David Lee wrote:
Chris Bacon wrote...
It was David Lee, I think, that wrote:
The last really nasty belt I received was a static shock when I foolishly
put my hand in a Dyson vacuum cleaner canister to dislodge the fluff

How did that happen, then?

Dry dust particles build up
a static charge by tribo-electrification and this gets transfered to the
walls of the container. Static charge is always repelled towards the
outside of a container and because the dust-container is made of insulating
plastic it builds up on the inside surface of the cylinder.

Ah. I'd imagined that the dust container would be to some
extent conductive. Silly me.