Ever since I was a small child, I've had this ability to fix things just by touching them.

Sort of, anyway. When I was too young to even remember, I used to take things apart and try to put them back together again. Dad's electric razor was one of the first, I'm told. Even though he never used it, he kept it in the top cupboard, and would occasionally pull it off the top shelf and remind me of just how evil I was. Another unremembered sin was the little comb organ thing built into my parents' wedding photo album, which after my attention would only ever play its tinny tune for me.

I got better at this, though. I used to retrieve broken electronic items from the back yard of a local electrical goods shop, and somehow manage to get them working. This was how the family acquired their first fridge and colour TV; Dad claimed to be too poor to buy them for us. Another trick, familiar to True Engineers the world over, is to be able to fix something by giving it a sharp blow, perhaps with fist, perhaps with foot. As the joke says, the trick is in knowing just where to kick it.

With digital gremlins, I'm a superhero. People will be sat at a computer, unable to complete their task. And yet, by performing exactly the same actions as they would, it works for me. Somehow I am able to reduce the randomness inherent in modern electronic and computer systems.

I believe this is a low-level manifestation of telekinesis, where I can slightly move a very small amount of matter. Perhaps just a few thousand atoms, which is enough to break or to re-establish an electical connection. Or maybe some electrons, inside a computer, just sufficient to tip the binary balance back the way it should be.

Sometimes I wonder if I do this with life. Destiny, coincidence, serendipty, call it what you like. Because it seems that subconsciously, I seem to pick what life throws at me, and it's just what I need. Usually it's not what I want. Often, at first, I hate it.

But I'm learning to trust the random.