Total Recall (1990) and Paycheck (2003) were both over-slick action films with star power that took the kernels of his profound ideas and drowned them in Hollywood politics.

You might have heard it called the democratisation of the web, a brave new world of information or the geek-friendly term, Web 2.0. What they all essentially describe is that in this new world, the audience is the producer.

But while concentrating rule might be bad for civics it’s good for business, which benefits from smoother, more efficient operating systems. That was the rationale behind the Multinational Agreement on Investment (MIA), stonewalled by France in 1998 after leaked drafts stoked fears about deregulation gone mad.