I'm better than the whole lot of you... and this shop proves it! (Anything Left-Handed)

Member Name: chris105

Product:	Anything Left-Handed
Date:	01/03/02 (1282 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: range of tools designed the proper way, friendly helpful staff, wired the proper way

Disadvantages: none

Eat your hearts out - I've found the shop that proves my superiority (not that I needed independent confirmation, of course... but it helps!).

I confess, I'm one of those immensely talented and rare objects of perfection in nature, otherwise known as left-handed individuals. Yes, I'm left-handed, and proud of it. We live in a world dominated by inferior creatively-challenged people, who go by the appellation "right-handed", condemned by nature to be impotent in their left hand and having to use the spare wheel, as it were, for their day-to-day functions. I feel sorry for you guys, really I do. Your lives are dominated by the left side (aka the boring unimaginative side) of your brain, while your creative, intelligent, versatile right side lies in disuse and ignorant abandon.

But I'm one of the select few. I've been ordained to a higher order in the ladder of evolution. I am, if you like, what you guys could have become if you'd had the benefit of another 600 years of evolution and genetic fine-tuning.

I pity you :(

At long last, in my quest for adaptation to life among the inferior species, I came across a shop dedicated entirely to the royalty of nature - a shop by left-handeds for left-handeds. ANYTHING LEFT-HANDED has its head office in Surrey (18 Avenue Road, Belmont, Surrey SM2 6JD) in the UK. However, its best-known branch is perhaps that in London (57 Brewer Street).

A small, unassuming corner shop, in the traditional mom-and-pop form, holds a veritable treasure-trove of paraphernalia for left-handed people. You might not be aware of the horrible injustices and discrimination perpetrated daily by all (yes, even by YOU - you're guilty too...) with all kinds of household utensils. Ever tried to use a knife with the left hand? Or a scissors? Or even a corkscrew? No? Then try it - not only is it atrocious torture, but it's ineffective too. No matter how hard we try, we can neve
r decently cut a loaf of bread with a knife. The reason is simply that the blade on a knife is placed on the left side, so that right-handed persons can cut the bread "from their side", as it were. The same holds for the blade on scissors, saws and the like.

We, left-handed people, not only have to see our inherent superiority go unrecognised by the great unwashed, but also - throwing salt onto our collective wound - have to grow up thinking that we're not capable of using tools and any other physical object. It's a common plight for left-handeds to be told at school that they don't have a "knack" for art or crafts or DIY - all because they can't operate a knife, scissors, pen, saw or hammer properly. Little do the teachers know that the tools are improperly built (ie. built for right-handed people).

Imagine a school where the classes are inaccessible to wheelchair-bound students. It would be unthinkable in this day and age. Yet, no allowance is made (with a few enlightened exceptions) for left-handed people. Actually, if we were to nit-pick, it's the right-handed majority who suffer from a "disability", not being able to use the nature-ordained left-hand. But life is unfair.

ANYTHING LEFT-HANDED provides the solution for us: all possible and imaginable tools customised for left-handed people. Just to give you an idea, on my visit to this shop I bought 3 or 4 knives, a corkscrew (which turns to the left instead of right), a peeler (which peels the proper way... at last!) and various other household objects. My culinary skills seemed to improve ten-fold overnight... and no, it wasn't my exposure to Jaime Oliver on BBC that made the change - it was the utensils I was using.

[Of course, you can imagine the stares of security personnel when I turned up at the airport to go back home, with a suitcase laden with sharp kitchen knives and a corkscrew!!!!!]

Apart from kitchen e
ssentials, though, there is much much more at the ANYTHING LEFT-HANDED shop. For those of a younger age, there's a whole set of writing tools, from left-handed ball pens and fountain pens to left-handed sharpeners and rulers (the numbers start from the right, so we can see the measurements we're supposed to be marking - obvious when you think about it!). Unfortunately for me, in my school years I'd been made to learn to write in the abnormal right-handed way, so that this deformity is now ingrained in me. But for those lucky enough to treat and cure this disease at a young age, timely intervention with a left-handed pen can improve a left-handed child's handwriting and writing ability a hundred-fold. Believe me - I've seen it happen. I only wish I had those pens when I was a kid.

Leisure equipment is catered for as well. ANYTHING LEFT-HANDED provide left-handed guitars, cricket gloves and thigh pads (whatever these may be - I'm reading from the catalogue here), computer joysticks and manicure sets. The whole shebang.

Should you, like me, not live in the vicinity of one of their branches (there's a whole list on the company's very informative website, www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk), ANYTHING LEFT-HANDED operates a mail order facility with delivery to anywhere in the world. They produce an attractive catalogue (rigorously bound the proper way, ie. starting from the right and turning the pages forward in the way that you infidels would call "turning backwards") from where you may order any such item as tickles your fancy - or your necessity!

Prices are reasonable, especially considering that the alternative is wallowing in a world of inferiors making do with their inferior tools and utensils.

However, one word of warning - ordering by mail order you'll miss out on the fantastic community spirit in the shop, where the strictly left-handed staff provides an oasis of support and shelter in t
he midst of the right-handed oceans of people around us.

I'll leave you with two definitions contained in the company's catalogue:

"left-handed adj. 1. (person) more comfortable with & capable of using their left hand for complex acts eg. writing, cutting, drawing, but prone to discomfort, awkwardness and injury due to inappropriate (ie. right-handed) tools. 2. Belonging to the select 10% of the human population commonly considered more adaptable, creative, artistic & intuitive than their right-handed contemporaries (also, among themselves, agreed to be more intelligent, attractive and modest)."

"anything left-handed n. 1. Specialist company which provides properly designed, fully left-handed versions of over 200 everyday items which, in their original and common form, are far easier to use in the right hand. 2. Sanctuary for left-handed people, where daily tasks can be performed without adaptation or deference to (right-handed) majority dictate."

And here I rest my case. Geniuses of the world, unite!

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