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Post by MikeMusic on Feb 6, 2020 21:36:15 GMT
Ahaha Never used my phone for, well anything apart from testing it  |
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Post by MartinT on Apr 9, 2020 9:58:12 GMT
Three years ago, we were walking through Lymington when I came across a travel agent with a model ship displayed in the window. The white Xs on the funnels immediately grabbed my attention as they are recognisably the logo of the old Greek Chandris Lines. I looked closer and the name of the ship was Ellinis. I did a double-take. I had travelled half way around the world on that ship in 1972, from Melbourne to Southampton via the Panama Canal. Such memories. The ship is long gone, so what are the chances of coming across a model of it in 2017?  |
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Post by MartinT on Apr 9, 2020 10:14:21 GMT
If anyone is interested, the ship started life as the Lurline of Matson Lines. I love the history behind old ships.  |
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Post by rfan8312 on Apr 9, 2020 10:26:56 GMT
Incredible. I'd be nearly spooked at that coincedence. I'd love to hear any and all stories you could tell of that trip. Especially the ones at Panama canal.
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Post by MartinT on Apr 9, 2020 11:31:51 GMT
We went to Australia on the M/V Fairsky and returned on the RHMS Ellinis, therefore did a circuit of the world by ship totalling 10 weeks of journey time.
I was 13 at the time, having left the UK to start a new life in Australia but paying our way rather than emigrating. I spent a few months in school in Melbourne before my parents decided to return to the UK. Outbound, we left Southampton and stopped at Tenerife, Cape Town, Fremantle, Adelaide and disembarked in Melbourne. On the return journey, we stopped in Sydney, Auckland, Tahiti, Panama, New York and back to Southampton. The longest stretch was Cape Town to Fremantle, almost 14 days at sea without seeing land.
The Panama Canal is more awesome than you could ever imagine. A full-size ship entering locks with the biggest gates ever, being pulled by little electric locomotives with toothed wheels. Then rising or falling. I remember watching everything, being the proto-engineer that I would become. An astounding experience and, even then, I knew how many people had died building that canal.
Cape Town was also amazing, seeing steam trains at work in the docks to the backdrop of Table Mountain.
I used to love going to the stern of the ship, watching the roiling wake as we toiled across the ocean, engines thrumming. Also being up at the funnels was fun, offering a distant view to the horizon.
Wonderful memories.
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Post by MartinT on Apr 9, 2020 11:32:57 GMT
My 13th birthday aboard ship.  |
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Post by Mr Whippy on Apr 9, 2020 21:15:10 GMT
The truly weirdest set of coincidences you will ever find concern those surrounding the assassination of both President Lincoln and President Kennedy. There's not just two or three; there's a whole list. Really weird.
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Post by MikeMusic on Nov 14, 2020 11:32:11 GMT
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Post by MartinT on Nov 14, 2020 12:15:58 GMT
LOL - trying to sell me one of my CDs again, Mike?
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Post by MikeMusic on Nov 14, 2020 14:04:23 GMT
Yet to sample. Watch this space
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Post by petea on Nov 14, 2020 14:19:13 GMT
You look a lot more like Bill Bailey than I recall on that CD cover, Martin!  |
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Post by MikeMusic on Nov 14, 2020 15:53:34 GMT
Bit too MOR and diddly for me
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Post by MartinT on Nov 14, 2020 20:43:21 GMT
You look a lot more like Bill Bailey than I recall on that CD cover, Martin! Aging is a terrible thing! |
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Post by Slinger on Dec 1, 2020 17:14:04 GMT
I hadn't been going out with my new girlfriend (later to become my wife) very long, and one night I rang her and the phone was answered by a female voice I didn't immediately recognise. I asked for Jeanette, and there was a little chuckle and the reply "You've got a wrong number. That is Paul, isn't it? Jeanette's number is ******" "
To cut a long story short, I'd rung an ex-girlfriend of mine whose number was the same as Jeanette's but with two digits transposed. She didn't have that number while we were going out, so I couldn't have rung her mistakenly, and I don't believe we'd seen each other since her wedding day.
Not only did my ex (Kath) know Jeanette, but it transpired that Jeanette's son was named after Kath's late husband, who worked with Jeanette's ex-husband. I knew her late husband too and I'd helped them move into their first home.
Just to add to the oddness, if Jeanette hadn't been breaking up with her husband at the time it turned out that we might have met many years earlier, because we were both invited to the same wedding, which I attended and she didn't. Do I need to say that it was Kath's wedding?
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Post by MartinT on Dec 1, 2020 17:43:53 GMT
Wow, convoluted coincidence!
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Post by MikeMusic on Dec 1, 2020 21:01:26 GMT
That's a lot of coincidences
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Post by MartinT on Dec 1, 2020 22:13:49 GMT
After my disastrous second marriage was over, I went to Houston to visit my sister and get some space and a change of scenery. I decided to try a dating site and just meet people for dinner and conversation. I chatted with Nikki, my sister, about it and put a profile up with self-deprecating honesty, even taking a very substandard photo of myself. While I was there, I got a like (or whatever it was then) and started correspondence with a cute woman who was looking for similar and located in the UK.
She asked where I was and I joked that I was in Houston on a break. She was confounded and wrote that she had lived in Houston for a while because her ex-husband's work had moved there. No-one ever goes to Houston as a tourist! I then asked where she was and she said that she lived in a small area called Finchampstead which I probably hadn't heard of. It was my turn to be confounded. I lived in Finchampstead in a house that was on sale after my divorce.
After two coincidences we decided that we must meet for a drink as soon as I had returned to the UK. And so, said cute dark-haired woman walked into a pub one balmy evening and came and sat next to me.
That was 12 years ago and Ruth and I are still together.
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Post by MikeMusic on Dec 2, 2020 11:46:28 GMT
Stunning !
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Post by MartinT on Dec 2, 2020 15:25:35 GMT
The coincidence or that we're still together? |
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Post by MikeMusic on Dec 2, 2020 16:17:12 GMT
The coincidence or that we're still together? The coincidence ! |
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