“He illustrates this idea by knotting his hands and pulling up his fingers very rapidly in turn; it took him 15 years to master this movement, he says with a grin, but you couldn’t watch it for 15 minutes without falling asleep. ‘Why? Because no more information is coming out. It doesn’t matter how much effort I’ve made. But if I go like this’ – he sticks out one finger mid-twiddle and holds it aloft – ‘you snap to attention. Your brain goes ‘Oh … anomaly or trend?’ That is the beginning of narrative.'”