Today is, of course, Friday the Thirteenth, which for those of a superstitious bent is a Very Bad Day, because… reasons. This is being rather uncharitable to the history of Christendom, though, because Friday, October 13, 1307, was the day when the Order of the Poor Knights of St. John of the Temple – that is to say, the Knights Templar – came to a bloody and terrible end.
The backstory of this particularly unpleasant episode of history has to do with King Philip IV of France, who apparently sent out secret orders for the arrest of the Templars and their leaders, so that he could avoid paying them some rather large debts.
This was not the first time that a king welshed on his debts using underhanded and bloody methods, and it was not the last, either. There is considerable debate among Christian historical circles as to whether the Knights Templar were indeed a bunch of fallen heretics, as King Philip proclaimed – or simply the victims of a greedy king’s avarice and cruelty.
Whatever the truth of the matter, it is said that Grand Master Jacques de Molay spat out a terrible curse as he burned alive in the flames of his execution, against his accusers. Chillingly, Pope Clement V died within a month of that event, and King Philip the Frog died before the end of that year – 1314 – when de Molay himself did.
The fact that the Catholic Church itself exonerated de Molay of any heresy within a year of the arrests of the Templars, indicates that they were almost certainly not guilty of any real crimes – imagined or real. That, of course, did nothing much to change their sad fate.
This also, by sheer coincidence, happens to be my 13th year of poasting, which is something of an achievement – though, admittedly, given my highly patchy output, it is not much of one, these days.
Beyond an interesting historical anniversary (of sorts), this is also the first of THREE Friday the 13ths of 2026. There will be another one in March, and a third in November.
So, if you would like to creep out your significant other, you have today and two more opportunities to do so.
To be honest, though, given tomorrow is February 14th – aka “Valentine’s Day”, aka “a made-up holiday created by a vast conspiracy of greeting-card cartels, chocolate-makers, wine-bottlers, and restaurants”, to paraphrase Dr. John Becker, from the criminally underrated early-2000s sitcom, Becker – I suppose we should really worry more about ourselves, as men, being horrified by what happens tomorrow.
This, of course, is part of the reason why this particular much-beloved series exists. So let’s get straight to the lovely lady of the day.
This here is Varvara Subbotina (Варвара Субботина), age 24 from Moscow, Mordor. At first, she strikes one as something of a “butterface”, as it were – until you realise that she is a 4-time world and 3-time European artistic swimming champion. Furthermore, she very clearly has a great… personality. Both of them. Quite how she manages to squeeze all that personality into a full-body swimsuit, is a physics problem that will surely puzzle the greatest minds of our time.
Plus, because of what she does in her sporting career, she can contort herself like a pretzel. I leave it to your imagination to figure out what that means. She does appear to be taken, though not yet married – as far as I can tell.
Happy Friday – yes, this one actually landed on a Friday, for a change – everyone.
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