Source: Wikimedia Commons
By 1962 the great era of the American tented circus was ending but had not ended. Shows still travelled, still raised canvas in a field on the edge…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
The American health club of 1979 sat between two eras. The old figure-salon model - passive machines, steam, massage, the promise that something would be done to you…
Almost nobody notices this until they try to work across the two systems, at which point it becomes a daily irritation: documents that print with the wrong margins, files that…
Drive in most of the world and the signs are pictures. A red triangle with a symbol in it warns you about something. A red circle with a line through…
Americans visiting Europe are startled to find that a bedroom has no closet and that storing clothes is the occupant's problem. Europeans in America are startled by the opposite: a…
It is a genuinely strange naming system once you look at it. Two of the five standard American bed sizes are named after monarchs, one is named after a state,…