Who is to blame?

Whose fault is it that things don’t go how you would like them to?  Well, sometimes it’s easy enough to find a culprit.  At the bridge table, we scored badly because my partner put us in the wrong contract.  Partner is to blame, obviously.  We arrived late because my husband chose the wrong route and were held up in traffic.  His fault, obviously.  Although strangely this ‘obvious matter of fact’ doesn’t seem as clear to him, I wonder why?  This week I met a woman who blamed everything on BREXIT and consequently everything on those who voted for BREXIT.  This was how it went: a traffic hold up caused her to miss her train.  While on the platform another member of the travelling public was being ignored by staff who just wouldn’t listen to her.  This was also caused by BREXIT although how it fits in to her story I’m not sure.  Missing the right train has made her miss her Doctors’ appointment which she had battled to get in the first place and now had to ring up and get instructions on how to proceed with an alternative appointment.  The problem of getting a Doctors’ appointment in the first place was caused by BREXIT too.  None of this was resolved before she got off my train at Stafford, having regaled all the other passengers with her theory that everything that was wrong in Britain was the fault of BREXIT.  Clearly, the lady was everso slightly mentally deranged and no one answered her question as to how they had voted!  I have a great deal of sympathy with whoever has to deal with her at the replanned appointment as she seems somewhat in a fog as to cause and effect.  Are we all in a fog?  It’s so easy to spot someone who’s ‘lost it’ mentally but I wonder if we see ourselves quite so clearly.  No-one on my train tried to argue back with her, so her madness was clear to all.  She wasn’t in the carriage for too long either – say, 20 minutes  or so, so it wasn’t too difficult to duck the question.  She very nearly sat down next to me, but something made her change her mind at the last moment, for which I’m grateful.  Who I’m grateful to is no clearer than who is to blame.