James Pickford
Financial Times
June 5, 2013
Seated in a kiosk in Watford’s market hall, Tina the Psychic Tarot Reader appears to have little foreknowledge of the international event shortly to arrive on her doorstep.
“What are they doing coming to Watford?” she asks, echoing a widely felt sense of surprise among her fellow market traders that world leaders, diplomats, corporate heads and academics were about to descend on the Hertfordshire town on Thursday.
St Moritz and Versailles have been among the previous venues for the three-day Bilderberg conference, an annual gathering of between 120 and 150 luminaries from Europe and North America.
But the event, which describes itself as “a forum for informal, off-the-record discussion about megatrends and the major issues facing the world”, has this year chosen The Grove, a luxury hotel and golf course on the outskirts of Watford.
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