Friday!!

Newspapers online this morning had headlines about Black Friday sales. What's that about? 

Crazy people buying electrical goods they don't need because "it's a bargain"??? I read reports of students buying several TV sets or taking away two trolleys full of stuff. Students?! Even if the goods are reduced from £300 to £150, how do they afford to buy four or five items? A mad rush to buy stuff you don't even know you need because the prices are reduced! Police having to close down Tesco stores because of aggressive purchasing! People fighting to get in and then snatching goods off other shoppers! Has the world gone mad? 

I decided to investigate Black Friday and had some interesting results:-

• In 1881, a severe European windstorm hit the coast of Scotland on Friday 14th of October. 189 fishermen from Eyemouth in Berwickshire were drowned. They named it Black Friday. 

•  In 1910, there was a women's suffrage event in London on Friday 18th of October - Emmeline Pankhurst and co. The police were sent out in force against the suffragettes and many of those arrested were assaulted and manhandled. The first case of police action against the suffragettes - Black Friday. 

• In 1862, two speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk, tried to corner the gold market in New York on Friday September 24th and brought about the collapse of the market. Just one of the scandals that rocked the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. 

But the shopping thing is all about the Friday after Thanksgiving when the Christmas shopping season starts in the USA, with bargains galore, rather like the Boxing Day sales in the UK. Goodness knows why they call it Black Friday! 

Anyway, some bright spark decided it would be a good idea to import the idea to the UK. As if we didn't have enough sales already. Chaos appears to have ensued as a result! I remain unimpressed! 

Maybe we also need to import Buy Nothing Day, a day of protest against consumerism, usually the Friday or Saturday after Black Friday. 

Oh, yes, I almost forgot this one. When you google Black Friday it throws up a singer called Rebecca Renee Black who released a single called Friday in 2011. This was deemed the "worst song ever" but it went viral on YouTube. So it goes. 

I have found an interesting new (to me anyway) word: brumotactillophobia. It means fear of having different items of food touching each other on your plate. This sort of plate - lunch yesterday - with a tasty sauce combining all the ingredients wouldn't please brumotactillophobes. 

I remember my brother being a bit fussy in that way - major ructions if his potatoes touched his meat. Complicated arrangements to prevent the gravy spreading too far. Mind you he was more than a little fussy as a child. Whatever anyone else had for dinner, my mother used to prepare mashed potatoes and minced beef for her son. Pandering to his fad, I call it! He did grow up to be a normal eater in later life, although it took him a fair few years before he would eat cheese. We all have our little quirks. It's what makes life interesting. 

The chess player's little quirk at the moment seems to be having lo-o-o-o-ong games. Last night's was another 6.30 to 11.30 marathon! It went through "not so bad", "a reasonable position", "not playing well", "getting better", "made a blunder in time pressure" to "lost". So it goes. 

Today is another day! Let's hope it's not another Black Friday!