> At first, I thought they were pieces of beer cans, but then I pulled some out and realized that they were wine capsules, the official name for those pieces of

> At first, I thought they were pieces of beer cans, but then I pulled some out and realized that they were wine capsules, the official name for those pieces of foil which go over the cork of a bottle of wine. It turns out that up into the 1980s, these wine capsules were actually made of lead, not the lightweight foil we get these days. Someone had put them inside the mouse, presumably to add a bit more heft–which I do find quite pleasant. Delightful mouse-related trivia aside, making wine caps out of lead up till 1980s is quite a civilisational own-goal — can’t even avoid touching it. Even Romans knew lead was toxic. Maybe the lead-induced violence hypothesis is correct after all.