For some reason, wrenches have a bad rap. If you are old enough, you might be familiar with a phrase that goes something like "Well, that's thrown a spanner in the works." Often the U.S. term of "monkey wrench" is substituted for the British "spanner," but in either case, it means that one's carefully laid plans have gone terribly wrong, calling forth the image of a heavy, cast-iron wrench being tossed into the gears or moving parts of an...Continue Reading