The Right Idea - or should that be Left?

The world is a confusing place.

'First world' and 'third world' (not to mention the now rarely-used 'second world') aren't really adequate descriptions of anything - or they oughtn't to have been, since the end of the Cold War.
'Right wing' and 'left wing' politics hasn't been a sensible geographical distinction since the French Revolution; not only do politicians switch sides at will (sigh) but the political spectrum doesn't fan out indefinitely; it is decidedly round. This was a discovery made both by the French and Russian revolutionaries; as you move further and further to the left, you decapitate more and more people until you end up more or less where you started, only with a different bureacracy to stuff things up. The same thing is true of anarchists; while generally a belief in the supreme right of the individual is classed as extreme left wing, some anarchists believe in the right of the individual to make as much money (or own as many weapons) as they possibly can, irrespective of government regulations or their effect on others. So it meets nicely in the middle - but round the back. If 'moderate' politics attempt to compromise between left and right, 'immoderate' sounds as good a term as any for philosophies that take the most extreme positions from either side and somehow combine it to form one monumentally selfish idea.

Directional challenges are not limited to politics, however.

Telling the difference between right and left has always been one of my major difficulties, along with four-strand plaiting, casting on and off (knitting terminology, for the uncrafty types) and long division.
When I was in pre-school, one of my favourite uncles attempted to help me with this difficulty by obtaining a plain pair of canvas shoes, and putting 'RIGHT' and 'LEFT' on them in large letters. Augmented by rockets and love-hearts and shooting stars in rainbow-coloured puffy paint, they rapidly became my favourite shoes and I wore them and wore them until my toes practically oozed out the end.
Later in life, the practice of extending one's left hand thumb to form an L shape has been useful; I doubt if I could have gotten away with it in a marching band with any instrument other than a sousaphone.

As I suffer, it is nice to know that I am not alone in my infirmity, as may be seen in the picture (taken in the corridor at one of the schools where I work). The fact that one sign (green on white) applies to the staircase at the head of which it appears, and the other (white on green) to the emergency exit, is not wholly comforting. Particularly to those of a panicky disposition.