What are the odds?

I love coincidences. The weirder the better. Bumping into an old school friend on the other side of the globe, having exactly the same birthday as someone else I like blogging with, saying the same thing out loud with another person even when the discussion is about something really random... They never stop to amaze me.

But the freakiest coincidence I've ever witnessed happened yesterday. After work I met up my old friend Di for a drink. As we were sitting comfortably in a bar, chitchatting away about girly stuff her friend George turns up by chance. The two of them haven't seen each other for years during which time they both have lost/changed telephones and numbers. So when George decides to leave they start swapping their new numbers. Di types in the guy's and then to make things easier she rings George's phone. The phone starts to rock n' roll but...

... on it's screen rather than just a number, a name comes up that says "Mark - Malta". George excuses himself to pick up the phone but by then the ringing stops. Strange, we all think, but the number swapping project continues. Di rings George's phone again, the phone starts to ring and guess what, "Mark - Malta" appears on it again! So George picks it up this time but instead of a Maltese male voice Di answers the "Hihowareyou?".

Now convinced that there is something really bizarre going on there we frantically start checking the numbers. And what we find is awesome... Out of the 11 digits that make up our mobile phone numbers the last 8 digits of these two people (Di and Mark's) were identical. Same numbers in same order. Obviously George's phone was not prepared to compare the whole lot with country codes and all and therefore, when it read the last few numbers it automatically identified Di's number with Mark's, but that's not the point. The point is...

What are the odds that these two people had a friend in common and that their numbers would both end up in the memory of the same mobile? Must have been very unlikely. Not as much as my hope that one day a winning lottery ticket will fall onto my lap (I can't be bothered to buy one) but still.... Pretty cool, ey? Any good stories to share?