In a development that has sent shockwaves through the maritime legal community and caused at least three bar snacks to be involuntarily inhaled, the operator of the Dali has been formally charged over the catastrophic Baltimore bridge collapse. The news broke like a cheap bottle of Prosecco at a wedding where the groom has just been outed as a Republican: messy, inevitable, and leaving everyone feeling slightly queasy.

Let us, for a moment, consider the sheer chutzpah of charging a shipping company for what can only be described as a ballet of incompetence on an industrial scale. The Dali, a vessel so ill-fated it makes the Titanic look like a well-managed ferry service, managed to turn a routine departure into a lesson in how to ruin an entire city's infrastructure. The bridge, a proud steel artery of Baltimore, now lies in a crumpled heap, a monument to the sort of negligence that makes Health & Safety inspectors weep into their kale smoothies.

But who, I hear you ask, will be blamed? The captain? The crew? The ship itself, perhaps accused of harbouring homicidal tendencies against concrete? No, my friends, we are going for the jugular of the corporate entity, the faceless suits who make decisions from an office in a tax haven while sipping gin that costs more than my monthly rent. The operator, a company whose name I shall not dignify with repetition, now faces charges that will likely result in a fine smaller than the cost of the champagne served at their last board meeting.

Let us not forget the human cost. Six lives, extinguished in a moment of metal and concrete screaming against each other. Families shattered, communities left reeling. But in the grand theatre of American justice, we will instead focus on paperwork. Did the operator file the correct documents? Were the lifeboats to code? The smell of scapegoating is so thick you could bottle it and sell it as novelty air freshener for courthouses.

Of course, the real absurdity is that this entire saga could have been avoided if someone, somewhere, had thought to apply the smallest shred of common sense. Instead, we get a legal spectacle that will drag on longer than a Michael Bay film, featuring lawyers who look like they were born wearing suits, and experts who will argue that the bridge was too static, too aggressive, too much in the way.

I propose a radical solution: charge the bridge itself. After all, it stood there for decades without complaint, then suddenly collapsed at the first sign of a wayward container ship. Clearly, it had been planning this for years. If we are going to assign blame, let us be equally absurd in all directions. But no, we must focus on the company, because they have money, and money is the only thing that makes the wheels of justice turn faster than a spin class for MPs.

In the meantime, I will be at my local pub, raising a glass of the cheapest gin I can find to the memory of common sense. It died young, but it lived beautifully. As for the Dali's operator, may their legal bills be as massive as the hole they left in Baltimore's skyline. And may we all learn that when it comes to charging people for catastrophes, the real crime is thinking it will change anything.