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# Sinister
- URL: https://www.longspoon.uk/sinister/
- Published: 2026-10-01T11:00:11.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T12:27:50.000Z
- Author: Malachi

Robots are right handed. Not many people know that.

Just those that have hands, naturally. Some only have one, but even then the thumb is on top and the palm faces to the left. Right handed.

Logically there’s no reason a robot should have hands at all, but the everyday world is shaped for four digits and an opposable thumb. Tools, knobs, buttons and levers have to be used, turned, pressed and pulled, and they’re all designed for the right.

People are not so well thought out – about 10% are lefties. They’re outsiders with lives that are a parade of small inconveniences. Sure, you can buy a left-handed corkscrew if you have time to hunt it down online, but they’ll usually end up holding the corkscrew still and turning the bottle.

The rest of us just reach into the kitchen drawer.

A dominant left sometimes has advantages. I was a fencer at school, and I can still remember the sinking feeling of being drawn against a left-handed opponent. Every movement was back to front, upside down, inside out. For them it was business as usual, they fought right-handers all the time. It was their revenge for not being able to use the classroom scissors.

But in the long run they can’t win; even the language is stacked against them. When did you last hear someone introduced as “My left hand man...”?

Maybe that’s why the Labour Party finds it hard to govern.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/97/1c978fa5-2348-4c13-b92a-fb7b79c3e450/content/images/2026/09/k9.jpg)

Just those that have hands