Overview: The connection between polyethylene and Big Ben is a few degrees of separation, so let us recount them: polyethylene, radar, soap, artificial dyes, color perception, tapestries, Far East goods, fake lacquer furniture, search for shorter route to Japan, Hudson in Greenland, the discovery of plentiful whales, printing the Bible, Mercator map, Martin Luther's protest, star tables, Earth as a flattened sphere, and George Graham's clock which of course leads to Big Ben.