Dear Hillary,
I wanted a haircut so I went to my usual barbers the other day, to find it was closed. This was something new to me, so I drove around to see the next one, and it was closed as well. Asking around with my friends, I was told that all barbers close on Wednesdays. Can you tell me why they all want to shut on that day. I had to spend the rest of the afternoon in the pub instead. Is it a government rule or what? Just sign me Hairy.
Dear Hairy,
Aren’t you lucky, it was just the Bar-ber that was closed, and not the Bar-beer! Your friends were correct, the barbers close on Wednesday. It is not a government rule, but comes from the fact that we consider it to be bad luck to cut your hair on a Wednesday, so the clever barbers may as well close, rather than spread the bad luck. It is something like the old religious edict of “no meat on Fridays” overseas, which gave the butchers a holiday as well.