"Good Luck Mate"! People tend to utter these words at some very strange times indeed! Like before going to a funeral or when off to tell a partner that it is all over, that there is someone else on the scene. Weird is it not that 'luck' should be brought into the equation! Good luck and hopefully a frying pan won't land on the head or a bus won't run amock at the funeral gathering!

I don't believe in luck, that 'good luck' can be so easily given by others and passed across like a peanut butter sandwich before school! I prefer the actors' way of cheering a colleague onto the stage using the age old saying of, "break a leg". By saying "good luck" is doom lurking around the next corner? Maybe to say, "all the best' would be more appropriate, leaving lady-luck to those who control it.

Various cultures and societies have superstitions regarding 'luck' or vice versa 'bad luck' and each is piled high with historical meaning and individual or group interpretation. Back home in the UK for example;

It is bad luck to walk under a ladder, said to originate from the fact that a ladder against a wall makes the shape of the holy trinity, and to walk through it would break it and cause bad luck. (Extract taken from Peterborough Today) The notion that walking under a ladder could result in a pot of paint on the head, lies better with me!

The luck of the four-leaf clover; The superstition that the finding of a four-leaf clover can bring good luck is so old that its origin is lost in antiquity. One of the oldest legends has it that Eve, upon being ejected from the Garden of Eden, took a four-leaf clover with her. Because the clover was a bit of green from paradise, its presence in one's own garden came to be looked upon as an omen of good luck.

According to some traditions, a young woman seeking a husband should go in search of a four-leaf clover. If she is fortunate enough to find one, she is to eat it. The first unmarried man she encounters after eating the clover will be the one she will wed. Another tradition of gaining a husband or wife is to find a four-leaf clover and place it in one's shoe first thing in the morning. The first unmarried member of the opposite sex encountered that day will be one's future spouse. (Extract taken from Unexplained Stuff) I would prefer to go with the idea of rarity but then why ruin a good story!

Generally, most humans subconsciously adhere to these rulings (for the most part) yet sometimes we deliberately break them just because we are in that frame of mind. Ambling along the road we see in the distance a rickety ladder perched against a wall, with a swinging bucket of paint dangling from its top rung. Our immediate reaction is to walk around this ladder, then from some perverse sense of "I rule my destiny" we walk under, telling the devil that he can go to hell and hoping that the paint is matt and not gloss. Proceeding down the road we fight that feeling of impending doom lurking around the next corner, wishing that we had gone around the ladder as superstition stated.

Of course five-minutes later all thoughts of ever having walked around, under or even of having ever noticed a ladder in the first place, have been dispensed with and life goes on as before. And one could state that if bad luck does come along it is not associated or connected to that incidence of defiance against age old superstition - that has long since been forgotten about and it is all to do with simple bad luck and nothing more.

Don't open an umbrella indoors (I pity those poor umbrella testers at the local umbrella factory), don't look at the next page of a calendar before that month has arrived (again those poor printers and designers) and elephants should always face to the door (poor Zoo keepers).

I have been trying to get to grips with Chinese superstitions so that I don't make any unintentional errors or social boohas!. The one with Number Four is common and an easy one to remember. The pronunciation of the word "four" in Chinese sounds like death, so floors in buildings tend to miss out the fourth floor and lifts go 12356. Following on from this, never choose the number four on your lottery ticket and if you gave 444 Dollars as a present - well you are basically condemning the receiver to a life of hell.

Some other Chinese superstitions are harder to understand, remember and follow.

For example my wife tells me that we should never hit a dog or cat whilst driving (this superstition can't have been passed down through the generations, and must have originated with "never hit a dog or cat with you horse and cart", and before that "never hit them with your feet........") otherwise they will come back to kill you. Another, is to never to hang your clothes out under the sky at night, otherwise a ghost will assume your attire and will thus be with you forever and always - which by the sounds of things may not be for very long.

I came across a really weird superstition in Vietnam, one that seemed to cause bad luck to many and good luck to none. It is the act of passing in front of an oncoming vehicle, the closer you are the better. For example: the fishing boats like to cut across the bows of incoming Merchant vessels whom often do not have the space or time to turn or to cut their engines. One mistake by the fisherman and they would become serious driftwood, maybe without the Merchant vessel having even noticed the fishing boats demise. More disturbing though are the thousands of "kids" who race around the streets on their mopeds day in day out, round and round in circles, weaving and skidding as they go. And their aim is to cut across as many pedestrians as they possibly can, often running over the poor victims' feet in the process. A friend of mine out there had a Vietnamese girl friend and unfortunately she ended up permanently paralysed from the waist down due to one racer who misjudged his "good luck" run and hit her head on. He disappeared, probably never realizing what he had done, to continue such antics elsewhere whilst she sits in a wheelchair.

Apart though from those unlucky superstitions heaped in tradition or history we tend to make our own up as we go along in life. For example; we don't walk a certain route or wear a certain item of clothing, because once upon a time it brought us bad luck! Or the complete opposite where we wear a certain item of clothing because it once brought us goof luck (I always wear my grey trousers because I met my wife in them, I hate the blue ones as I was wearing them when I lost my job). Charms are another example of self-imposed superstition; a certain item carried in the pocket becomes a symbol of good fortune, probably more of a memento than anything else, but it provides one with confidence in a tricky situation.

I had this pair of cowboy boots when I was a kid. A pair that I scraped the money to buy over many months of newspaper rounds. Regardless of the fact that they were of slightly different shades of brown, a couple of sizes too big and did not suit my gangly frame, I wore them faithfully and felt lucky in them. Until the day that I decided to improve their quality in an attempt to reduce my excessive height. I sawed a section of the heels off thinking that in this way I could still wear them and remain not too far off the ground. Despite the fact that I looked as if I was continuously trudging up a steep hill with an invisible force pulling me backwards at the neck, I suffered those boots for a further period - they were my lucky boots. Must have looked daft in them but they were my lucky boots!