Phobias

Do you suffer from claustrophobia?

Not sure I have any real phobias, though being a city girl, I'm not keen on total darkness. I prefer to see a bit of light peeping through my curtains and the total darkness of the countryside at night makes me twitchy or a bit of a nyctophobic. I'm also not over-enamoured of earwigs and slugs - but there's no word for that. I once had a boyfriend who was fiercely arachnophobic. First sign of a spider or even a daddy long legs in our living room and he was up the stairs and hiding with the neighbours, while I was picking the little blighter up and dropping it in the back garden. We did however make the perfect phobic couple on a camping trip once. I picked up a tea towel inside our tent, found it crawling with earwigs, screamed, he took the offending tea towel outside and shook it clear of its visitors. He then went back into the tent, found a spider in residence, yelled, I picked it up in cupped hands and deposited it outside. As it was a damp night, there were several of these little incidents in the next half hour.

..or maybe arachnophobia?

Observing us with a look of astonishment from the next tent, where they were cooking a delicious smelling meal were a young French couple, who obviously thought this yet another example of the madness of the English. It was an affectionate look however, they couldn't be accused of being Anglophobic. Nor were our weak grins in their direction in any way Francophobic or indeed Gallophobic. Just plain embarrassed. The English and the French are not the only nationalities who have an English word to describe the fear or hatred of their country or culture. The Germans can be victims of Germanophobia or Teutophobia, the Japanese of Japanophobia and the Chinese Sinophobia or SAEnophobia. The Dutch, the Italians, the Australians and the Americans however get off scot free, perhaps surprisingly these days in the case of America's unpopularity in certain quarters. How long I wonder before someone announces they are suffering from Yankophobia?

Some phobias are well known. Agoraphobia - open spaces or crowded public places, Claustrophobia - confined spaces. And there are people who are afraid of outer space - spacephobics. You'd be surprised how many actors suffer from Topophobia, more commonly known as stage fright, while many is the best man who's got to his feet to make the wedding speech and discovered he's suffering from a bad case of Glossophobia or fear of speaking in public. On the other hand it could just be too much champagne.

... or may be even climacophobia?

When it comes to sex, we've loads of phobias. In spite of gay liberation, Homophobia's still not uncommon. Then there's Paraphobia, fear of anything perceived as sexual perversion, Coitophobia and the more poetic Erotophobia, fear of sex and love. Men frightened of the opposite sex have a bad case of Gynophobia - though if it's only beautiful women that make them nervous they are Caligynephobic or Venstraphobic, while women who fear men are Androphobic, Arrhenphobic or Homophobic. And if you hate the very idea of falling love, you're a right little Philophobic. Some people who are frightened of numbers - Arithmophobia or Numerophobia - others are frightened of specific numbers. Triskadekaphobia or fear of 13 has a certain logic if you're superstitious, though why any one should be Octophobic or frightened of the number 8 is beyond me.

The best one though has a name which rivals the Mary Poppins song "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" in terms of tongue twisting. 666, as you'll know if you've seen the Omen films, is the mark of the devil. And if you're frightened of it, it's devilishly hard to explain that you're a Hexakosioi hexekonta hexaphobic.