I was struck by a thought-provoking fact that I read the other day that I think is worth considering. A million seconds is equal to about twelve days of ours lives. A billion seconds – a true billion – is equal to somewhere in the region of thirty-five years. I had no idea of the true distance between a million and a billion until I read this analogy. Turn these seconds into monetary units – pounds, dollars, euros… – and suddenly you are confronted with a schematic model of the unspeakable inequality that exists in the world. Draw your own conclusions.