I mention this Behavioural Economics episode not as a fragment of self-indulgent context (not entirely at any rate) but in order to confess to a long history of twinges of regret whenever I read Rory.

   His evangelical campaign, more than a decade ago, marked, as far as I was aware, his fully-fledged emergence as an ad industry sage and seer, a man able not only to peer deep within the soul of Mankind, but one gifted, in an era of perplexing technological change, with an ability to scry its direction of travel.

   And at some point a little way down the line, as his calling as a clairvoyant became ever more front and centre, I think I made mildly disobliging remarks about him in a piece about advertising’s sooth-sayers.

   The problem with futurologists (and Rory was one among many in the decade following the dotcom crash), I said, was that you could hardly have faith in their ability to predict the future when they weren’t even very good at making sense of the recent past.

   There was also, I believe, a juvenile running joke about crystal balls.

   It was mean-minded – and my greatest struggle as a writer has always been resisting the temptation to ditch generosity of spirit in a headlong dash to get off a few good ones.

   Because I suppose I already suspected then what I know (and am able to acknowledge fully) now – that the power and the glory of futurologists lies not in their infallible powers of prophesy but in their ability to make us reflect. They give us permission. Permission, perhaps, to think the previously unthinkable. I suppose what I’m saying is that they are, in some senses, Motley Fools and Court Jesters.

   To take issue with them, to quibble over detail, is sort of to miss the whole point – and that, surely, is the writer’s greatest fear of all.

   Thus the aforementioned twinge every time I read him. And I am a huge fan, for instance, of his column in the Spectator. He’s one of a handful of writers I look out for.

   So I’m sorry to say that, having, in reality, clearly learned absolutely nothing, I’m about to go quibbling again.

   Across the last year or so, Rory has been particularly compelling on the whole subject of Zoom (other video conferencing brands are available), not just in an advertising industry context but as a fundamental driver of change in cultural and economic life.

   You know, as in the end of the road for the office. And thus the end of the road for the city too. The biggest Paradigm Shift for Civilisation since the patents expired on both the wheel and fire.