And Now it's Lefties of the World Unite!

Barack Obama is intelligent, handsome and powerful; he is also, like six American Presidents before him, left handed. (Garfield, Hoover, Ford, Reagan, George H W Bush and Clinton.) Neither could you have escaped; John McCain is also left handed.) Join the club, for I am, just like Barack, handsome and intelligent, though less powerful; (Ask my wife!) I am also left handed.

Cack handed, buckfisted, spuddy handed, keck fisted; scrammy handed, corrie pawed, keggy handed or just plain squiffy, you get called them all. And its seldom complimentary. Left handers in medieval times were considered by some to be evil. The word sinister in English derives from the Latin for left. You would never say of a clumsy person, 'he's got two right feet.' It's always 'two left feet, the silly chap!' A put down is always 'a left handed compliment.' Likewise a promise you have no intention of keeping is always 'a left-handed oath.' The Bible doesn't help either. Evidently 'At the right hand there are pleasures for evermore.' And which side do the goats go before they are cursed and sent into everlasting fire. No prizes for guessing.

The causes of left handedness vary according to what you read. Some preach an ultrasound theory whilst others point to exposure to a 'higher rates of testosterone' connection. There is even present day research suggesting it is a deficiency problem with the gene LRRTMI involved.

As a schoolteacher I always listed the left handers in any class I taught down the side of my register. For many left handers fell behind due to difficulties in writing rather than for intellectual reasons. In any class of thirty I would average three left handers. In a class of supposedly low ability usually a higher percentage. There is no doubt in my mind some under achievement was due to left handed problems. (I don't wish to sound arrogant but this is based on many years of teaching and observation. We left handers know a little about the problems from experience, not theoretical study.) Work benches for instance were always geared for right handers with all vices in one position only. To be told by the right handed craft teacher it didn't matter was galling in the extreme. I could have punched him, south paw variety of course. Writing desks with a board were always placed to the right of the seat and were not interchangeable. (When I left school I was for a while 'a barbers boy'. All electrical plugs were to the right of the chair. Which meant trailing electrical cables to the left hand round the back of the customer, clumsy in the extreme. It is not true we used to find pieces of customers ears in the sweeping up but I admit it was not a job for me and I left, though perfectly amicably. Customers probably breathed a collective sigh of relief.}

The Department of Education admitted in 1996 it does not collect information on the proportion of left handers or the impact of it on children in school. That's over a million schoolchildren for goodness sake! I wonder if it knows how many children there are from one parent families; or disabled children; or how many black, yellow, brown or green children for that matter there are in the system. I'll bet they do. As recently as December 2008 a report by Bristol University suggested left handed children do less well than their right handed counterparts in National Curriculum Tests. I don't expect governments to do wonders, they never do but I expect them at least to be aware of the problem. It's not just about the awkwardness of using scissors, of finding knitting difficult, of changing the strings on a guitar. Its more than that and its more an awareness problem than a theoretical problem.

In 1902 the official left handed figure in Great Britain was put at 2%. Not surprising really when they tied your left hand behind your back in school to stop you using it! They say King George VI's stutter was caused by forcing him to write right handed. In 1954 the official figure for left handers in the USA was put at 5-8%. In Britain in 1974 10.4% was quoted. Now 15% is suggested. Make no mistake, we are coming to get you! We are taking the world over by stealth. (Note the American Presidents since the war.)

We keggies are artistic: Leonardo da Vinci, Pablo Picasso. We lead, you follow: Napoleon Bonaparte, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Queen Victoria. We are more attractive, Marilyn Monroe, Greta Garbo, and certainly funnier: Charlie Chaplin and W C Fields. We are often more gifted and quicker thinking. There again, as a minority group we have no choice. But I admit we are not perfect. It is possible both Adolf Hitler and Jack the Ripper were left handed but in neither case is the proof conclusive. What is evidently researched is that the average lifespan of a left hander in the western world is sixty six whilst a right hander can expect to live to seventy five. (Some think it is to do with innate clumsiness.) So being right handed has its compensations after all!

In 1998 Burger King introduced a 'Left-Handed Whopper' especially designed for 32,000,000 Americans. (It was an advertising hoax, dear friends.) Evidently many asked for this new offering in Burger King restaurants. The mind boggles.

Finally, five things you may not know about left handers. Which fact is not true.

1 Some say Eve was made from Adam's left rib.

2 On a carousel the brass ring is always on the riders right side.

3 There are in fact more adult left handed bloggers than right handers.

4 On a standard keyboard, there are 1,447 English words that are typed solely with the left hand. Only 187 are typed with the right hand alone.

5 Of the five people who designed the Macintosh computer, four were left handed.

One final thought. According to Chinese tradition, the yin (right side) lives in harmony with the yang (left side); neither side dominates. Very wise, our Chinese friends.

(My wife has just noticed the blog and says, 'Well, the bit about me being left handed is correct!)

LBB

I feel exhausted, there again I didn't have a very good night's sleep. I usually blog around twice a week and I knew I was about due today. So I tossed and turned all night wondering what on earth to write. I could look in the papers and be topical but it's not my style. Of any case millions out there do that already. and who wants to know the opinions of a retired, sixty nine year old, at the moment exhausted ex-schoolmaster. Which begs the question, if I'm struggling to fill two blogs a week, how do you six or seven times a week bloggers do it. Some of you seldom go to bed, that's for sure!

And what did you do in your LBB?

Life Before Blogging, do you remember those far off days. And if you do, what on earth did you do with your time! I've asked this question of several bloggers and amazingly often bloggers are unwilling to divulge such highly secret information. Perhaps life as we know it before LBB never really existed. Similarly the question, 'Why blog' receives equally evasive replies.

There's no doubt the blogging world is a godsend for many. The lonely, the exiled, the newly liberated, all welcome the opportunities offered. It is for some a club, a collection of like minded people who offer support and solice to each other, often in times of need. The benefits that blogging offers many cannot be overestimated. For others it is a chance to pontificate, without interruption on every conceivable subject. What was it Nicholas Murray Butler said. 'An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less.' Which again puzzles this comparative newcomer to the world of blogging, why spend so much time for no financial reward whatsoever. (Please spare me the' There's more to life than money' spiel. There isn't if you haven't got any.)

Professional bloggers get paid, the sole reason for their often dubious efforts. Most areas have local newspaper hacks who churn out banal, often peurile blogs on a weekly basis. Not for them the luxury of choosing when to blog. It's the 'You're paid to blog, so blog' school of thought. We amateurs are more in control of our blogs, and are unpaid, so it is our choice. So why the compulsion to show others our knowledge, skill, wit. And why so public a face. I've often wondered how many bloggers kept extensive diaries prior to their rebirth as bloggers. And how many would have subjected those diaries to full public scrutiny.

I have a public speaking engagement tonight, at the St Augustines Wives Group in Upperdale Road, Derby (see blog dated Fri 6th June Talk Talk). And I get paid to do so. I get paid £164,000 for a ninety minute speech. Mr Blair also gives speeches, he gets £20 for approximately fifty minutes but has to pay his own travelling expenses. Or is it the other way round; I forget! (Bill Clinton earned $475,000 in a single day from two speeches.)I would be the first to admit there is an element of an ego tripping in public speaking closely related to blogging. Plus after a serious illness it is my way of keeping the old brain cells or what is left active. (see blog dated 18th May Hooray For The NHS). I suspect the problem comes when hobby becomes obsession. When compulsion drives ever deeper and the hobby or interest takes over. The main reason I doubt I could cope with blogging daily.

I was in hospital many years ago. The old chap in the next bed would relate hourly how many rolls of wire he would have made on any particular day. An admirable, dedicated workman who had made this wire for forty years. Admirable except that he was dying. I find that sad, surely there are more important things in life; maybe I'm wrong.

Funny thing, obsession. I know a man whose whole life revolves around twitching. (Bird watching to you and me) His wife has to dress up in a penguin suit and sit on the end of the bed squawking if she wishes to arouse him. All right, not true but you know what I mean when we talk about compulsions and obsessions.

Gordon Brown and Nigel Clough both made publicised visits to Derby last Wednesday. It is less well known that The Queen also visited. As Michael Caine would have said, 'Not a lot of people know that.'

She visited our local asylum on an informal visit. She does this sometimes you know. It tends to deflect the bad publicity the minor royals attract every time they open their mouths.

She took great interest in the gardens and was particularly taken by one old chap who was tending the flowerbeds.

'Good morning, my man,' she said to him graciously, (The Queen always does graciously) 'and what's the matter with you. Why are you in here?'

The old man sighed a great sigh. 'There's nothing the matter with me. I'm just a harmless old blogger who suffered writers blog. Broke down, cracked up and I'm now kept in here completely against my will.'

The Queen is a little deaf (not a lot of people know that either) and wasn't sure sure she'd heard exactly what he had said, but no matter.

'I'll see about that,' said The Queen indignantly (she can also do surprise, consternation, etc. She can do them all, for she is The Queen when alls said and done.) 'I'll not have my subjects locked up for nothing; even buggers. I'll sort it out when I get back to the palace.'

The old man was ecstatic. 'Thank you ma'am, thank you oh thank you.' And he bowed as bloggers do. (psst, how do bloggers bow?) And The Queen waved her hand dismissively, as queens do and moved on.

The Queen had travelled a mere ten steps when she received a large blow to the back of the head which brought her to her knees. She staggered to her feet, turned and through glazed eyes saw the old man gesticulating wildly.

'Don't forget,' he shouted, clutching another house brick in his other hand.

Enjoy your blogging, but don't take it too seriously, for you never know.

One final thought for today. Anyone any bright ideas for an epitaph on a bloggers tombstone?