The Spider’s Webs of Mr F and Mr M

Mr F had no intention whatsoever of complying with the wishes of people who demanded carriages and coaches. Rather than submitting to the demands of customers and attempting the impossible task of breeding horses capable of pulling gigs, carriages and coaches at 60 miles per hour, he reflected on the meaning of transport. At that time, the road network connecting villages, towns and cities was designed to be used by horses and carriages, with paved, rutted roads. There were blacksmiths’ workshops, post houses and hotels for weary travellers and exhausted horses. The ‘how’ that occupied his mind was a vehicle so innovative that it would require a new road network, fundamentally different from that developed for the coach and horses. So it was — some might find it surprising — that our man started to look carefully at spider’s webs. Of the various forms these took — spiral, funnel-shaped, tubular and leafshaped — it was the tangled ones that attracted his attention most. It was the tangle of interests that Mr F was questioning in his project to find a solution to his problem. This project revolutionized the concept of ‘with what’: no longer the horse-drawn carriage, but the automobile.