ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
#1
I'd recorded yesterday's Tour de France stage and sat down last night to watch it but there was no sound. I checked the TV - it was okay (sound on BBC/ITV etc.). There was just no sound on the recording. Huh? Had Eurosport broadcast the thing with no sound - surely not? Then I noticed a funny little symbol on the screen - a picture of a loudspeaker with a cross through it. It suddenly dawned on me that I'd dropped my Times Sudoku puzzle book on the satellite box remote control that morning. It must have landed on the mute button - botheration!
Anyway, I started watching the race but got a bit bored with no commentary to listen to so I started stepping through the recording about 5 minutes at a time. It looked as though it would end in a bunch sprint so I hopped forward until there was about 20-odd km to go. I suddenly noticed something had happened because one rider had dropped back from the peloton and had blood on his elbow. I went to step the recording back a few seconds to see the crash but dropped the Hard-Disk-TV-recorder's remote control on the floor (had a clumsy day yesterday!). I picked the control up and suddenly became aware that the sound had come back on and the mute symbol on the picture had gone off.
So I started watching the coverage again but then realised that I'd recorded the race with no sound - how come I could now hear the commentary? It turned out that I'd stopped the playback and was now watching the highlights programme direct from Eurosport and it just happened to be at the exact same point in the race. Weird coincidence or what!
#2
That got me thinking back... In the 80s, I was a student living in Manchester. My flat didn't have a phone and this was in the days before mobiles, so when I did the dutiful son thing and phoned my mum once a week, I used to have to go out to a callbox on the corner of the street to make the call.
So there I was one evening. I dialled my parents' number and my mother answered.
"Hi mum"
"Is that you Colin?"
"Don't you recognise your only son's voice?"
"Oh it IS you - it's been a while since you phoned us..."
There was a loud click, then a hiss, then silence. I put the receiver down, and picked it back up again to redial my mother, but I heard a voice on the line. The call was still connected...
"Colin, are you there?"
"Yes, I am. Something went wrong with the phone just now"
"Why are you speaking in that strange voice?"
Coming to think of it, my mother sounded different too - as if she was aged about 25 rather than 60....
"What about you - you sound like a woman in her mid-20s!"
"I am a woman in her mid-20s!!!"
Something weird must have happened at the telephone exchange because I was now speaking to a woman who thought she was speaking to her boyfriend Colin. B/f Colin was actually engaged in a very confusing conversation with a 60 year old woman in the midlands !
It took a while for us all to work out what had happened. It was a very strange experience.
#3
It was a couple of years after The Big Break Up and I was at long last starting to feel more cheerful. I was working from home and suddenly found myself bursting into song as I typed away on my PC keyboard:
First I was afraid
I was petrified
Kept thinking I could never live
without you by my side
But I spent so many nights
thinking how you did me wrong
I grew strong
I learned how to carry on
and so you're back
from outer space...
[At which point I decided to turn on my radio because I fancied listening to some music as I worked]
I just walked in to find you here
I just walked in to find you here
with that sad look upon your face
with that sad look upon your face
Bloody hell - I was now singing a duet with Gloria Gaynor! The radio was playing I Will Survive at the exact point in the song that I'd got to .
So... has anybody else had a Spooky Synchronicity that they'd like to tell us about?
I'd recorded yesterday's Tour de France stage and sat down last night to watch it but there was no sound. I checked the TV - it was okay (sound on BBC/ITV etc.). There was just no sound on the recording. Huh? Had Eurosport broadcast the thing with no sound - surely not? Then I noticed a funny little symbol on the screen - a picture of a loudspeaker with a cross through it. It suddenly dawned on me that I'd dropped my Times Sudoku puzzle book on the satellite box remote control that morning. It must have landed on the mute button - botheration!
Anyway, I started watching the race but got a bit bored with no commentary to listen to so I started stepping through the recording about 5 minutes at a time. It looked as though it would end in a bunch sprint so I hopped forward until there was about 20-odd km to go. I suddenly noticed something had happened because one rider had dropped back from the peloton and had blood on his elbow. I went to step the recording back a few seconds to see the crash but dropped the Hard-Disk-TV-recorder's remote control on the floor (had a clumsy day yesterday!). I picked the control up and suddenly became aware that the sound had come back on and the mute symbol on the picture had gone off.
So I started watching the coverage again but then realised that I'd recorded the race with no sound - how come I could now hear the commentary? It turned out that I'd stopped the playback and was now watching the highlights programme direct from Eurosport and it just happened to be at the exact same point in the race. Weird coincidence or what!
#2
That got me thinking back... In the 80s, I was a student living in Manchester. My flat didn't have a phone and this was in the days before mobiles, so when I did the dutiful son thing and phoned my mum once a week, I used to have to go out to a callbox on the corner of the street to make the call.
So there I was one evening. I dialled my parents' number and my mother answered.
"Hi mum"
"Is that you Colin?"
"Don't you recognise your only son's voice?"
"Oh it IS you - it's been a while since you phoned us..."
There was a loud click, then a hiss, then silence. I put the receiver down, and picked it back up again to redial my mother, but I heard a voice on the line. The call was still connected...
"Colin, are you there?"
"Yes, I am. Something went wrong with the phone just now"
"Why are you speaking in that strange voice?"
Coming to think of it, my mother sounded different too - as if she was aged about 25 rather than 60....
"What about you - you sound like a woman in her mid-20s!"
"I am a woman in her mid-20s!!!"
Something weird must have happened at the telephone exchange because I was now speaking to a woman who thought she was speaking to her boyfriend Colin. B/f Colin was actually engaged in a very confusing conversation with a 60 year old woman in the midlands !
It took a while for us all to work out what had happened. It was a very strange experience.
#3
It was a couple of years after The Big Break Up and I was at long last starting to feel more cheerful. I was working from home and suddenly found myself bursting into song as I typed away on my PC keyboard:
First I was afraid
I was petrified
Kept thinking I could never live
without you by my side
But I spent so many nights
thinking how you did me wrong
I grew strong
I learned how to carry on
and so you're back
from outer space...
[At which point I decided to turn on my radio because I fancied listening to some music as I worked]
I just walked in to find you here
I just walked in to find you here
with that sad look upon your face
with that sad look upon your face
Bloody hell - I was now singing a duet with Gloria Gaynor! The radio was playing I Will Survive at the exact point in the song that I'd got to .
So... has anybody else had a Spooky Synchronicity that they'd like to tell us about?