She raised both eyebrows, pleased by the question. ‘Right here!’ she said. ‘You’re looking for the Renewosaurs? They run till midnight. You can catch them next to where they’re projecting the film.’

She gestured across the container village, where the site was bounded by a giant advertising hoarding, several storeys high and several streets long. But although it was covered in advertising, it was not a billboard, but one of the slab blocks of the estate, mummified in a taut white plastic wrap. Slogans were splashed across the giant canvas:

WINTERZONE brought to you by CASTLE PARK.

YESTERDAY … TO THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. A state-of-the-art development of new homes to own or rent.

JOIN US and TAKE PART in a vibrant celebration of the transformation of URBAN RENEWAL.

And much more of the same, alternating with a tasting platter of corporate logos: the local authority, property developers, building contractors, a hedge fund, a Singaporean pension fund, Wolfe / De Chauncey and others.

We wandered onto the festival site, numb, staring, our plan temporarily forgotten. In the distance were the amped cries of Sam Neill and Laura Dern battling dinosaurs against a John Williams score, and another splintering crash, which brought a round of applause. The crash was not part of the film. Closer at hand, the music was familiar wispy female vocals over a twangy banjo, and although I knew it and had heard it in adverts, I couldn’t place it. Shopfronts in the shipping containers dispensed artfully sloppy burgers or cashmere sweaters. A spoken word poet was denouncing austerity to an audience of five people reclined on velour-covered cushions in a yurt. Visitors milled around us, a crowd heavy in beards and caps and stiff vintage military overcoats. The women had mastered the miraculous balance of dress that would work just as well pitching a phone game to venture capitalists in Dalston as it would at one of my mother’s WI meetings. It was eleven-ish at night but the shared space conduct fist bump was holding effortlessly – no one was visibly drunk, though most held bottles of microbrew, many swaying them casually from the barest contact of index finger and thumb. I saw two buggies with babies slumbering peacefully inside.

‘Fucking …’ Pierce muttered, but he couldn’t even bring himself to finish his profanity. He had not closed his mouth since we arrived, and appeared distraught.

‘What’s this music?’ I asked. It was bothering me, so obviously a song I knew, but just out of reach.

‘“Sweet Child O’ Mine”,’ Pierce said. ‘Cover.’