There is a lot of nonsense surrounding Friday 13th.
Many superstitious people consider it to be unlucky. So much so in fact that they spend most, if not all, of that day in their homes, afraid to venture out into the great world beyond in case something bad happens to them.
In fact it has been estimated that around a billion dollars are lost every Friday the 13th because people are scared to work and travel on this date.
The really unfortunate thing is that sometimes circumstances play right into their hands, which only serves to reinforce their superstitions.
You can find some of them below along with other facts about Friday 13th that I hope you enjoy reading.
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Every month has a 13th but no single year
has more than three Friday the 13th’s
and on average there are two.
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Months with a Friday the 13th
always begin on a Sunday.
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Folklore remedies for triskaidekaphobia
include climbing to the top of a mountain
or skyscraper and burning all the socks you own
that have holes in them.
Another is to stand on your head
and eat a piece of gristle.
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It is from the Norse goddess Frigg, or Freyja,
that we get Frigg’s Day, or Freyja’s Day
which became the English Friday.
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On Friday 13 2006,
36 inches of snow fell on upstate New York.
The ensuing chaos claimed three lives
and caused $130 million worth of damage.
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On a Friday 13th in 1307.
thousands of soldier monks of the powerful
Knights Templar were massacred
by French king Louis IV.
Many people believe this is where
our fear of the date springs from.
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Friday 13 January, 1939
in Australia is known as Black Friday
because on that date bushfires
decimated 20,000 km² of land,
killing 71 people and
destroying several towns entirely.
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Retired bus conductor Bob Renphrey of North Wales
decided to spend every Friday 13 in bed
after a run of bad luck on the
fateful day during the early 1990s.
Among other misfortunes
he wrote off four cars,
got made redundant,
fell into a river,
crashed a motorcycle
and walked through a plate glass door.
When Bob died of cancer in 1998,
his widow Betty, who on previous Friday 13ths
had fallen downstairs,
been hit by falling guttering
and been hospitalized
after Bob hit her in the face
with a stick he was throwing to a dog,
decided to book his funeral for
Friday 13 March as a final tribute.
Alas, all Rhyl’s undertakers were too busy.
“Bob would have seen the funny side,”
said Mrs Renphrey.
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On Friday 13 July, 1951
in Kansas ‘The Great Flood’
left 2 million acres of land underwater,
causing $760 million and killing 24 people.
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Friday 13 August, 1976
was particularly unlucky
for New York man Daz Baxter.
Having elected to stay in bed
to ward off bad luck,
the floor of his apartment block collapsed
and he fell six storeys to his death.
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Black Sabbath’s self-titled first album
was released in the UK on
Friday, February 13, 1970.
It wasn’t unlucky for them.
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Michelle and Gary Docherty had a
memorable wedding on Friday 13 August 2004.
First, a swarm of wasps attacked guests
at East Kilbride Registry Office, Lanarkshire,
as they waited for Michelle’s arrival.
Her aunt Mary Strachan
smashed an expensive digital camera
trying to swat one of the pests,
and when Michelle finally did turn up,
an insect flew up her dress,
triggering a panic attack.
After the ceremony,
two minibuses booked to transport guests
to the reception failed to turn up
and the couple lost their wedding video.
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On Friday November 13, 1970
a monster South Asian storm hit Bangladesh
killing 300,000 people in Chittagong
and creating floods that killed one million people
living on the Ganges Delta.
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Women drivers have a 64% increased chance
of death when driving on Friday the 13th.
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Friday 13 February, 1998
was simply business as usual for Manchester man,
John Sheridan, dubbed Britain’s unluckiest man
after once having his car stolen five times in one day,
making 16 trips to casualty in two years,
seeing eight TVs explode in six months
and losing out on a £4000 lottery win when he
put the ticket in the washing machine with his jeans.
John’s big day began when his Saab ran out of petrol.
He hitched a lift with a sympathetic policeman,
whose car broke down at the garage.
John returned to his car with a can of petrol,
got it started but lost a wheel as he turned a corner.
He returned home on a bus, which broke down.
Completing his journey on foot,
he realized he’d left his keys inside the car
and had to return in case in was stolen.
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Friday, October 13th, 1989,
the stock exchange suffered a serious crash,
the second most damaging in market history at the time
(this was in the pre-recession era).
Brokers were in a state of shock,
as the Dow Jones Industrial Average
was down 190.58 points.
In Britain a deadly virus crashed IBM computers,
terrifying people and deleting lots of data
that could not be recovered.
This was before backup systems were used.
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A full moon on Friday February 13 1987
drove troubled Robert Bullard, 21,
to attempt suicide by putting his head in a gas oven.
Not only was his methodology flawed,
suicide by natural gassing is virtually impossible
since Britain moved from lethal coke gas
to less dangerous natural gas,
but a flicked light switch caused an explosion
which injured his mother and a policeman
and caused £35,000 of damage.
Robert was unharmed.
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On Friday the 13th, 2012,
the cruise ship Costa Concordia partially sank
killing more than 30 people.
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Friday 13 October 1972 was the date
a plane carrying Uruguayan rugby team
Montevideo Old Christians crashed
on its way from Montevideo to Santiago, Chile.
When rescuers finally found the fourteen
survivors two months later,
it emerged that they had survived
by eating human flesh from some of the
thirty-one crew and passengers
who had perished in the crash.
In 1992, the story was filmed as
Alive, starring Ethan Hawke.
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On the same day, Friday October 13, 1972,
an Aeroflot Il-62 airplane carrying 176 people
took off from Paris on a commuter flight
bound for Leningrad and Moscow.
The plane landed at Leningrad
and then took off for Sheremetyevo airport,
located just outside Moscow.
The weather was bad with rain and poor visibility.
The pilots were told to descend on approach to
the airport, but for unknown reasons,
they attempted and failed to land twice.
On the third attempt to land,
the plane crashed into a large pond
about 4 miles short of the airport.
There were no survivors.
No cause of the accident was ever established.
At the time, the crash resulted in one of the worst
loss of life incidents for a single plane crash, in history.
I hope so. And remember if you get stuck the answers can be found waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down below – but NO cheating!
Begin any time you are ready – and enjoy.
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Q. 1: What superseded the autogiro (or autogyro) in the late 1940s?
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Q. 2: What kind of leaves were often used as currency in 18th century Siberia?
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Q. 3: In the USA, what is (you can have a point for each correct answer)
a. the nickname for the president’s limo
b. the nickname for the brief case with the nuclear codes
c. the name of the helicopter that transports the US President
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Q. 4: What kind of star is our sun? (2 words)
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Q. 5: Which Pink Floyd album is also a chapter in ‘The Wind in the Willows’?
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Q. 6: Which national dance can apparently cure a spider’s bite?
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Q. 7: In Paris, where would you find Franklin D Roosevelt, Victor Hugo and George V?
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Q. 8: What do many men collect in an ‘omphalo’?
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Q. 9: The original ‘two bits’ (quarter coin) looked like a cake or pie shaped wedge and was one quarter of what?
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Q. 10: General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (of Alamo fame) had two funerals. The first one took place while he was President of Mexico and he himself was a mourner. What was put to rest in this pompous ‘funeral’?
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Q. 11: After the investigation, why was all the Challenger Space Shuttle wreckage buried under 50 tons of concrete?
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Q. 12: On a ship, what is a ‘dead head’?
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Q. 13: A Scottish woman was nominated six times for the Oscar for best actress and came away empty handed each time. A record. Who was she?
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Q. 14: The name for which vehicle probably stems from a World War I phrase for a dirty weekend in Paris?
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Q. 15: Which TV family lived at 1313 Mockingbird Lane?
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Q. 16: Which suave and sophisticated actor played the role of Beau Maverick, Bret Maverick’s English cousin in the US television series Maverick?
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Q. 17: Paris attracts the most visitors in France each year. Which French town attracts 5 million visitors a year and has more hotels than any other French city except Paris?
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Q. 18: Which large vehicle is also a name for Krishna meaning ‘Lord of the Universe’?
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Q. 19: Why did many radio stations around the world observe two minutes of silence in late July, 1937?
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Q. 20: Citizens of which country coined the term ‘Molotov Cocktail’ or ‘Molotov Bread Basket’ to describe their incendiary weapon used against the Soviets in 1939?
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ANSWERS
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Q. 1: What superseded the autogiro (or autogyro) in the late 1940s?
A. 1: The Helicopter
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Q. 2: What kind of leaves were often used as currency in 18th century Siberia?
A. 2: Tea leaves
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Q. 3: In the USA, what is
a. the nickname for the president’s limo
b. the nickname for the brief case with the nuclear codes
c. the name of the helicopter that transports the US President
A. 3: Three Answers
a. “The Beast”
b. “The Football”
c. “Marine One”
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Q. 4: What kind of star is our sun? (2 words)
A. 4: Yellow dwarf
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Q. 5: Which Pink Floyd album is also a chapter in ‘The Wind in the Willows’?
A. 5: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
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Q. 6: Which national dance can apparently cure a spider’s bite?
A. 6: The Tarantella
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Q. 7: In Paris, where would you find Franklin D Roosevelt, Victor Hugo and George V?
A. 7: In the Paris Metro. They are all Metro stations.
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Q. 8: What do many men collect in an omphalo?
A. 8: Fluff (The omphalo is the belly button)
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Q. 9: The original ‘two bits’ (quarter coin) looked like a cake or pie shaped wedge and was one quarter of what?
A. 9: The Spanish silver dollar, the dollars were called pesos de ocho (pieces of eight).
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Q. 10: General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (of Alamo fame) had two funerals. The first one took place while he was President of Mexico and he himself was a mourner. What was put to rest in this pompous ‘funeral’?
A. 10: His amputated leg.
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Q. 11: After the investigation, why was all the Challenger Space Shuttle wreckage buried under 50 tons of concrete?
A. 11: To prevent the parts being sold as souvenirs.
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Q. 12: On a ship, what is a ‘dead head’?
A. 12: Some people think it’s a broken toilet but actually it is a non paying passenger.
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Q. 13: A Scottish woman was nominated six times for the Oscar for best actress and came away empty handed each time. A record. Who was she?
A. 13: Deborah Kerr
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Q. 14: The name for which vehicle probably stems from a World War I phrase for a dirty weekend in Paris?
A. 14: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
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Q. 15: Which TV family lived at 1313 Mockingbird Lane?
A. 15: The Munsters
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Q. 16: Which suave and sophisticated actor played the role of Beau Maverick, Bret Maverick’s English cousin in the US television series Maverick?
A. 16: Roger Moore
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Q. 17: Paris attracts the most visitors in France each year. Which French town attracts 5 million visitors a year and has more hotels than any other French city except Paris?
A. 17: Lourdes
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Q. 18: Which large vehicle is also a name for Krishna meaning ‘Lord of the Universe’?
A. 18: Juggernaut
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Q. 19: Why did many radio stations around the world observe two minutes of silence in late July, 1937?
A. 19: A tribute to Marconi after his death.
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Q. 20: Citizens of which country coined the term ‘Molotov Cocktail’ or ‘Molotov Bread Basket’ to describe their incendiary weapon used against the Soviets in 1939?
When I sat down at my laptop this morning I was going to do another selection of obituaries, many of which I find very amusing whether that was the originators’ intention or not.
But then one thought led to another and I remembered little Jimmy, so now this post is about him.
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Little Jimmy lived in the town where I was born. He was small, about five feet tall or possibly 5 foot 1, no more than that. He wasn’t what you would call stupid, but he was definitely a bit odd – a few cents short of a dollar you might say. Clinically I think he probably had a mild case of autism. He was our own little Rain Man, you could say.
When I was a kid Jimmy would have been in his late 50s, but he acted more like a kid than a grown up. And as I grew up Jimmy didn’t. When he was in his 70s he was just the same and acted just the same. He always wore a big pair of leather army boots and a Crombie type overcoat, even in the summer. Both were slightly too big for him. I think someone had probably given them to him.
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To earn himself some cash little Jimmy would do odd jobs and errands for people around the town. He was honest and reliable. And people were generally good enough to him, letting him do things they could easily have done themselves. Sometimes they would get a bit of harmless entertainment out of it too.
I remember one occasion a friend of my Dad’s had a bicycle with a puncture. Rather than wheeling it all the way to the bicycle store, or fixing the puncture himself, he called little Jimmy over.
“Jimmy, I need you to take my bicycle to Joe,” he instructed, Joe being the bike shop owner. ”And tell him,” he went on, “that the puncture is either on the back tire or the handlebars.”
He also handed him a couple of dollars and away little Jimmy went with the bike.
Sure enough we found out later from Joe that little Jimmy had arrived with the bike and duly announced to the shop and its customers that, “You’re to fix Billy Simpson’s bike and he doesn’t know if the puncture is on the back tire or the handlebars.”
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But apart from his odd jobs, little Jimmy had three real passions in his life, delivering newspapers, collecting lost golf balls and attending funerals.
My Dad used to say that Jimmy was the oldest paperboy in the world and we should write to the Guinness Book of World Records. Of course we never did, but we enjoyed the joke all the same. And we enjoyed watching him collect his newspapers.
The scene never changed.
When the newspaper delivery van arrived at the newsagents the guy would open the back doors of the van and lift a bundle of papers to take into the shop. That was the cue for little Jimmy to make his way into the shop in front of him.
“Let the man through, let the man through,” he would shout with great urgency, at the same time pushing his way to the shop counter and scattering all the real kid newspaper boys out of the way as he did so.
It was chaos. But, as if by magic, this always got little Jimmy to the counter first and meant that he got the first lot of newspapers all to himself. Like I said, you couldn’t really call him stupid, just a little bit odd!
However, these semi-violent outbursts aside, when he wasn’t collecting his papers Jimmy was a gentle soul and everybody liked him. He was a fixture of the town, a real character, the type of people that don’t seem to be around any more, mores’ the pity.
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He made some extra money for himself with his second passion, collecting used golf balls. In fact he had quite a successful business going. As soon as it was daybreak little Jimmy was on the golf course and searching in the rough and long grass for lost balls. Luckily for him the local golfers mustn’t have been much good, except at slicing, because there seemed to always be an endless supply of wayward balls.
Little Jimmy collected thousands of them, cleaned them up and then sold them back to the golfers, all of whom knew Jimmy and were happy to pay him. His price was substantially below new cost so everybody got a good deal.
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However, little Jimmy must have taken Yogi Berra’s advice literally (see opening quote of this post) because his main passion became attending funerals. He went to every funeral in the town, whether he knew the person or not.
Not only that, but he kept a journal and logged the date, the time, possibly the number of people attending and so forth. It was one of those overly excessive obsessive qualities that makes me think now that he was probably autistic.
For bigger funerals, and although he couldn’t drive and never had a car, he also took it upon himself to direct traffic into and out of the cemetery. And he could be quite cross and demanding with the drivers as he was doing it.
It was thinking about the obituaries and funerals and such that led me to write this post because it was at the funeral of one of the town’s ‘big-wigs’ that my best and everlasting memory of little Jimmy occurred.
A lot of people had gathered up for this particular funeral. The guy had been a prominent businessman in the town for many years. Everyone knew him and respected him and therefore naturally wanted to pay their final respects by attending his funeral. There were probably also one or two who were there just to be seen to be there. No matter, it was a big turnout.
Eventually the mourners, including me and my Dad, made our way to the cemetery and sure enough little Jimmy was there, directing and organizing the cars. And there were a lot of them, not only because of the number of people but because it was a wet autumn morning.
Everything was wet including the ground around the graveside. Muddy and very slippery too. Luckily we hadn’t far to go, the open grave was just at the edge of the car park.
Little Jimmy was still directing the traffic. The more cars the more frustrated he seemed to become, anxious for the whole thing to start so that he could make the relevant entries in his journal.
“Come on, come on,” we could all hear him shouting impatiently at the drivers, as he waved them left and right and forwards into the few remaining parking spaces.
And then it happened.
As almost the last parking space was being filled, and little Jimmy was hurrying things along as best he could, he was walking backwards signing with his hands at a car in front of him to guide it. His concentration was focused solely on the car in front of him. He had no idea what was behind him and what was behind him was the curb at the edge of the car park. Just beyond that was about two feet of wet muddy grass that marked one end of the open grave around which we were all gathering for the interment.
No, little Jimmy didn’t see the curb behind him. Nor did he realize what it was when he tried to take another step backwards but found he couldn’t.
I watched the whole thing take place, knowing what was going to happen yet thinking somehow that really it wouldn’t. But it did.
Little Jimmy’s momentum backwards knocked him off balance, his feet left him and he sat down rather fast and very hard on to the muddy patch of grass.
If he had left it at that he would have been okay I think, but of course he didn’t. Shocked by what had just happened and trying to get up again as quickly as he could – the way we all try to do as if nothing has happened – he put his hands out behind him to push himself up on to his feet again.
The trouble was there was nothing for his hands to lean against, just the space of the open grave.
I never will forget the look of complete bewilderment on his face as his hands disappeared from view and then, pivoting on his backside, his head and shoulders disappeared too. In part of the same not so graceful movement his legs shot up into the air momentarily and then quickly slid down out of sight into the open grave to join the rest of him. The last that was seen were the big army boots which somehow added to the comedy.
It was truly one of the funniest things I had ever seen in my life and despite the solemn occasion I found it impossible to hold back the laughter. Thankfully several others were similarly afflicted which helped to take the bad look off me.
Jimmy was so short that he had no chance of ever getting out of the grave on his own. It would have been near impossible even for a much taller person because of the conditions. And so the fiasco continued.
Concerned citizens realizing what had just happened went to assist little Jimmy. A few of them almost meeting the same fate as their dress shoes were no match for the mud and they slithered dangerously close to the chasm in front of them. There were a few flailing arms and funny dance steps and ‘Ali Shuffles’ as they tried to retain their balance, all of which didn’t help me regain my composure.
Eventually little Jimmy was hauled out of the open grave, a bit wet and dirty – like a drowned rat, my Dad said later – but apart from a bruised ego, not much the worse for wear.
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The whole debacle didn’t put him off. The next funeral little Jimmy was back with his book making notes. He didn’t have the same enthusiasm for traffic duty though.
Not too many years after that little Jimmy attended his last funeral – his own. No body bothered to log it into a journal, but for an ordinary little guy a surprising number of people made the effort to be there. And some of them, like me, had smiles on their faces.
I have a healthy contempt for politicians and bureaucrats as you’ve probably gathered if you’ve read much of this blog. And it’s well justified.
I could relate some stories to emphasize my point, but actually I don’t have to. The politicians themselves have proved it themselves. Here’s a short selection to show you what I mean.
Enjoy
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Hillary Clinton:
“We are the president.”
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Al Gore, former U.S. Vice President:
“I invented the internet.”
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Bob Dole, former Republican United States Senate Majority Leader from Kansas:
“Life is very important to Americans.”
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President Richard Nixon at French President Charles de Gaulle’s funeral:
“This is a great day for France!”
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Barack Obama at a campaign event in Beaverton, Oregon:
“I’ve now been in 57 states – I think one left to go.”
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Alaska Gov. Walter Hickel once justified a plan to kill hundreds of wolves by saying:
“You just can’t let nature run wild.”
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Strom Thurmond, U.S. senator from South Carolina:
“The U.S. Senate is a special place. I love all of you and especially your wives.”
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Vice President Dan Quayle:
“Desert Storm was a stirring victory for the forces of aggression and lawlessness.”
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California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger:
“I don’t understand how they can call me anti-Latino when I’ve made four movies in Mexico.”
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Frances “Sissy” Farenthold, Texas state representative:
“I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns and women join the unqualified men in running the government.”
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Miriam “Ma” Ferguson, Texas governor:
“If the King’s English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.”
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Tom Daschle, U.S. senator from South Dakota, denouncing spending on space-based missile defense:
“This isn’t rocket science here.”
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Larry Koon, South Carolina state representative:
“Women are best suited for secretarial work, decorating cakes and counter sales, like selling lingerie.”
Mr Koon’s face has been removed from this post for his own safety in light of these remarks
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Jay Dickey Jr., U.S. representative from Arkansas:
“I think incest can be handled as a family matter within the family.”
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Jerry Brown, former Governor of California:
“We’re going to move left and right at the same time.”
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Excerpt from Bill Clinton’s grand jury testimony:
“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” –
Here is installment four of the classified ads. The place where Joe Public gets a chance to show off his or her marketing skills to the world at large.
I’m sure a lot of these were read and reread and drafted and redrafted a number of time to create the perfection that they clearly are.
And I’ve included a nice romantic one at the end for all you ladies.
When the new Congress gets itself organized (don’t hold your breath) here are a few important questions I think they should address. The people deserve to know the answers. We have been ignored for far too long!
What do you call male ballerinas?
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How does Freddy Krueger wipe his butt? (Ouch!)
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Why are the numbers on a calculator and a phone reversed?
(This one in particular has annoyed me for years!)
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Do butterflies remember life as a caterpillar?
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Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized?
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Does the postman deliver his own mail?
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Why is toilet bowl cleaner almost always blue in color?
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Where do people in Hell tell other people to go?
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Is ‘vice-versa’ to a dyslexic just plain redundant?
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How come you can kill a deer and put it up on your wall, but it’s illegal to keep one as a pet?
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Why do we say we’re head over heels when we’re happy? Isn’t that the way we normally are?
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If prunes are dehydrated plums, where does prune juice come from?
Is it appropriate to say ‘good mourning’ at a funeral?
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If there is an exception to every rule, is there an exception to that rule and therefore a rule that there is no exception to and does that mean there is not an exception to every rule, or that there is?
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When you’re caught ‘between a rock and a hard place’, is the rock not hard?
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Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?
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Doesn’t a lightning rod on top of church show a lack of faith?
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Who coined the phrase, ‘coined the phrase’?
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Why do they continue to call steamrollers, ‘steam’ rollers? They no longer produce, get rid of, or have anything to do with steam.
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