And for my next trick…

Oh, maybe I’m not one for adventures but there’s no avoiding fate. Of course fate takes many forms – diverse, divided, divine, and for each of us very different.

Maybe it’s a small girl with a hoop caught out of the corner of an eye - blue dress, white apron... and gone, disappeared down a dark rabbit hole. An animal, a cat maybe, fur blowing away and off into the wind. Or a rhinoceros, a double horned creature that a Durer might draw from description and rumour, almost correct, improving the armour plating here and there. Perhaps an ostrich, all feathers and a bucket of sand - better safe than sorry and just in case - just in case.

Fate is a circus of infinite performance and performers. The Circus of Fate – come on in, you’d hate to be late.

Now watch as the carnival passes – the fat lady and the mermaid, the strong man and the unicorn, the dancer and the devil, the hanged, the hooded, the hand-held, and the haunted. I see a tall dark stranger – a policeman, a spy, a sailor, a ringmaster, a shadow, a cad, a priest, a man I should know but can’t quite place and look there he goes… flying through the air with the greatest of ease, all sparkling sparkle on his flying trapeze.

Watch as the carnival passes under the all-seeing-eye.

And for my next trick ladies and gentlemen…