Friggatriskaidekaphobia
TODAY is a day you try to avoid flying because you're likely to end up sitting beside Julius Malema; if not he, one of those fellows who enthuse about the Indian Professional League or - worst of all – one of those who hold forth on 9/11 being a stitch-up by the CIA and the international banking system.
It's a very real fear. These days you can run into any one of those just about anywhere, including the Umbilo bus. But it's a fear that is accentuated on Friday the 13th.
The fear of Friday the 13th is called friggatriskaidekaphobia (Frigga being the name of the Norse goddess for whom Friday is named and triskaidekaphobia meaning fear of the number thirteen). A simpler version is paraskevidekatriaphobia. a concatenation of the Greek words Paraskeví (meaning Friday), and dekatreís (meaning thirteen), attached to phobía .
The origin of the supersitition is not at all clear. One version has it that Frigga, the free-spirited goddess of love and fertility, was banished in shame to a mountaintop and labelled a witch when the Nordic and Germanic tribes converted to Christianity. It was believed that every Friday, the spiteful goddess convened a meeting with eleven other witches, plus the devil — a gathering of 13 — and plotted ill turns of fate for the coming week. For many centuries in Scandinavia, Friday was known as "Witches' Sabbath."[9]
Another links it to when Phillip IV of France pounced on the Knights Templar on Friday, October 13, 1307, inflicting hideous torture and slaughter for their supposed heresy and blasphemy (while what he really wanted was to get his hands on their loot).
However, some experts doubt all this. They say the superstition was barely mentioned until it became popular after publication in 1907 of Thomas W Lawson's novel, Friday, the Thirteenth. In this an unscrupulous broker creates a Wall Street panic on a Friday the 13th.[]
Well, that doesn't seem far off the mark these days. Watch the stock exchange! But I really don't know. If I run into Julius Malema today, I'll tell you about it.
Raquel Welch
PHWOAR-R-R … still a stunner! In the 1960s Raquel Welch provoked a hurricane of testosterone when she emerged from behind a rock wearing a doeskin bikini in the film, One Million Years BC. Now photographs have emerged of her power-walking (whatever that might be) in the Hollywood hills.
The figure is still voluptuous. The lady is glamorous as ever. And – unbelievably – she's now in her 71st year.
Four-times-married Raquel says she mainly plays the grandmother in movies these days. She'd like to be one for real, but her kids are not co-operating.
That would be some granny.
Odd expression
OVERSEAS TV is full of stuff about a blitz by the British police, who are to be given the power to spot fine motorists up to £100 for dangerous driving. It includes those who "undertake" on the motorways.
Undertake? Whatever can this odd word mean? Obviously there is a causal connection between dangerous driving and funerals, but that can't be it.
Do motorists in mini-minors overtake a heavy duty lorry by driving under the chassis, startling the driver by suddenly popping out from between his front wheels? Do they therefore undertake?
No, that can't be the answer. It's a mystery.
Military poser
I'VE BEEN had before by this one but I can't remember the answer.
Bobby Freeman, Regimental Sergeant-Major of the Natal Mounted Rifles, sends in a puzzle. Ken needs to buy jeans. He borrows R50 from Walter and R50 from Joe - total R100. He buys jeans for R97 and gets change of R3.
He decides to reduce his debt and pays R1 to Walter and R1 to Joe. That leaves R1 in his own pocket.
He now owes Walter R49 and Joe R49 – total R98. Add the R1 still in his pocket and you get R99.
What happened to the remaining R1?
I really don't care. It's the kind of thing they argue about endlessly in the army. We in the navy forget about it, we go ashore and razzle – blow the whole R3 and be damned!
Tailpiece
She knows hundreds of photography jokes. You just can't shutter up.
Last word
Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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