This has nothing to do with anything (…OR DOES IT???…). Today I got a flat tire on my bicycle AND on my car, within about an hour of each other. Ok, a coincidence, but what are the odds? I always wonder if such things mean something. Something we’ll never decipher of course. Also, I’ve noticed that once you start to take note of coincidences, they start to come more often and in more intriguing ways.

For example, once I was walking (in Minsk, as it happens) to meet a friend. It was hot, I was feeling really tired. I saw my friend pull up in his car and for whatever reason I suddenly decided I was going to tell him I was “knackered”, a word I hadn’t used before or since. I got into the car and before I could say a word he said, “ah, I’m knackered”, a word he hadn’t used before either…

And one of the best ones I can think of - my daughter Sofia Dalanda refused to be fully delivered until just seconds after 12 midnight, making her born on the birthday of her namesake, my wife’s sister Dalanda. Just to be clear, we didn’t decide on the name after this coincidence, we had already planned it.