The cab driver was bemoaning the closure of the local Woolworths. “The problem, guv, is Tesco.” That company, he explained, offered better quality and value in the goods people used to buy at Woolworths.

I suggested this was a problem for Woolworths, but not for him. He would only repeat that Tesco was too powerful. I tried to respond that the failure of Woolworths demonstrated the opposite: that the power of a giant retailer lasted only as long as its customers wanted it to. Then we arrived at the station.