Last Wednesday, Ocado, the online grocer, held its first annual general meeting. How many shareholders do you think turned up? Just one: a solitary woman.
The previous week I had been at the AGM of the company where I’m a non-executive director. It was more or less the same story. There we all were, 11 directors, in our best clothes with ties straight and hair combed, ready to answer tricky questions. The teas and coffees were laid out, with a choice of biscuits and still and sparking water. But the neat rows of chairs facing us were almost entirely empty.
This surreal experience left me feeling a bit like Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush, when he invites his love to dinner and prepares the meal and waits but she does not come. It is pathetic to sit on a raised platform ready to give a performance and find that no one wants to hear it.