Globe

In front of me sits a curious artifact. It is a sphere mounted on an indented plinth, both parts in shiny, reflective steel.

The sphere is, on closer inspection, a globe. It has a surface made from jigsaw fragments, which as my eldest niece once discovered, can be removed from the underlying sphere and treated as a magnetic puzzle.

It's not an easy puzzle because the crafty craftsmen distinguished land from sea, on this surface, by having the land in matt silver-grey and the sea in reflective silver. From some angles, it all looks the same.

I think of globalisation a lot. This artifact helps me think, sometimes. But just as the artifact is, so also the world. From some angles, many things look quite the same. From others, not so much.