Recently I invented a new game. It’s called Xanadu, after Kubla Khan’s legendary summer palace and of course, the film Citizen Kane. The rules are simple. You walk, cycle or drive in your local area, bagging as many black-on-yellow signs – the ones pointing to new housing developments – as possible. There are two prizes – the one who gets the most signs and can remember their names and one for the most ridiculous – not as easy as…

I try not to look at the man sitting in a mink-coloured Jaguar. Dark suit, tan, late middle-aged, he has the air of the self-made, too classy for a local politician. He looks like he’s talking to himself until I realise by his body language he’s talking on a hands-free mobile.

The sun beats down on the car park of Ross Hall Hospital, one of 60 such facilities operated by private healthcare provider, BMI. Already I feel I’m intruding but…