If someone had told Ed Hillary at five years old that one day he would be the first man to the top of Mt Everest, do you think he would have thought it possible?

Did Mikolaj Kopernik look up at the stars as a child and say "I am going to redefine astronomy and be famous forever as Nicolaus Copernicus?

D'you think Paul Hewson realised at 5 that one day he would be so famous and so popular as Bono that people scalping tickets to his concerts would have death wished upon them?

And if someone had told Stanley Tookie Williams that he would spend half of his life in jail for murder before finally being executed 24 years later, would he have cared?

He found Nirvana on the end of a lethal injection yesterday. Was he punished once, or punished twice? I'm not sure that I'm against the death penalty in cases where guilt is unquestionable, but I think spending years on death row is a bit extreme. And think of all the sick people, the homeless people the money wasted on these lowlives could help if put into health and social care of people who actually deserve a chance to live.

How do people end up where they do? I mean, if you are born a Royal or a Kennedy, well that's just a horrible defect of birth, innit, but if you are a poor kid from the wrong side of Nowhere, how do you get to become someone worthy of going down in the annals of history (even if it's just for going down).

Noteworthy or notorious, Fate deals some interesting cards sometimes hmmm. I mean, how did you get where you are?