But there is something startling about the aurora borealis, and not least its unpredictability.
There is something startling about Hoy climbing on to his bike, bending his broad torso and solid, assertive limbs over the thin metal frame.
Even today, there's something startling about Caravel: it's still an emphatically modern design statement, not for the namby-pamby.
There is something startling to the way Mitchell writes, particularly in this period – there is a keenness and a candour, a cool, crisp clarity to her lyrics.
But there is something startling, even shocking, about the angle of vision Mr. Frammartino imposes by juxtaposing apparently disparate elements and lingering on what seem at first to be insignificant details.
Domesticated animals are invariably owned animals, and there is something startling to many people about seeing herds of unowned horses, something that makes it hard to think of them as truly "wild".
But then that's another of her strengths: nothing about her says "Look at me", but when you do get around to looking, there's something startling and graceful there.
And there is something startling about the way she is digitally morphed into a younger self, which made you realise that you sort of assumed she could sort of be about that age anyway.
If there is something startling about hearing these kind of views voiced by an A-list sportsperson in the mainstream media, then the sense of worlds colliding, of something raw and genuinely other about the current heavyweight champ, extends way beyond the BBC's annual vicar's tea party.
For those who remember Wenger's unveiling in English football – the brilliant surprise of our own thin white duke, so ludicrously tall and rangy, a man nailed together out of deckchair slats – there is something startling about the tone of his late days at Arsenal.
