Thomas Farriner is one of those blokes who did a little thing that affected a lot of people. On this day in 1666 he was baking bread in his bakery in Pudding Lane and took his eye off the ball for no more than a minute. A fire started, the rest is history.
Thomas's minute of distraction led to almost 85% of all the houses in London burning down - he wasn't that popular. One little spark caused disaster.
It happens all the time (admittedly not on such a grand scale) that a little thing leads to something big and very unpleasant. None of us realise that a few words, spoken after a beer perhaps, can have massive consequences for us and for other people. Discretion is the better part of valour they say, but we seem to live in a world now - and a Twitterverse certainly - where people shoot their mouths off at will and always say it's all about free speech.
But it's not really guys is it. It's just about shooting your mouth off cos you can. Twitter makes it easy - it's impersonal, writing insults has always been easier than saying them to somebody face to face. And I guess most of the people being thoroughly unpleasant on Twitter wouldn't have the guts to say it if stood in front of somebody.
Then there's the opinionated fools on Twitter who know little but say a lot. And insult with impunity. They read one tweet (let's not even bother scanning the persons timeline eh, takes far too long) and in they pile.
I suffered tons do bile recently. Louise Mensch is somebody I quite like, although her self publicist mentality is a bit hard to swallow. She wrote an excellent piece for the Jewish Chronicle supporting Israel, as I do, and saying that the recent Gaza conflict had been used by anti-semitics to voice their hatred of Jews. I happen to agree, and had tweeted many times that people like Dianne Abbot were simply a Jew haters who had used the conflict to reignite an age old left wing hatred. I replied to Louise that her piece was excellent and then made the point that it might be interesting (in the spirit of trying to say something positive) to explore the meaning of 'Semite'. I'll admit it was a complex point to make on Twitter in such few words but Louise got it and acknowledged it.
I then found myself deluged by Jews and Israelis hammering me as a Jew hater. They hadn't got it and hadn't bothered to see if I was on either side of the fence. I have condemned disproportionate response but supported Israel's right to defend itself against terrorists.
I tried to remake the point but they weren't listening. They couldn't listen as they weren't bright enough. Then in came the other camp, either twatting me for being a 'Jew lover' or thinking I was a supporter of their cause.
I despaired and eventually just ignored all of them.
One spark, taking my eye off the ball for one minute, led to a conflagration of immense proportions. And I felt helpless to do anything about it and also felt unjustly abused.
Thomas Farriner felt the same evidently. He took his eye off the ball, he didn't intend to burn London down. He expected to bake bread that people would enjoy. His life was hell afterwards as he knew he had started the fire, albeit that a French bloke got hanged for it, and he never really recovered.
I'll move on and will make sure I don't make complex points in an environment limited by 140 characters and populated by idiots and ingrates who speak before they think.
London actually benefitted from the fire and the city we enjoy today is largely the beneficiary of the disaster. So maybe I'll benefit too. I will try........
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