Let's celebrate with a trip to Holy Trinity church in Dalston, East London - home to the Clowns’ Gallery Museum.
Abd yes, that's Joseph Grimaldi - one of history's greatest clowns - captured there in the stained glass window.
As museums go, it's pretty small. It's basically three small rooms into which is crammed an awful lot of clown-related memorabilia and photographs. But what I was there to see was the register - an archive of ceramic eggs painted to record clowns' personal makeup designs. It's the clowning world's 3D ID database.
The practice started in 1946 when a member of Clowns International (then called the International Circus Clowns Club) called Stan Bult painted the faces of well-known clowns onto emptied-out chicken eggs as a hobby. It evolved into a useful record of faces for posterity, as well as a way to memorialise the great clowns of yore. Bult painted around 200 eggs in total, and while most were lost or broken over the years, 26 of these fragile originals can be found at Dalston along with another 46 ceramic eggs on permanent display.
The rest of the clown egg collection is held at Wookey Hole in Somerset.
I first learned about the collection when a fictional version of it appeared in an episode of the classic British 'spy-fi' series The Avengers. There's a series 7 episode called (Stop me if you've heard this one) But there were these two fellers ... in which a young John Cleese runs the Clown Egg Registry and is visited by Tara King.
I long believed it to be something made up for the show but then, to my delight, I discovered that it's quite real.
The registry at Dalston caught the attention of photographer Luke Stephenson in 2007 and he published a book of fantastic photographs. Its a great little book and I could resist buying a copy.
It's a fascinating bit of showbiz history and worth a visit. But maybe not so great if you're a coulrophobic.
So why are people scared of clowns? I don't remember it being a 'thing' when I was a child in the 1960s and 70s. In fact, back then, they were popular at birthday parties and there were several famous ones on children's TV.
Current thinking lays the blame at the over-sized feet of 1970s American serial killer John Wayne Gacy who performed as Pogo the Clown at charity events and children’s parties. This idea of the evil clown was further solidified in movies such as Stephen King's It and Killer Klowns from Outer Space (and lord knows how many Scooby Doo cartoons) and became a common trope.
So perhaps it’s not surprising that a 2016 poll found that Americans were more afraid of clowns than of a terrorist attack or even of dying.
Anyway, if you're not too traumatised, here's the museum website.
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