Look in the mirror and what do you see?  Whatever your reaction might be, gloom, disappointment, smug satisfaction, unalloyed pleasure, you will not spot the millions of microscopic creatures that occupy the planet You.

Take the eyebrow mite.  He is a little chap, invisible to the naked eye, who sets up home in the bulb at the end of any eyebrow hair.  The thicker the eyebrows, the more populous the neighbourhood.  Dennis Healey must have played host to a mega city.  Pluck out a single hair and you displace a family unit

Eyebrow mites are little chaps with eight legs. They dine on dead skin cells and the oil that keeps your lashes moist.  They are born, grow up, fall in love, lay eggs and hatch six legged babies that leave home after a week to start the cycle all over again.  At the end of a month or so, they keel over, give up the ghost and are consigned to the microbe cemetery. RIP.

Eyelashes are also desirable residences The EM is nomadic and will sometimes set out on a momentous journey from Brow to Lash.  It is a hazardous trek.  A casual scratch or rubbing a sleepy eye will tip him into the great unknown. After an hour of travel, he might have covered as much as sixteen millimetres – no high speed rail here.

Take heart, one of the joys of getting older is that you are likely to have three times as many eyebrow mites as a child.  By this time you have probably stopped plucking your eyebrows and thoughtfully produced a plethora of wrinkles that provide welcome habitats for these quiet little creatures.  Sleep well.