Unlucky 13
Created | Updated Apr 21, 2004
Triskaidecaphobia is a very long word. It's deceptively long, concidering it describes something so simplistic and foolish. For millennia there have been gullible people who have believed that the number 13 is unlucky. Some have claimed that this dates back to the unfortunate events that occurred after Jesus' last supper was attended by thirteen diners. However, not only does this silly superstition actually predate the events of 33 AD but it is hard to see how the betrayal of the Messiah would have been averted had Matthew cried off with gastroenteritis or had Barnabas brought along his new girlfriend.
There is actually nothing intrinsically unlucky about thirteen or any number. Fair enough; thirteen year olds are slightly more surly than most other teenagers and you try sharing out the last thirteen smarties in the tube without a fight. But recently the number thirteen has started to spell disaster to a very desperate few in this small island.
Personalised number plates are still all the rage among the vain and feeble-minded. The very same genus of buffoons who might once have thought it was feasible for a number to be unlucky are the same sort who actually believe there is any more kudos and respect to be gained by paying hundreds of pounds of extra tax to have their names on their number plates than paying a tenner to have them on blue strips of plastic across the tops of their windscreens.
Usually, these people are driving way too fast to witness the superior sneer on everybody's face as they read D1CKY or DE 51 REE. The really unlucky ones, however are the '13' clowns. The idea that a 1 and a 3 close enough together might look like a B is pretty laughable. A13BIE does not look like ABBIE. E13DEN does not look like EBDEN but none of them seem to care. And why should they. These people are a whole missing link higher than the real Neanderthals. To scrape the bottom of this particular barrel is to stare lunacy in the face and hear it ask - 'Do you like my lobotomy scars? Cool aren't they?'
If the number 13 doesn't look like a 'B', it absolutely, definitely looks nothing at all like an 'R'. And the day it does is the day Stephen Hawkins could pass for Tina Turner. Yet there are, out there, number plates in the tell tale digits-too-close-together style which read; B13ETT, T131SHA, BLA13E etc. Unless the whole daft names craze (Kennedy, India, Taneesha, Steed et al) has been around a full seventeen years and there are now drivers called Bbett and Tbisha, there must actually be people who have paid for these number plates having actually believed some salesman's patter before their own common sense.
This new evidence is set to cause a stir in the scientific community as it is going to be very hard to explain how a number that has scared the gullible for centuries has managed to seduce and curse the gullible of the modern world. Maybe ther is some truth in all that mumbo-jombo after all.
