As some will have read, a close friend of mine is seriously ill. I've caught myself indulging in all sorts of strange, superstitious thinking- normally I'm very much a rationalist.

For example, feeling that if I got the sudoku wrong, that would be bad luck for her- one day, I even went to the extent of tippexing one out and re-doing it right! And feeling that, when visiting the hospital, I had to take the same, rather convoluted, route that we took when we took her in.

Superstition is inversely proportional to the power we have over events.

DeG- it could be superstitious to deliberately walk beneath a ladder, just to prove you aren't superstitious.