The Stripe Everybody Assumes Is Decoration
Most toothbrushes have a block or a stripe of coloured bristles set among the white ones, usually down the centre of the head or…
The Snap-Off Knife Blade Was Invented by Someone Watching How People Broke Glass to Get a Sharp Edge
A Knife Designed to Be Broken
The snap-off blade is one of the few tools designed on the assumption that you will deliberately destroy part of it, repeatedly, as the…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
The One Rough Part of a Smooth Object
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Turn a plate over and run a finger around the ring it stands on. On most crockery it…
A brogue is a leather shoe decorated with patterns of punched holes along its seams and across the toe cap.
The holes are now purely decorative, and they go all…
Look at the top of a pair of trainers and there is frequently an extra pair of lace holes, set slightly back and apart from the rest, which the laces…
On the flat pins of a plug there are usually small round holes near the tip.
They are not there for anything you are supposed to do with them, they…