The widening gyre

BRITISH inventions have done more to influence the shape of the modern world than those of any other country. Many—football, the steam engine and Worcestershire sauce, to take a random selection—have spread pleasure, goodwill and prosperity. Others—the Maxim gun, the Shrapnel shell and jellied eels—have not. Others still—modern atomic theory, the bagpipes—are capable of doing good, but in the wrong hands can have dreadful consequences. It is into this category that a British invention currently colonising the world falls.