It's Friday the 13th, which is unlucky. I know for a fact it is unlucky because I am sitting in the office writing this column when I should be at home, and that is because I was just about to climb on the bus when I remembered: "Ah, you haven't written your column."

So there you go. The curse of Friday the 13th strikes, a full five hours early. I'm not generally what you call a superstitious sort, though. We have a shaving mirror in the bathroom that's been cracked for... ooh, about seven years now. So if there has been bad luck which can attributed to that, we must be about due to settle that particular account.

There are people at work who refuse to "pass on the stairs", and there are a torrent of people leaving to get their lunch or going home coming down the other way, the person in front resolutely standing stock-still until every single other person has passed. That's certainly unlucky if you get stuck behind them.

I'm also not fussed about walking under ladders. I don't see that many ladders, to be honest, unless it's the window cleaner. It would be bad luck if I walked under his ladder, mind, because that would mean I'd be at home when he was cleaning the windows and I'd be the one who copped for paying him, a job I usually neatly side-step.

My only superstitious vice, if that's the appropriate word, is when it comes to magpies. I can't remember who told me, but ever since I was informed that a) a lone magpie is unlucky and b) you can offset this bad luck by saluting it and asking after its wife, it's all I've ever done since.

In fact, it's become something of a minor obsession. I slavishly follow the old rhyme. If I see one magpie, I bellow: "How's your missus? Hope you have healthy chicks" while saluting like a maniac, no matter where I am or who's around me.

If I see two magpies, I smile and wait for the inevitable joy to descend. Three is for a girl and four for a boy, so I fully expect on seeing those numbers that the relevant child in the house will do or say something funny/charming/disparaging to me.

This is where the good stuff comes in. Five is for silver, six for gold. It's quite rare that I see such mobs of magpies, but when I do I get somewhat excited about how much good fortune is going to head in my direction. Now I think about it, I can't recall ever getting much financial benefit from seeing five or six magpies, but there you go. These things take time.

Seven, as we all know, is for a secret never to be told. That secret would probably be the fact that a man who presumes to have some level of intelligence and sophistication - that's me, by the way - subscribes to such old-fashioned notions.

The cat's out of the bag now... presumably a black one running across my path.