Mind control, using the smell of golf

In hindsight, it was obvious that an outfit like Cambridge Analytica would turn out to be run by a an over-privileged bunch of shady chancers, lurching from one dodgy comic caper to the next. But what about CA's parent company, Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL)?

Of course it's the same. Of course it was set up by a chap called Nigel. Of course his parents are landowners from Chipping Norton. Of course he went to Eton. Of course he once dated a minor royal. Of course he claimed to have studied psychology at University College London, although UCL say they've no record of him ever being a UCL student. And of course, before he got into data mining and covert political manipulation, he was into a whole load of other weird, dodgy-sounding stuff. Like smell-based marketing:

...Marketing Aromatics, the world's first designer fragrance agency, devoted to persuading companies that along with their corporate image they need a corporate smell. Smells can influence attitudes and therefore behaviour, Nigel Oakes, the agency's managing director, said. And we know that behaviour, whether in employees or customers, is the dominant deciding factor in corporate achievement. At the launch he demonstrated a range of smells, including autumn, coconut, new-mown meadow, ocean, red wine, and golf - a subtle mixture of pine and sweat.

Like parent, like child:

You read the stories about Cambridge Analytica and you think, Damn, these guys are total geniuses who can control our minds. You watch the undercover video of the Cambridge Analytica execs and you think, Damn, these guys are seriously some clown-ass schmucks. Like always, believe what you see.

Meanwhile, in the real world, undercover police have been informing on health and safety reps and union activists, so construction industry bosses can put them on an employment blacklist and protesters are being prosecuted as terrorists.

Welcome to the "United" Kingdom, a nation divided and ruled by scary clowns.