Dear Hillary,
I wanted a hair cut 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 Wensdays (sic) and it was a Wensday (sic) that I was looking at. 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 goverment (sic) rule or what? Just sign me Hairy Harry.
Dear Hairy Harry,
Aren’t you lucky, it was just the Bar-ber that was closed, and not the Bar-beer (as they were over Buddhist Lent)! Your friends were correct Petal, the barbers close on Wednesday (write out the correct spelling 100 times, my Petunia). It is not a government (write this one out 100 times as well) 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.
