It is rare that systemic breakdown comes close to home. The intelligence failures that led to the September 11 terror attack, when I was based in New York, were one example. The collapse of Lehman Brothers was another.
And then there is the Great Train Timetabling Disaster of 2018. This was a classic bathetic British balls-up. Two UK rail operators botched an ambitious timetable change in May. Nobody died. Global markets were unmoved. A lot of commuters — this one included — were disadvantaged and grumbled a little more loudly than usual about train delays and cancellations. Politicians, in a report issued last week, said the episode would “live long in the memories of a large proportion of rail users as a prolonged period of intensely inconvenient, costly and, on occasions, potentially dangerous disruption”.
If an inconvenience “lives long in your memory”, you probably need to get out more. But the shambles did have distressing consequences for some, particularly disabled passengers, and research has shown that any bad commute can inflict real economic and psychological costs.