Have you met my good friend Kylie?

Aug 5 2008 By Denis Kilcommons

THE six degrees of separation is a theory that has long fascinated me.

It contends that the world’s population of 6.6bn people is all connected by chains of acquaintance.

This means that I could find a link between myself and President George Bush in six moves or less, which actually is fairly easy.

I know Barry Sheerman MP who knows the Prime Minister who knows George Bush.

Researchers say this theory has now been proved after Microsoft analysed the emails of 180m people worldwide in June, 2006.

The world is a global village, they say, and technology is making it smaller.

Want to connect with Barack Obama?

That’s even easier. Look him up on Facebook and sign up as a friend. He already has 1,263,917 online chums.

The six degrees is a pleasantly daft game in which friends and family can challenge each other.

"Go on, then. Connect with Madonna."

No problem.

I know reporter Andy Hirst who once interviewed a producer who was a friend of Guy Ritchie who is married to Madonna.

Connecting with celebrities can be fun. Did you meet Dennis Waterman when he made a personal visit to Johnny’s Nightclub back in the 1970s?

Then you can connect through him to everyone he knows and, by osmosis, pretty much everyone in show business.

Of course it gets more difficult if you say, "Make a connection with the postmaster of Alice Springs." Without sending him a letter.

That could be a problem, although I know a few people in Australia and osmosis would still work, but take a little longer.

The theory of six degrees of separation is comforting. It’s nice to think that we are only six people away from a monk in Tibet, a New York taxi driver and Kylie Minogue.

Now there’s a comforting thought.