Doreen Tipton: The world’s a circus, send in the clowns

I’d heard of this before of course, but didn’t realise there were so many sufferers. Coulrophobia, it’s called, because people who invent names for phobias want to make sure it’s almost impossible to guess what it means.

Anyway, it got me looking into other unusual phobias, and there are some crackers out there. Omphalophobia is fear of the navel. Papaphobia is fear of the Pope. So Omphalopapaphobia, I assume, is fear of the Pope’s navel. A lot of young folk suffer from Nomophobia – fear of having no mobile phone coverage. Pogonophobia is the fear of beards (see what I mean? It’d be much easier if they just called it Beardophobia). Then there’s Koumpounophobia – and here we’re getting into the heavy stuff – fear of buttons. Not Cinderella’s mate, but a morbid fear of the little round plastic things that stop your clothes from falling off. It’s apparently not that rare. Steve Jobs, the Apple founder, had it, which is why he usually wore turtle necks, and also why he favoured touchscreens – no buttons, you see.

Obviously, the mysterious blokes who invent the fancy phobia names ran out of inspiration when it came to the fear of bananas, and opted for Bananaphobia. But they were right back on form when they came up with Loukanikophobia. Any guesses? Well, it’s one to watch out for if you have barbecues, as featured in last week’s column. It’s defined as ‘a fear of the sausage’. I’m sure I’ve had bouts of that myself.

So anyway, the lady who wrote to me is in luck, because as it happens I’m not dressing up as a clown, or a sausage, or the Pope, I won’t be showing my navel, I won’t have any buttons (zip up hoody) and I won’t be sporting a beard or eating a banana. So Coulrophobes, Loukanikophobes, Papaphobes, Omphalophobes, Koumpounophobes, Pogonophobes and Bananaphobes are all welcome. Not sure about the Nomophobes though – mobile phone coverage will vary depending on which theatre you’re in.

However, I am duty bound to warn any Politicophobes in the audience that they could be in for a rough night. Politicophobia, like Bananophobia, was obviously named by the office junior while the boss was away, and it means Fear of Politicians. Because even though my new show has a circus theme, it’s really more to do with the circus of madness we now all live in, and I will be devoting some of the evening to the clowns who try and run the country.

I do take issue with the word Politicophobia though. A phobia, after all, is an irrational fear, and there’s nothing irrational about being scared of politicians. They not only have it in their power to totally screw up our lives, they also seem hell-bent lately on exercising that power to the limits of its madness.

In fact, I reckon these phobia-labelling folk must get paid a bonus for each one they invent, because some of their efforts seriously couldn’t be described as irrational fears. Foniasophobia, for example, is defined as ‘An irrational fear of murderers’.

What? Who wouldn’t be afraid of murderers? “Oh, don’t be silly, child,” I can hear my caring mother saying with a playful smile. “Don’t be afraid of the murderer! He won’t hurt you.”

There’s a word for an irrational fear of atomic bombs as well, even though, as we all know, they’re pretty harmless. Unlike daddy long-legs, of course, which can flatten whole cities in seconds.

The list of officially recognised phobias is now seemingly endless. There’s Chloephobia. A mother of three developed this rare fear of newspapers, after witnessing her mother hit her father over the head with one. She now can’t stand to touch them, or even the smell of them, which I suppose is bad news for the Express & Star. And talking of smells, especially in this hot summer, steer clear of anyone with Ablutophobia – the fear of washing, showering or taking a bath. Should be easy enough – you’ll probably sense them coming from a distance.

Ergophobia is perhaps the most convenient phobia of all to have, and it’s one I suffer from myself. It’s the fear of work, and the workplace, also sometimes known as Lazy Cow Syndrome, or LCS for short, because lazy cows can’t be bothered to type the whole thing.

Not surprisingly, with phobias now all the rage, politicians who wanted to dismantle Brexit turned to Project Fear. But it was another politician from across the pond, Franklyn Roosevelt, who in 1933 famously said: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.

So naturally, the phobia team had to come up with an all-embracing finale to their list, once again named by the office junior. Phobophobia. You guessed it. A fear of phobias.

So yes, it’s now officially possible to be scared of being scared by things that you are scared of. I don’t know about you, but I find that rather scary, so I must be phobophobiaphobic.

Tarra a bit x