I don’t know what the state of shopping is like in other places around the world but going by our local Tesco the future is self-service. Scan your goods, swipe your privacy-invading personal-identifcation extra-value consumer-tracking loyalty card, find your only note crisp enough to feed into the machine (alternatively swipe your other consumer-tracking card; the flexible, friendly one) and go on your way. The brilliance is that most people ’round these parts are afraid of technology so there’s never a queue.