I follow the crowds of sleek business people and weird middle class indie kids to the barrier, buy myself a brioche from the station caf and descend to the tube station. The space is packed with people anxious to get to work on time, butting people almost onto the lines so they can move down the station. The train pulls in and I get on, not bothering to sit down as Oxford Street is only one stop away.

Getting off I find myself following crowds of girls with heavily-caked make-up and barely-there skirts dragging boyfriends in checkered hoodies with hair scraped across their faces. Dotted among the determined couples are people like myself: nomads listening to iPods and generally ignoring the world. I check my purse to find £300 in cash and don’t take time to wonder how it got there: I just thank my mother and tell my feet to bear the pain of walking in three-month-old Primark spats.

The crowds drag me to the escalators and we ascend to the high street like cows herded to the slaughterhouse.