For a rent of a few thousand pounds a year, the machinery of private finance perches on the crumbling infrastructure of the welfare state: all that money, flowing invisibly just a few metres above the patients inside. Near Heathrow airport, I looked up to see the microwaves passing through two huge dishes atop Hillingdon hospital, a pioneering 1960s centre now suffering – like much of the NHS – from a shortfall in funding. These beams of data carry millions of high-frequency financial transactions – and thus billions of pounds – through the air, above our heads, completely invisibly. To find them, I followed the line of microwave dishes that connect them – some perched on pylons, others on water towers or tall buildings. I was looking for two important but hidden locations: a data centre belonging to the London Stock Exchange, and another belonging to the New York Stock Exchange. A couple of years ago, I took a bike ride from Slough, heading east – right through London and out the other side to Basildon.
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