There is a proverb about hunting for a needle in a haystack. Castle Bailey haystacks aren’t that old fashioned heap of hay, with a little white sheet tied on top, that you see in art by the French Impressionists and, rarely, on small farms in the West of Ireland. No, Castle Bailey haystacks are huge affairs comprised of massive rectangular hay bales produced by harvesting machines. They build them into walls, for easy transport using tractors and fork-lifts. I don’t think any artist would paint them.

Nevertheless I do understand the proverb. A needle is very small and if lost in any haystack would be tough to find. However I think we need a new, even tougher proverb for finding something impossible and that would be - finding a book in a library.

You may laugh, thinking of catalogues and...

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