This morning I went to one of those digital marketing shows at Earl’s Court. After having a barcode hung around my neck, swiped as though I was a unit of cattle, I walked in and almost heaved at the sight of hundreds of people selling technology products and services, things you can’t actually hold or see, things that don’t really exist. The crowds of people drank coffee, stood outside smoking, sat listening to that same seminar about behavioural targeting by that same multinational superpower on those same dirty mauve chairs as the previous year. Clipboards clapped, pens popped, glasses clinked and smiles snapped. It was raining outside on the walk to the station, littered with leaflets about the ‘next big thing’ and those ‘next big things’ which were still the future two years previous. But for all the rain drops and stations outbound from the cosmetics of a glorified farm pen, with built in troughs full of croissants and buckets of latté, I still feel soiled.