RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31079, 7 June 1966, Page 24

RANDOM REMINDER

WATCH IN

There was a Friday the thirteenth last month, but there is not another until January, which gives plenty of time for someone to establish a New Zealand branch of an American organisation dedicated to fighting triskedecaphobia which, as you all know, is fear of the number 13. The O.E.D. doesn’t say so, but that’s what it means. The gentleman behind this forward move is not unknown to the newspaper readers of the world. He is Mr Nick Matsoukas who, about six years ago, won g

proud place in the history of mankind by promoting a Society against Indecency of Naked Animals. Today, Park Avenue poodles wear furs. There is certainly a case, in America, for some onslaught on the superstitions surrounding 13. It is estimated that triskedecaphobia costs the American nation something like 250,000 dollars a year. There have been instances of workmen refusing to build a thirteenth floor, of marriage registrars or whatever they are called

there being out of work on Friday the thirteenth. On the 13th, apparently, the bulls and bears of the stock exchange cringe in their corners. The airlines, with their champagne and caviare, still tempt remarkably few people to fly on a Friday which is the 13th, or any old 13th for that matter, and of course not in a seat numbered 13. We don’t believe in all this nonsense really. But when we fly we are. for all that, careful to avoid seat 12A. There’s no sense in taking needless risks.