Every once in a while a matter of such urgency arises that it demands our immediate attention. This is not one of those times.
David Troman, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posted: Was looking at the wear on the floor in my local petrol station. Pondering why the right foot position shows more wear. My assumption is that there is a dominance of right-footed people who put more pressure on their lead foot. Also people pivot to the right once they have paid so would expect that to add to the wear and tear.
To no surprise, it hit quite a nerve. Here are some of the 71 comments it generated.
Ian James Seale: Where is the ware?
Brian Greehhalgh: You mean where is the wear on the wares?
Avi Liveson: It’s thare.
Kate Hawkes: I guess that the left foot’s position is limited by the display counters and right depends on the distance between people’s feet when they are standing at the counter.
Piers Phillips: I suspect it is because they swivel on their right foot to leave. If they swiveled on their left foot they would stumble into the confectionery counter.
Rohan Thorne: This is obviously where I am going wrong, I usually stumble into the confectionery counter.
Dougie Lee: In a shop, where its wares are on the left, a customer at the counter would be aware to pivot on their right foot away from where the next in line would likely be standing. This would cause the floor to wear more there.
Susan Massey: Approximately one in 10 people is left handed, so 9 in 10 are right handed. A person’s dominant hand indicates ‘footedness’ as well.
[Footedness?]
Richard Holland: I’m left footed, if you tell me where it is, I’ll go and even it out.
Eric Armitadge closed with this lovely artwork:
Mick Ralphs passed away this week at the age of 81. A guitarist, he was a founding member of Bad Company and Mott the Hoople. I liked MTH, back in the day. Rest in peace, Mick.
Travis Kelce was down in Nashville with other NFL tight ends at the Tight End University (TEU) that he founded. We hope he wasn’t too distracted by Taylor’s joining him for partying after work. She asked Phil to say hi to us, and he sent in this shot. Green’s a good color on you, Babe! (Like, what isn’t?)
The New York City writer Pete Hamill was born in Brooklyn on this date in 1935, and died at the age of 85 in 2020, also in Brooklyn. He was a friend of Bobby Kennedy’s and was with him when he was shot. Hamill helped tackle the gunman. He was devastated by the event and hit the skids, wandering around New York and Mexico, no longer able to write. But he was snapped out of it by the Irish-American politician Paul O’Dwyer, who told him, “You’re not important enough to have writer’s block.” Hamill laughed and agreed, and went back to writing.
It’s about 500 degrees in Jersey today. Linda left me for a bag of ice. I have to admit, it was pretty good-looking. Our poor air-conditioning unit for the second floor is in over its head and can’t make a dent in the heat up there. We slept on cushions in the living room. I got a solid 10-15 minutes of sleep. It’s a good thing I’m so even keeled, or it might have made me cranky.
Learned a new word today from the puzzle. Very cold: GELID. Nothing to do with jelly or gel. And the great Patrick Berry constructed today’s New Yorker puzzle. At 13A, the clue was “Take a second?” (REMARRY). At 34A, “People who avoid being checked out.” (SHOPLIFTERS)
I hope that’s enough nonsense for you for today. See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 