Rather than continue our journey south we turned back towards Sheffield. JT was annoyed. She had hoped that we would drop her off in Stockton-on-Tees. Instead we parked in the huge Costco car park, paid the extortionate parking fee, and took our places in the conference hall.

The presenters were terrible – but what else could you expect when the CEO picks up his speakers during casual conversations on public transport? When the supposed expert on cloud computing started to recite Beatnik poetry, I knew that it was time to leave.