No Man Is An Island

'No man is an island' said John Donne, the 17th Century poet. Everything we do has repercussions beyond our wildest imaginings.

An old lady picks a rose and, in so doing, disturb a bee. The bee files through the window of a passing car and stings the driver. A clear case of cause and effect.

Of course if the driver had had a second cup of coffee after lunch, he would not have been passing at that moment... and is a tourist had not asked him the way at the traffic lights, he would not have opened his window... and so on, and so on.

Experts investigating a plane crash recently found that the absence of a rubber washer, worth about 10p had been the cause of disaster. No one will ever know if the true cause was not somebody's second cup of coffee.

Generations of English children have learned this cautionary rhyme:

'For want of a nail, a shoe was lost,

For want of a shoe, a horse was lost,

For want of a horse, a rider was lost,

For want of a rider, a battle was lost,

For want of a battle, a kingdom was lost,

- and all for want of a horseshoe nail.'