ISN'T life just one big coincidence?

There we were, sitting in an Indian restaurant in York, minding our own business while wrapping ourselves round various spicily unctuous paraphernalia, when a woman sat down next to us.

Chapatti halfway to mouth I couldn’t stop staring. ‘I know her’ I whispered to our household’s bag carrier. Trouble was, although I knew it was a long time ago, I couldn’t remember where from.

You waver in those situations don’t you? Should you say something, or shouldn’t you? For if you do, you risk embarrassing yourself as they look you up and down clearly thinking you’re either rude, an idiot or both.

But on this occasion I’m so glad that I did. It’s about 25 years since I last came across Shirley Haines when she was a firebrand North Yorkshire county councillor who we local journalists loved because she was always good for a quote and could be guaranteed to stir things up in a council chamber where too many of the members harrumphed their way through the proceedings or fell asleep while doing it.

The lovely restaurant staff could see this was a momentous coincidental moment, so brought our two tables together and gave us wine on the house (now that’s what I call brilliant customer service) so we could catch up and chew the fat.

In a conversation smattered with laughter and do-you-remember-whens a quarter of a century fell away in a matter of seconds, and unlike then, reporting balance was chucked out of the window as we put the political world to rights that was mostly to do with how George Osborne looks like Roman emperor Caligula, especially when he’s being haughtily unsmiling. (Which, it has to be said, is pretty much all the time….) But as we rattled on and the wine flowed, it got me thinking about how coincidences are a chain reaction that shape our lives. For it was a spur of the moment decision for the bag carrier and me to go for an Indian that night.

And we only did that because I’d been to a business workshop in York that day and stupidly left behind my precious notes which I really, really needed, so we decided to head back into the city and get them before the cleaners got into the meeting room and chucked them out.

I’d very nearly not gone to that workshop too… But my coincidental catch-up is nothing compared to some. What about this one? American novelist Anne Parrish was thousands of miles from home browsing in a Paris bookstore in the 1920s when she came across her childhood favourite – Jack Frost and Other Stories.

She showed it to her husband, telling him of the book she fondly remembered as a child, then opened the flyleaf to find it inscribed with ‘Anne Parrish, Colorado Springs.’ It was her book… Or how about this one? Back in 1660 a ship sank off Dover and the only survivor was a lucky chap called Hugh Williams. In 1767 another ship sank in the same spot and the only survivor was – yes, you’ve guessed it – a sailor called Hugh Williams.

Then in 1940 a German mine blew up a ship, but this time there were two survivors. Both were called Hugh Williams….

Back in 1937 a Detroit street cleaner was minding his own business cleaning an alleyway when a baby fell from a fourth floor window and broke his fall on the street cleaner, so saving his life.

Exactly a year later, the same street cleaner was cleaning the same alley and the same baby fell from the same window. And the youngster’s life was saved for a second time in exactly the same way.

Someone once said that we’re ruled by forces of chance and coincidence. In fact, if you think about it, every single moment of our lives could be deemed to be a coincidence couldn’t it?

Coincidentally, that same night, we had cause to drive round the city centre in the rush hour. The roads were slick with rain and it was obviously dark, so driving conditions weren’t brilliant.

But there were so many cyclists out there with a death wish, so many of them wearing dark clothing and riding with no lights. It was terrifying.

I’ve got two messages for two-wheelers. First, put some bloody lights on. And second, don’t assume that your safety is totally the responsibility of the drivers around you. For if you’re riding without lights and wearing dark clothes that’s exactly what you’re doing. Which is arrogant in the extreme…