From all the loud complaints about the snow and freezing weather in Britain and parts of the United States over the last couple of weeks, you would imagine we were experiencing the sort of conditions that were familiar to Scott of the Antarctic or the Grand Army on the Retreat from Moscow.

The fact is that conditions were not that bad in absolute terms, but they were still severe enough to have caused havoc among people who were not used to them, and who had not made the elementary preparations that would have enabled them to cope easily. This is not necessarily to their discredit: only a fool or an extremely rich man – or an extremely rich fool – would invest in a snowmobile if he lived in an area which rarely saw snow.

Once again, we were reminded that our civilisation is a very thin crust. The slightest disruption in transport, telecommunications, or sanitation systems, or in the supply of power, food, or water, is enough to bring the complex machinery of our daily lives to a complete halt, and prolonged disruption over a large area can knock out a modern economy in its entirety.

Yet it was interesting to note that it is public services which were most likely to be suspended and public facilities that were most likely to be closed.

Private shops were more likely to be open and, if not always functioning normally, still performing a valuable role in providing the essential goods their local communities needed.

Of course, that is absurd generalisation and, as with all generalisations, there are many honourable, even heroic, exceptions, especially those public servants who went above and beyond the call of duty to help others.

Yet, as with all generalisations, it is still more true than not that those most likely to struggle through the snow to open their businesses were the owners of those businesses. They were also more likely to encourage their employees to do the same.

This is one more demonstration of the practically unstoppable power of human enterprise.

It also shows that, although our civilisation is indeed very fragile, we can take comfort from the fact that, if it ever collapses completely, within hours entrepreneurs will be building it again from the bottom up.