It sounds like a dizzying and alienating Brave New World. What about the human touch? “You say that. And people say that they like the high street because it is all about human interaction. But take a parallel example.” He points at the biscuit next to my coffee cup. “We are the second most obese nation in the world, after America. Now everyone says they want to be thinner, and we blame it on the poverty trap or the government and retailers. But the plain truth is we have a choice. If we want to be thin, we have to eat less. It’s that straightforward. If we want a high street, we have to use it. And we’ve made that choice already. Increasingly we don’t use it.”