I’m Not Superstitious, But…..

Today of all days, bad things have been happening to Marius Holtan.

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Photo: David Bleasdale

I’m writing this on a severely delayed train en route to East London (allegedly), squashed between two men with no knowledge of the marvel that is deodorant, with a massive coffee stain on my white shirt.

Friday 13th is just bull, right? If you discount the fact that Terry Wogan hasn’t missed a Children In Need Appeal since it started in 1980 – until his bad back put him out of action for the first time on this very day.

The number 13 has been considered unlucky for nearly as long as humans have been looking for reasons  to blame bad decisions on fate (fear of the number 13 is called ‘triskaidekaphobia’); and the same goes for Fridays.

How anyone could fear Friday is beyond me. Surely it is the least stressful day of the week – TFI and all that?

However, fear of the double whammy which is Friday 13th (which goes by a further scientific name that simply rolls off the tongue; paraskevidekatriaphobia) does not seem to have occurred until the nineteenth century.

Ghoulishness associated with Friday 13th has been tied to Jesus’ death and crucifixion, a biography of Gioachino Rossini and, most famously, Philip the Fair’s prosecution of the Knights Templar. (You haven’t heard? Just Google). In more recent times its bad reputation has been used to good effect in horror movies such as the eponymous Friday 13th, allowing old superstitions to go post-modern.

Evidently based on anything but solid science, this day, which we all know comes around regularly but somehow it still seems irregular (like the family member who always shows up while we keep hoping he won’t), gives people a reason to throw their hands in the air and resign all responsibility.

If I had spilled coffee all over myself yesterday it would have been my own fault; but today is Friday 13th, so it was bad luck that did it to me.

I suggest we make full use of all this bad karma. Disregarding the fact that you might just get run over by a train if you’re not careful of black cats and other signs of awfulness, let’s use the opportunity to make absolute fools of ourselves, safe in the knowledge that we can blame it all on the day.

What happens today is, after all, not in our hands, so we might as well just go with it.

Besides, tomorrow will be back to normal, and all your mistakes will be on you.

The full version of David Bleasdale’s photo, used here under creative commons license, is available here: https://www.flickr.com/photos

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