Stars aren’t all white. Look closely and some are reddish or bluish. Most things are less plain than they look at first.

A quick look flattens things. From a glance the sky is white dots, and only steady attention brings out the colours that were there the whole time. Almost everything behaves like this: people, towns, subjects you have written off as dull. Plainness is usually a report on how long you looked rather than on the thing itself.

Give something you call boring four full minutes this week: a street you walk daily, a song you skip, a relative who tells the same story. Hunt for one detail you had never noticed. If you find it, the dullness was yours.