Students of Irish literature may perhaps realise where the name of this blog and it’s URL comes from. Everything is connected to everything else, of course, and in way which we often don’t fully understand. Policeman Fox’s (and you know who I mean) ceiling contained an exact map of the entire village, laid out in a intricate web of hairline cracks in his bedroom ceiling. Imagine Fox’s ceiling, if he lived here in Paris! Or imagine such a ceiling if it showed instead interpersonal relationships. Who knows who knows who.

But that particular one might not be too complicated. I read somewhere the other day that the mammalian cortex only can really handle social groupings of around 100 people or so. Beyond that, I suppose, it is the grey fog at the edge of the village, where you can’t see any further. But that can make for some strange effects living a large city like I do. One would like to say that one is always open to chance, to random events, to unexpected things that might happen. That is after all one of the reasons why one might want to live in such a place. But then again, taking the metro or walking down a crowded street can sometimes have an overwhelming effect. Look at all those people whose lives will never intersect with mine! Well, you don’t know that for sure, but you imagine it. How many times did you cross someone in the street who might have had a profound effect on your life (and I’m not just talking girls here don’t get me wrong!) if only you had talked to them? Ach! But I don’t want to go and live on a mountain somewhere (yes, I did try that once, actually). I just need to find a really good ceiling somewhere. From now on, the next time I enter an apartment I’ve never visited before, the first thing I will do is to turn my eyes upwards….