Second Friday the 13th

For those among you who are superstitious, I am offering my commiseration as I have to remind you that we are Friday the 13th of March. And, to make matters worse, we are the second Friday of the year already. And, to make it even worse, 2026 has three Friday the 13th. For those among you suffering from triskaidekaphobia or paraskevidekatriaphobia, or both (I guess it's always both when you have such phobia), well, this is not your year. But on the plus side, after today, there will be only one Friday the 13th to go. For me, any Friday the 13th is just like any other Friday. I love when evening comes, and it is pretty much the weekend, however, it's a day out at the madhouse, whatever the date Friday falls on.

Le clown sinistre

 Je partage une autre photo prise par mon père l'an dernier, celle d'un clown diabolique. Enfin, un clown normal. On voit son visage plus en détails et j'ai remarqué que ses boutons de chemise avaient l'apparence de citrouilles.

Clown diabolique

Photo prise l'an dernier par mon père. Le clown démoniaque est maintenant une figure incontournable de l'Halloween, tant dans ses histoires que dans ses décorations.

Insey Winsey Spider

 As you may have noticed reading this blog, I have been trying recently to rediscover board games and also get Wolfie interested about them. I say recently, but I have been working on it since his last two birthdays at least. So I bought him this board game, or rather these two board games in one, Insey Winsey Spider. Because he always liked the nursery rhyme and because it's one of these educational board games that encourages numeracy. At first he didn't want to play: his mother gave him her arachnophobia. But a few weeks ago, I was surprised to learn that he had started playing with his mummy. He is naturally good with numbers, so I can understand why he enjoyed it. I hope the game will also cure his and his mummy's fear of spiders.

RIP Magawa, le rat détecteur de mines

J'ai lu une nouvelle insolite et assez intéressante, de même qu'un peu tristeet touchante: Magawa, le rat détecteur de mines du Cabodge, est mort récemment. J'ajouterais: de sa belle mort,pastué par une mine. Il aura aidé au nettoyage de 225 000 mètres carrés de terre, soit l'équivalent de 42 terrains de football. On peut dire qu'il aura fait oeuvre utile. Je déteste les rats, ayant une peur phobique de l'animal. Mais celui-là, j'ai décidé que je l'aimais bien. Si tousles rats étaient comme lui, j'aimerais l'espèce au grand complet.

L'araignée près de la remise

Nous avons parfois des visiteurs dans la maisons, enfin des squatteurs que je m'efforce de chasser, parce que ma femme en a une peur maladive. Je parle bien entendu des araignées. Mais il y en a une qui a décidé de tisser sa toile juste à côté de la remise. Enfin, pour être exact contre la remise. Elle est assez volumineuse et elle est plutôt jolie, je trouve, mais bon, c'est rien que moi. Il faut que je fasse attention à chaque fois que j'ouvre la porte de la remise pour ne pas l'avoir sur moi.

Friday the 13th

Today, we are Friday the 13th of August. It is a banal statement and I am not superstitious, but just because I like folklore (even when I don't believe in its veracity, I thought I would mention it here. It is also the one and only Friday the 13th of 2021, so those suffering from paraskevidekatraiaphobia should find this year rather relaxing. For those sufferent from triskaidekaphobia, 2021 is just as scary as any other year. If any of you suffering from either phobias read this post, please leave a comment.

Hereditary arachnophibia

Little piece of family drama yesterday: I heard both my wife and Wolfie scream. There was a spider in the kitchen. Sadly I could not catch the spider, which was not very big according to my wife, as it had gone under the fridge, not to be seen again. Wolfie was shaking afterwards, we had to call his daddad to calm him down. It appears that his mother gave him a fear of spider. Thankfully, I am not arachnophobic myself, thanks to a certain aesthetic appreciation of their appearance and their work (some of them anyway). But that means I'm now the official family's spider hunter.

Samhainophobia

I have learned something new recently, from a local magazine that is delivered for free every month at the door of every resident of our small English town and others in the area. Apparently, there is a phobia for a fear of Halloween, named Samhainophobia. After the old Celtic and Pagan name of the holiday, of course. The things you learn in the most random places. Anyway, Samhainophobia is the word of the day and this is the second countdown to Halloween's post today.

The Return of the Spiders

A few days ago, my wife screamed because she felt and saw a huge spider walking on the bathroom floor. I had to take it out, as my wife has a paralytic fear of spiders. It was really a strong one too, I could feel it kicking against the side of the glass and stomping the cardboard. And this was not the only eight legged squatter we've had this month, albeit it was easily the biggest one. Generally, they show up in the house in such number much later, around September or late August at the earliest. Whatever the reason for their presence, I am now this household's official spider catcher.

Of mice and cats

I took this picture in the Natural History Museum and I am uploading it here as it suits my topic. It was a display representingsomething like the relation between animals and men in the food chain. A stuffed cat and stuffed rats, in what was meant to be a basement or an attic, full of bags of grain. The rats eat the grain gathered by men, the cat eats the rats, thus serving men, etc. I blogged about it here. This weekend, Domino created quite a commotion by bringing a mouse home. It was not the first time he did such a thing, but this time the mouse was alive. Our cat had decided to have a play with it in the living room. Long story short, I managed to move Domi away and save the mouse. But it really freaked me out, as I hate rodents. So whatever I said then about how great cats are for getting rid of vermin, I don't have this opinion anymore, unless they have the courtesy to kill their prey.

Wolfie and the spider

Yesterday, right after his bath, I was drying little Wolfie with a towel when he started pointing nervously behind me saying: "Daddy, daddy, spider! Look daddy, spider!" I turned around, saw nothing. I thought he saw a piece of tangled hair, which he often confuse with spiders. Wolfie hates spiders, he fears them like his mother does and gets nervous every time he sees one near him. But I told him I could see nothing. He kept saying: "Look, daddy, spider!" I still could not see anything, so he finally said, with impatience: "Daddy hold Wolfie!" A sign that he feels insecure and wants reassurance that he is safe with me. So I did hold him, he pointed again and then I saw it, a spider walking on the rug fast pace, big, black one. It disappeared. behind a bedside table and we could not find it afterwards. Moral of the story: always trust your child's judgment and eyesight when he says he sees a spider. Especially when you are not wearing your glasses.

Abibliophobie

Je trouve bien des niaiseries sur internet en général et sur facebook en particulier, mais parfois des choses très drôles, comme ce meme que j'ai vu hier. L'abibliophobie est une phobie inventée, mais elle me va tellement bien que je crois qu'elle est authentique. Et ça expliquerait ma compulsion à acheter des bouquins même quand j'en ai déjà plusieurs ici. Il y a une raison à cela: je lis en fonction d'un programme de lecture précis et saisonnier. N'empêche: j'ai peur de manquer de livres à lire. C'est donc notre mot du jour.

No number 13

Here is a funny little detail I noticed recently about the business park where I work: there is no number 13. There are about twenty offices, but none of them is at number 13. I wonder who was suffering of triskaidekaphobia when they were allocating address numbers to the buildings. It's a small business park, and a fairly young one I'd say, it's as bland and anonymous as a business park can be, yet it has that peculiarity. Which may not be a peculiarity. For all I know it's something common to many business parks here and elsewhere.

Fear the clowns

I could not have a countdown to Halloween this year without mentioning the recent clown scare. I took this picture last year in Montreal, proof that the association between clowns and horror is nothing new. In fact, according to this article from The Telegraph, creepy and scary clowns are as old as there are clowns. I have never liked clowns myself and often felt uneasy about them. You can guess I have a bit of coulrophobia. And for good reasons. Clowns are deformed, grotesque even, they spend time humiliating each other in slapstick and they don't act rationally. There is very little difference, intrinsically, between a clown and a madman. Pennywise is a devil in clown form. The Joker is a clown. Michael Myers commits his first murder (at five!) disguised as a clown. So fear the clowns.

"Can't sleep, clown will eat me"

Fans of the classic seasons of The Simpsons will remember that this is what a young Bart was saying in Lisa's First Word when Homer had built him a clown-themed bed, as his old pram is going to be used by his yet to be born sister Lisa. The episode was hilarious and confirmed my belief that clowns are creepy and scary. The line is now part of pop culture, it is also the one I had in mind and kept repeating to myself when I was trying to sleep, in the little hours of the morning, while my wife was still in labour. So for no better reason, I thought to share it here tonight:

Paraskevidékatriaphobie

Nous sommes vendredi le 13 mai, le seul vendredi 13 de l'année. Une année chanceuse, donc. Cela dit, ceux qui souffrent de paraskevidékatriaphobie, à ne pas confondre avec la triskaïdékaphobie, sur laquelle j'ai blogué ici. J'ai aussi déjà blogue sur la paraskevidékatriaphobie en 2013. Cette dernière est la peur du vendredi 13 (l'autre c'est la peur du chiffre 13). Au moins, les paraskevidékatriaphobes n'auront qu'à souffrir une journée cette année. Et je ne retaperai pas le terme une autre fois, ça commence à me lasser, mais sachez que c'est notre mot du jour.

Le 3e vendredi 13

Nous sommes un vendredi 13 aujourd'hui, mais pas n'importe quel vendredi 13: c'est le troisième de l'année! Pour ceux qui souffrent de triskaïdékaphobie, ça doit être l'horreur. En plus, c'est le vendredi 13 novembre. Juste pour toute cette association symbolique, je me devais de le souligner.

Number 13

We are the 13th of October, so for tonight's countdown to Halloween's post, I have decided to share with you a ghost story by M.R James, aptly named Number 13. It is set in a hotel/inn in Viborg, Denmark, where like in many hotels, the room number 13 does not exist. Or does it? Because slowly, the narrator slowly discovers that there is a sinister presence in the hotel, barely perceptible at first, and a room that should not exist appears in the middle of the night. Like all of M.R. James story, the seemingly mundane situation of the beginning gradually disintegrate until the gruesome climax. Because when the ghost reveals itself (sort of), he is often gruesome in the stories of M.R. James.

As for his own Oh Whistle, and I'll Come to You My Lad, another favourite of mine (read more about it here), it is a horror story set in a hotel, a fairly common trope in ghost stories. You can read about another such ghost story in a hotel setting on this post from last year. More than triskaidekaphobia (the fear of number 13), it is claustrophobia that is featured here. The bedroom of the protagonist literally shrinks as evil manifests itself. But I don't want to give too much away. You can read it on this website. If you are feeling lazy, you can also watch on YouTube the BBC adaptation from 2006, which I enjoyed too. But I would recommend that you read first the original, which is far superior, especially the climax. And please comment and tell me what you think.

The fear of arachnids

That was the big conversation today at work: this Daily Mail articles about spiders getting bigger. I recently blogged (in French) about some eight legged intruders that were indeed huge and decided to squat in the flat. Well, I started talking about it and others brought their own anecdotes and spiders invasion was on everybody's lips. One of my colleagues mentioned a huge spiders that crawled on her while she was showering and she said the strangest thing, so matter of factly that it was quite spooky: "Their body is mostly brains. They are thinker, and when they look at you, they are saying they know they will get you." I don't like spiders much, but not to this level of contempt. But I find arachnophobia fascinating. And this particular display of it, so developed, was even more so. Anyway, I think her vision of spider's anatomy psychology may have been all wrong, nevertheless it deserves to be a new great unknown line.