The Inspector awoke this morning, as she does almost every day, to the sound of technological obsolescence. Her residence, provided by the System to employees of her grade, is an airy one-bedroom flat in a period building in Piccadilly Circus. The ancient neon light directly outside her window is faulty and makes a noise when it switches on: the death rattle of twentieth-century advertising. She has complained about it, but does not anticipate any change in her circumstance. Machines these days are somewhat perfected; a visible glitch in a high-profile space such as this has been found to project a reassuring fallibility and evoke a sense of well-being which endures for several days. It conveys the continuing humanness of a nation under digitally mediated governance. The figures are unambiguous.