I write this piece for the many thousands of my worldwide fans with less inquisitive minds than my goodself.

It’s said that one of the differences between prose and poetry is that the latter tends to address many of the more weighty aspects of the human condition – death, nature, loss, love etc., and certainly I have witnessed several of you attempting a well-meaning put at these matters.  So it’s in this context that I point fans to one of the more pressing areas of scientific enquiry – how do flies land on the ceiling?

It’s a question which has exercised great minds such as my own for several years and I urge you all to take a few minutes away from Netflix and Fortnite to give it the headroom it deserves.

So, let us consider; your fly is flying right-way-up and then, quicker than the eye can see, it’s upside-down on the ceiling.  The crucial question therefore is;- how does it achieve this?

Does it do a half-barrel, Spitfire-like, victory roll so that for a split second it is flying upside-down?  Does it describe a U-turn in a vertical plane so that it lands facing backwards to the direction it came from?  Does it approach the ceiling from directly below, stick out its front legs, grab the ceiling with them and then swing itself up like a monkey?

It is possible, of course, to Google the answer or to find out from footage on YouTube.  But it is far more rewarding not to know, but rather to simply enjoy the musing the question offers.  By doing so you will find that I have started your journey towards ruminating on the bigger issues and you may, one day, achieve the cerebral mastery of enquiry that I myself have attained.