanography to climate change.

The odds are pretty low for many coincidences.       Sharing birthdays and names and connections.    You Need about 23 people to get matching birthdates in a random group.

A work colleague was on an internal flight in south america with his spanish wife on holiday when a drunken passenger became agitated and tried to get into the cockpit. My colleague had to intervene and he and another passenger restrained the male until the flight had landed. Colleague receives personal thanks from the pilot and gets a very nice letter from the airline thanking him for his efforts and gets a special mention at work.</span>

About three or four years later and my colleague is now retired and spends much of his time in spain playing golf. He’s making up a four ball with two pilots from a Spanish airline who he has played with before and they bring along a south american colleague who has just joined their airline.

It was the pilot from the internal flight in south America.

looking in a second hand book shop(rons) in poolewe on the west coast at old OS maps.

Picked up one of the area we live in. wife says nae its not really old enough for her being 1989.

OT: she should check this out. Hours of fun.

Think this is probably an urban myth but I remember years ago reading of a man walking past a phone box, the phone rang and he picked it up on a whim – on the other end was a lady frim head office trying to get hold of him who’d dialled his employee number instead of his phone number. I have my doubts but I like it as a story. 🙂

Randomly took a mid-week day off with my wife,decided to visit my paternal Grandmother for the first time in about a year as it was long overdue.Arrive and are greeted by my Sister and her children which was odd enough, who have also randomly decided to visit same elderly Grandmother on the same day.Sat discussing the odds of this happening when the doorbell rings and it`s our Brother,random day same Grandmother visit etc etc.

Catching up on family gossip with TV on in the background,conversation eventually lulls and we all decide to leave,as we`re all putting coats on local news comes on to announce that a Family from Bristol have been killed in a Helicopter crash in Romania,six people from the same family confirmed as dead.

It was my Uncle on my Dads side,Auntie,Cousin,Cousins boyfriend,and two members of extended family unknown to me.

Went to France to ride bikes, got chatting to the guide, he went to my school in Edinburgh.

About 7 years ago I helped a chap jump start his car in a petrol station in Glasgow, he had a Corrado and a nice one at that.

Fast forward 4 years and I’d arranged to buy a Specialized Epic frameset. Went to the chaps house to pick it up and noticed a Corrado in the driveway, turned out to be the same guy!

My girlfriends dad was taking down an old fence and stabbed himself through the hand with a nail – over Easter weekend. The significence was not lost on the hospital staff.

Turned out to be quite a big deal, even though it wasn’t stuck in there or anything, it was really rusty so they had to put him under open up his hand and clean out the wound.

I left my childhood home in Lincolnshire back in 95, spent 5 years down south before moving to Derbyshire. Got involved with the local Scout group. After about 15 years, was working on one of our charity events and got chatting to our new assistant Beaver leader.

Turns out she was from the village I grew up in in Lincolnshire, about 8 years younger than me. I’d known her dad as he started as a Scout leader just before I finished Scouts, and he’d succeeded my dad as Group Scout Leader.

In 1951 my father was a member of the Glen Coe Mountaineering Club. Three male members of the club and another man died of exposure that New Year near Corrour after being caught in a blizzard and benighted while attempting to walk in to Ben Alder Cottage . The only survivor of the party of 5 was the wife of one of the members.

Forty years later my father had given evidence at a public enquiry in the Scottish Borders as a professional witness and went to the home of one of the objectors. He met the man’s wife and was introduced to her as “Mr Cullen”. At which point she asked him if he knew a “John Cullen”  He replied “I am John Cullen” and at that point recognised her as the survivor of the Courour tragedy who he had last met 40 years earlier.

My girlfriends dad was taking down an old fence and stabbed himself through the hand with a nail – over Easter weekend. The significence was not lost on the hospital staff.

Turned out to be quite a big deal, even though it wasn’t stuck in there or anything, it was really rusty so they had to put him under open up his hand and clean out the wound.

Did he rise on the third day…?

Had a lecturer at university who knew my dad from primary school.  Not surprising but the school was nearly 6500 miles away…

A great-grandfather on my mums side and a great grandfather on my dad’s side – both lived in the same small town in the 1920’s.  It wouldn’t be that unusual but the former was from Bristol, the latter from Northern India, they were both thousands of miles from their birth place, in Southern India and were not related in any way until my parents marriage nearly 50 years later.  In between times, my dads grandfather emigrated and fathered my dads mum another few thousand miles away in Mauritius and my dad emigrated here.

Not that interesting to most – but for me it’s fantastic to think that my great grandfathers – both from radically different cultures could have passed each other in the street.  They would never have guessed that through migration and social change they would be relatives post their deaths.

Slightly different, and probably easier to work out the odds.

Paternal family:

My great-great-grandfather was one of seven boys. There was one girl who died in infancy.

My great-grandfather was one of six boys.

My grandfather was one of two boys. His brother was killed in the war.

My father was one of two boys.

His brother, my uncle, has two sons.

One of them has two sons, the other has one son

My father has me and my sister, the first girl born in this line in about 150 years.

I’ve just had a son.

In 2011 I was one of a group of 8 from the UK who went on a field trip to Canada. We flew into Calgary, met up with some Canadian colleagues, got on a coach and headed south towards Lethbridge.

A few hours later, one of the group was feeling unwell so the coach pulled over to let them out and a few of us got out to stretch our legs. Whilst chatting i noticed a coin half buried in the dirt… it was an extremely weathered £1

My girlfriends dad was taking down an old fence and stabbed himself through the hand with a nail – over Easter weekend. The significence was not lost on the hospital staff.

Turned out to be quite a big deal, even though it wasn’t stuck in there or anything, it was really rusty so they had to put him under open up his hand and clean out the wound.

I went to visit him a couple of days after, only to find he’d discharged himself and there was no-one there.

Spooky!

Just worked mine out, 1:13,891

Short version as think I posted it here before.. got drunk at a mate’s leaving do with one of his girlfriend’s friends..

A few hours of drinking later it emerged she was a lady who “performed on webcam”.. I then realised I’d previously seen her a few times (whilst failing to watch another girl I knew from way back, who worked on the same website)

She thought it was funny and wrote about me on her blog.

(We didn’t hook up, both in relationships)

Did a 20 mile Lakes ride in May 2014 and repeated the same ride today.  Got a puncture in the same place both rides and ended up fixing it on the same piece of grass.  Anyone else had a puncture on the small climb after the gate as you leave Grizedale and get to the ridgeline overlooking Conniston?

Decorating thw master bedroom in our last house and I kept playing Atmoshphere by Joy Division.  Cue the next day and John Peel dies and on the rolling tribute on Radio 2 they keep playing…  Atmosphere by Joy Division!

Stayed in same hotel in Majorca as my boss on his honeymoon. But that’s nothing compared to an ex who bumped into her parents neighbours in the Atacama.

Back around 1979-80 I went to Thassos with my then g/f on an early Club 18-30 holiday, when they were still a sort of hippy type thing, staying in local people’s spare rooms, etc. Second week there, a new group of people arrived, we were on the beach next day, and there was a bloke I knew from home, I didn’t think anyone else even knew where the island was!

An Instagram related one. Visiting the UK for the first time in years, rail replacement bus from Mcr airport to the center. Passed my old flatmate Pete who was walking past Oxford Road Station, neither of us are from Manchester. Haven’t seen or heard of him for 20 years, we played in bands together too. Whoa that’s weird, I think.

Later at the hotel I’m listening to Crass and cruising instagram. Steve Ignorant has a new band so I’m looking at photos… Bass player looks familiar. Yep, it’s Pete.

Best coincidence was when I was working in print pre-press, and I had a query about an amendment to a job, so I phoned the client, there was no dialling tone or ringing tone, just a quiet line. After a couple of seconds I said hello?  A woman answered, said hello, who’s that? I said Adrian, from Westernprint. Oh, she said, I was just calling you, so I asked who she was. She was the client I was phoning! We had dialled each other at the exact moment and made the connection at the same time; what are the chances?

There’s another STWer with the same name as me – it’s not a particularly common name with multiple variants of spelling both parts. It’s a bit of a shock to get an email from yourself 😆

Friend of my dad has an old (190?) Mercedes grand Prix car that he drives around on historical car rallies all over the world. Only six of them left, very rare, and quite pricey I think.

On a rally somewhere in Arizona, middle of a desert, miles from anywhere, it konks out. Some investigation reveals a gearbox issue. Not a road side bodge, no phone signal, not seen another person all day.

Couple of minutes later battered pickup screaches to a halt next to them, local redneck leaps out.

What’s the problem?

Gearbox

Hop in, I’ve got a gearbox for one them in my barn.

This sort of luck happens to him all the time. He doesn’t seem to think it’s odd.

My last holiday abroad before Euro 2016 was in Iceland. My last holiday abroad before the World Cup 2018 was in Croatia.

Both teams went on to knock England out of those tournaments.

Driving back from Weymouth we saw a sign for a truck off-road event in Borden. Odd thing to see, so we had a wonder around watching the event. Only there an hour. Three years later we were at Sunny Beach, Bulgaria. Hot night, fancied a drink so popped into a bar. On the tv was a truck event. From Borden, Hampshire. Pointed it out to my wife, who happily pointed back to the tv. And yes, there we were, on the tv watching trucks in ditches. Us in a random Bulgarian pub watching tv of us at a random UK event from three years previous.

I ran an old lady over with my motorcycle many years ago. She stepped out in front of me from around a stationary van while looking the other way with about 6 feet to spare. Court case of doom with her trying to sue for damages ensues. I win in spite of lots of created witnesses. Fortunately most didn’t have the stomach for lying in court that they thought they would.

Anyway, about 8 months later I am boarding a plane to Tenerife, my only trip there ever, and the very same old lady is sat in my seat on the plane. I very politely tapped her on the shoulder to inform her. She looked like she’d seen a ghost.

My wife and I  bought the same house when we got married in 1998 that her parents bought when they got married in 1967 and subsequently sold it  in 1984.

Her parents bought it from my first primary school teacher.

I’ve a fairly rare surname that isn’t spelt in the way that you might think when you hear it. I used to climb as my main sport. During the late 1980s I worked as a contractor to a building company in the South Lakes. When the 1990 recession started I moved down to N. Wales. Shortly after this another climber with exactly the same name including spelling was killed by rockfall in the North Lakes.

Fast forward fifteen years and I’m helping a friend with the Ramsay Round in Scotland. I’m pacing/dogs bodying for the first part of the Mamores and we get to the next supply point at a col. A figure emerges from a bivy bag, it’s one of the labourers from the building company. He hands grub and water to the runners and looks at me.

“Oh!, Hello. We though you were dead!”

A pause …

“You’re looking well!”

Used to ride BMX a fair bit.

When I went travelling to Aus, I posted on FB I was in Sydney. A dude I rode with a couple of times was also there. We met up, “Oh you remember Paul? He’s kicking about too” – I’d met Paul once or twice, nice guy. We hook up with Paul, “You guys know Bobby? He’s here also”. We meet up with Bobby, “Ah dudes i’m hooking up with Shane later we should all catch a beer.” To be fair, Shane is Australian but last time I saw him he crashed at mine in the UK for a couple of nights.

Weird chain of events, was a great reunion though.