h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The ones with a paper guide so you know where to position the holes.

There is a universal rule that once you acquire one of these (at additional expense) you will immediately need to file a whole load of paper which isn't any standard size and will have to resort to guess-work once more

i realy do think that the ones with the guide really do rule, and will some day over-ride the long live domination of the guide-less hole punches. they will certainly out live the rest and become the best!!!

stricky

A lot more technical than poking a hole with a pencil.

Put the two ends of the paper together and make a small fold in the centre. Now you can use an ordinary hole punch, and with the space saved by not having a paper guide, you can keep your toenail clippings!

I always thought a Hole punch was when Courtney Love hit someone...

that was quite clever really!!!
good one
stricky

a lot of hole punches have a line marked halfway between the two punches, behind where the paper will reach. this is to allow alignment of the centre of the (folded or marked) paper.

some hole punches with the pull-out paper sizer have notches on the sizer to pull out to different lengths for different sizes of paper, however these slip after a while and so the holes once again become misaligned.

What about the crappy plastic base of the hole punch which is designed to fall off as soon as its full of circular bits of paper, scattering them all over your office floor. I love it when that happens

or even better is the crappy bit of plastic which is stuck
to the bottom of the hole punch so that when it gets full
of paper you cant get it off and the hole punch is completely useless.

What about the advantages of the hole punches designed to accomodate different numbers of holes, such as the four-hole and one-hole models? Surely the virtues of these wonders of modern science should, nay MUST, be extolled here! And should we not also pay homage to the heavy duty hole punch that creates the little holes in the paper by turning dials on the top of the unit rather than depressing a lever, which are really quite wonderful (although a bit hard on the wrists if used too much) as they allow a large number of pages to be hole-punched at the one time. But I must also endevour to open the debate on the alternate uses for the little holes that are puched out as this has only been lightly touched on thus far but I strongly feel that this is an avenue bound to enlighten and expand our lives.
P.S. I never dreamt that there was so much to be said on the subject of Hole Punches!

I feel priviledged to have learnt so much about hole punches, but feel you have missed an important aspect of their design. Namely their ability to prpoel small rubbers accross the room.

Excellent! And I thought that I was being extremely mischievious by filling a folded umbrella with the little confeties that hole punches make but I guess that I've been outdone!

What a cunning idea, Who's Umbrellas do you fill? Are your victims known to you? or do you just siddle up to the nearest bowler hatted city type on the northern line? Asumeing there are any left on the northern line anymore, I don't know I don't often travel by tube.

Heres a new and exciting development for you....

The guide is wrong, there need not be a metal handle to push. In our maths class, our teacher has bought an automatic hole-puncher! You put the paper in the slit and it puched out two litle hole for you! No physical exercise needed! Some may say this takes the excitement away from the whole process, but it's great fun. You can tease it too. Just put the paper in and it starts to punch the holes. If you take the paper out again fast enough, it misses, leaving it with a several sense of failing it's purpose on this planet!

We also have an automatic stapler!