One of my in-built quirks – present, I’m told, from a very young age
– is spotting patterns. Whenever I see X, I also see Y; there are 3 As
for every B; if this happens, then that is more likely to happen afterwards;
and so on. It’s not something I do particularly consciously, and few of my
observations even reach the lofty heights of banal. Fortunately, it’s not all
wasted effort, and a small number of these observations end up making my life a
little better. My train home always leaves from platforms 1 or 8. If I arrive
at the station as my train is due to leave, my best bet is not to check the
departure boards but to run past platform
8 to see if my train is there and, if it isn’t, run straight to platform 1.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve learn