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Coincidence


BFTD

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Had a couple of weird coincidences lately, and figured everyone probably has a few they'd like to share.

Recently I felt the need to see the film Sneakers again, and afterwards I fancied watching something new, so picked out The Sum of All Fears from a box of DVDs I hadn't seen. Not only did it turn out to be by the same director, Phil Alden Robinson, but an actress appeared in both films in small roles. In The Sum of All Fears, there's a scene towards the beginning where she refers to her character in Sneakers by name. I swear I'd no idea about any of this beforehand - what are the odds?

Tonight I was taking a look at an audiobook that I bought a while ago, but hadn't listened to yet. I'm working my way through the episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit that I haven't seen, so I'd just started a new episode in the background. I look at the audiobook box and notice that it was read by Raul Esparza. I'm wondering where I know that name from, when a few seconds later Raul Esparza flashes up on the opening Law & Order credits.

I can't help thinking that somehow my subconscious became aware of these things and decided to push me towards making the conscious connection for some reason. Or maybe it was aliens. Any opinions?

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6 hours ago, BFTD said:

Had a couple of weird coincidences lately, and figured everyone probably has a few they'd like to share.

Recently I felt the need to see the film Sneakers again, and afterwards I fancied watching something new, so picked out The Sum of All Fears from a box of DVDs I hadn't seen. Not only did it turn out to be by the same director, Phil Alden Robinson, but an actress appeared in both films in small roles. In The Sum of All Fears, there's a scene towards the beginning where she refers to her character in Sneakers by name. I swear I'd no idea about any of this beforehand - what are the odds?

Less of a coincidence than you might think.  The actress you refer to is Lee Garlington.  In Sneakers, she plays a character called Elena Rhyzhkof.  In Sum of All Fears, she plays Ben Affleck's boss and orders him to go and find Elena Rhyzhkof.

Thus the director cast the same actress as part of this little in-joke.

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Many moons ago, when I started researching my family history I had a dream where I was asked what my Grandfather's maiden name was. 

I mentioned this to my mum the following morning. She told me that when she was a child she asked her father what his maiden was. My Grandfather died (not from laughing) when she was nine. 

 

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3 hours ago, Fullerene said:

Less of a coincidence than you might think.  The actress you refer to is Lee Garlington.  In Sneakers, she plays a character called Elena Rhyzhkof.  In Sum of All Fears, she plays Ben Affleck's boss and orders him to go and find Elena Rhyzhkof.

Thus the director cast the same actress as part of this little in-joke.

Aye, I know - it's just bizarre that I randomly chose that film to follow Sneakers with. I can only assume that, somewhere in the past, I'd either heard about that wee easter egg, or had maybe seen the director's name connected with both films (despite having seen Sneakers a bunch of times back in the day, I didn't remember the director's name at all).

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When I stayed in Australia in the early 80's my Grandmother and Grandfather came to visit from Scotland for a month. We stayed in New South Wales at the time in a small village called Wallacia (it's now a big town) which is inland of about 80km from Sydney. 

On one of our days out we went to Katoomba in the blue mountains and took this mountain train deep into the bush.  There was a little coffee shop/snack bar thing where we stopped off.  

Standing next to my Grandfather was his friend, he had never seen since he had worked down the pits during the WW2.

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50 minutes ago, SlipperyP said:

When I stayed in Australia in the early 80's my Grandmother and Grandfather came to visit from Scotland for a month. We stayed in New South Wales at the time in a small village called Wallacia (it's now a big town) which is inland of about 80km from Sydney. 

On one of our days out we went to Katoomba in the blue mountains and took this mountain train deep into the bush.  There was a little coffee shop/snack bar thing where we stopped off.  

Standing next to my Grandfather was his friend, he had never seen since he had worked down the pits during the WW2.

On the off chance was it Lumphinnans pit he worked in? Might have known my Grandfather.

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1 hour ago, SlipperyP said:

When I stayed in Australia in the early 80's my Grandmother and Grandfather came to visit from Scotland for a month. We stayed in New South Wales at the time in a small village called Wallacia (it's now a big town) which is inland of about 80km from Sydney. 

On one of our days out we went to Katoomba in the blue mountains and took this mountain train deep into the bush.  There was a little coffee shop/snack bar thing where we stopped off.  

Standing next to my Grandfather was his friend, he had never seen since he had worked down the pits during the WW2.

My sister met (and later married) a guy from Somerset. We were walking in Alloa Town Centre one day when he bumped into an old army friend of his. 

On holiday in 2014, we were walking down a thoroughfare when we bumped into one of my son's teachers.

In 2008 I booked a holiday in Spain and found out that my sister had booked to go to the same resort at the same time (we hadn't discussed our plans ahead of time)

My parents have screeds of stories about meeting folk they know whilst abroad on holiday. 

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Said this fairly recently I think, but a guy who holidays up on the North Coast every year (who always gatecrashes my friend's house) and I try to avoid, ended up being the guy who drove up from England to deliver our greenhouse.  60 million folk Down South, and it had to be him.

 

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Years ago I gave up the lease on my flat to go and visit Australia and stay with family. While staying in Victoria I took a trip up to Queensland as a holiday within a holiday. While there I went into a café where I was served by a Scottish guy and asked where he was from. He was a Fifer but, upon finding out I was from Greenock, mentioned he had lived there for a year after uni before heading to Australia.

Turns out he was the guy who lived in my flat before me and we had both gave up the lease to go to Australia.

(In a slightly less coincidency thing about ten years after this I went back to someone I met at a wedding's flat for an after party and it was also the same flat)

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Had a pretty wild one whereby I had done a summer at a kids camp in the States. One of the American based staff there was a girl called Kim. A couple of years later I was in Greece and walked past a group of girls, as I approached them I immediately thought "that looks like Kim from Camp America". But naturally assumed it was a Greek/European tourist lookalike.

After I'd got about 20-30 yards past her, another girl ran past to catch her group, yelling in an American accent "Kim"

Now I'm still not 100% sure it was the same Kim but I'm pretty convinced. I was too stunned at the time to catch up with her group initially and then they disappeared into a crowd so I'll never know! I always think of that when people talk about coincidences and wonder what the odds on something like that happening is. 

To top it off I met her at summer camp in Rhode Island and was on holiday in Greece in Rhodes. But I always put that down to maybe that being the reason their group chose to holiday/visit there? Cos it was their home state namesake? 

Pretty weird all the same! 

 

 

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