Under the counter

Stars of CCTVSpeaking as a man who prefers to conduct a healthy proportion of his business, both personal and professional, away from the prying eyes of the powers-that-be, you can well imagine that I am not in favour of the modern proliferation of surveillance cameras. It seems nowadays that a man can't indulge in any of his old pastimes like distilling moonshine, running a house of ill-repute or attending a cock fight without being filmed by some nosy do-gooder and later contacted by members of Her Majesty's constabulary. It is for this reason that I read with heavy heart the news that Nymex has gone ahead with plans to install CCTV on its trading floors, "to monitor areas? where activity constituting violations of exchange rules is suspected". Exactly what kind of violations they are looking to clamp down on is not made clear; presumably we are expected to assume that...