A ticket to the TED Global conference in Oxford next week costs $4,400. Which is only right and proper: the calibre of speakers is exceptionally high. Mind you, the provison of “really big world changing ideas” is very much a guy thing in TED-land: I count seven women out of 44 names in the programme – of whom (the women) I reckon two will get to talk; the others, though doubtless brilliant, are performing artists.