On the Beat

I was reminded this week by an article in yesterday's The Herald that Barack Obama is left handed. (I can't find the article itself.)

This of course made me happy.

Then, this morning, they were wittering about patron saints; so I thought I'd find out who the patron saint for left handed people is.

As far as I can ascertain - there isn't one.

Apparently, this may be because left-handedness was seen as the curse of the devil.

In better saintly news, you may be pleased to note that there are three patron saints for libraries.

Still, you'd have thought that there would have been some saint who was left-handed - wouldn't you?

Maybe I am just damned. Shucks.

I am left-handed. Indeed, people close to me have said I am the most left-handed person they have come across.

So I looked at this post by Chris Dillow with a lot of interest.

Apparently, I am more likely to be depressed than right-handers - although my usual state is positively overbrimming, I have probably scored over the two-weeks test in the past couple of years. (Still, I feel pretty positive about this!)

On the other hand, I am also meant to earn 5% more than right-handers, so maybe it is worth. And I should move to the States - where I'd earn 15% more.

And of course I am a wonderful footballer. (This last bit, unfortunately isn't proven.)

In last week’s medical column in the Guardian, Doctor Doctor, a reader asked whether it could be harmful to click one’s fingers. The questioner thought it might cause arthritis or something.

This shocked me to the core.

Harmful? To click one’s fingers? Jeez. I’m in trouble.

If you know me well, you’ll know I have a percussive bent. I beat out rhythms, and if I’m not, I’m probably thinking of a rhythm (usually, it is Gil Evans’ arrangement of St Louis Blues.

I click my fingers, I slap my thighs, I click my tongue, I click my teeth (the last probably explaining why for years I have had a dull ache in my molars).

I can actually click all my fingers – all eight of them, rolling from one hand to the other I used to be able to click my toes, but it is easier just to tap my feet – which I do a lot, too.

I click my fingers when I can’t quite grasp the words I am looking for.

I click my fingers in time to music, I click my fingers out of time, setting up opposing rhythms (especially if the music is in 3/4 or 6/8).

I have at times given myself blisters on my thumbs (though that was when I was a hyperactive student dancing through the night – because I click my fingers when I am dancing, too).

The idea that I might actually be causing myself lasting harm through percussive digits is worrying.

Although the doctor did say he thought this was absolutely nothing to worry about.

Hit it!

(And, as an aside, I am shocked at the number of videos on YouTube featuring people clicking their fingers. And there is even a page on WikiHow teaching you how to snap your fingers. Don't these people have better things to do?!)