Why is 13 considered so unlucky? Surveys show that of all bad luck superstitions, unease surrounding the number thirteen is the one that affects most people today—and in almost countless ways. The French, for instance, never issue the house address thirteen. In Italy, the national lottery omits the number thirteen. …
I had a rather splendid day today. As regular readers are no doubt aware, I teach English during the summer months..Today saw the return of the Russians and their charming tour leader and a rather pleasant Russian English teacher. The result of which got me thinking about the English language …
Racing has always attracted trickery, schemes and coups. But what follows is without doubt is the most delicious con of all time. The greatest sting in the history of horse racing took place on August 1, 1898. It was without doubt the most audacious scheme ever thought up. A very …
In Saxon times and in the Middle Ages, days were long and hard for craftsmen and peasants alike, who laboured from sunrise to sunset. The regularity of their existence was periodically interrupted by Church feast days which were set aside for religious celebration instead of work. The Old English word …
There is a wonderful line in P.G. Wodehouse’s , The Code of the Woosters which reads: I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled. The resurrection of palimpsest words is a simple, practically failsafe, form of humour. There are thousands of them loitering in …
Apparently a fainéant is an idler and a sluggard. Somehow you can guess that without bothering to dig out your dictionary. Fainéants sound lazy. Why? Why, dear inactive reader, did you suspect immediately that a fainéant was a lazybones, a lie-a-bed, and a lotus-eater. Perhaps it was the suggestion of faint, with …
It now appears the reason why T.S. Eliot insisted on his middle initial was because he was painfully aware of what his name would have spelled backwards without it. His great friend W.H Auden (whose H was idiopathic) wrote a palindrome on the subject: T. Eliot, top bard, notes putrid …
The Holy Land, the tombs of Saints Peter and Paul in Rome, those of St James at Santiago de Compostela in Spain and St Thomas a Becket in Canterbury were great centres of medieval pilgrimage. A pilgrim was easily identified by the way he dressed. He wore a rough grey …
Despite the fact that every other shop in most cities seems to be a bloody Starbucks (or something similar), this is not a modern day occurrence.In the 17th century, London had over one thousand establishments catering to a strange new craze imported from Arabia in the early months of 1615. …
According to a popular legend, the word crap comes from Thomas Crapper, the supposed inventor of the flush toilet. The story goes that Crapper’s name was stamped on all his lavatorial devices, and when servicemen in World War I went to the latrine they would say, “I’m goin’ to the …
