Site of the Day Things have taken a 'sinister' turn today as left-handers mark the 11th annual Left-Handers' Day celebrations by declaring their homes and offices "Lefty Zones" where right-hand dominance, for once, will be banned.

This year, Left-Handers' Day celebrations will be focused on Internet-based activities in order to reach more people.

The 28,000 members of The Left-Handers Club, and the thousands of visitors to the left-handersday.com web site are celebrating their sinistrality by turning the tables on right-handers, who will experience how awkward and frustrating it can be living in a "back-to-front-world".

Organised by the International Left-Handers Club, the purpose of Left-Handers' Day is to create awareness among the right-handed majority, in a light-hearted way, of the problems right-biased design of everything from scissors to sinks, chequebooks to computer mice, and musical instruments to microwaves can have on the 13 per cent of the population who do not use their right hand for tasks.

The people behind the day also want to educate designers and manufacturers towards accommodating left-handers' comfort and safety in new product and building design and to dispel many of the superstitions that have surrounded left-handedness in many cultures down the years.

Visitors to the Left-handersday.com web site can win prizes playing a host of games and activities online that highlight the strengths and attributes left-handers bring to society. They can read greetings from famous lefties, join the lefties chatroom and discover what jobs and hobbies left-handers prefer, with the results of the Left-Handers Club year-long survey of Lifestyle Groups.

All the prizes (donated by specialist retailer Anything Left-Handed Ltd) are, of course, designed with left-handers in mind.

Famous left-handers include Marilyn Monroe, Winston Churchill, Leonardo da Vinci, Jimi Hendrix, Nicole Kidman and pretty much all the top footballers (Pele, Cruyff, Maradona and Charlton), according to the site. So too is The Simpson's Ned Flanders.

It's not all good though - Jack the Ripper was a leftie too, allegedly. ®

External Links

Left-handersday
The International Left-Handers Club (free to join)

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