From: tsm@fastmail.ca   
      
   On Feb 17, 2026 at 4:24:25 PM EST, "Julian"  wrote:   
      
   > I’ve got a new thriller out this week, under my pen name of S.K.   
   > Tremayne. I am pleased with the book, and I believe it’s entertaining. I   
   > am also aware that, in a tough and competitive market, that may not be   
   > enough for it to succeed. I am even more aware that readers might decide   
   > the book is dreck. They might give me one star reviews, and no sales.   
   > Then the book will crater, my publishers will probably abandon me, and   
   > my nice career will drift to an end.   
   >   
   > And that, of course, is how it should be. No one in any career is   
   > entitled to a free ride. That especially applies to people who get to do   
   > a desirable, creative job such as novel writing. Whether you’re a   
   > writer, actor, director, sculptor or musician – if you want that   
   > enviably fun creative profession, you live and die by public approval;   
   > and if you are bad, goodbye.   
   >   
   > Unless, of course, you are an architect. I was reminded of this peculiar   
   > anomaly by last week’s furore over the latest architectural wart to   
   > attach itself to London’s battered face: the already notorious ‘Belgrove   
   > House’, that now dominates a prime corner of Euston Road, where it sits   
   > right next to King’s Cross and St Pancras.   
   >   
   > I presume it has been situated in London after the original design was   
   > rejected by a horrified Uzbek government, as being too ugly for Tashkent.   
   >   
   > If you have not seen it yet, the best way to get a sense is to look at   
   > photos like the one here.   
   > https://x.com/ianvisits/status/2020440287785443433   
   > Briefly. The second best way is for me to describe it, but that is   
   > actually quite hard. Because it’s difficult to verbally capture this   
   > weird, stupid and meaningless collision of styles, materials,   
   > dimensions. The closest visual analogy, to my mind, is one of those   
   > plates piled high at a hotel buffet by an idiot: with a splodge of   
   > curry, some sauerkraut, five potatoes, some lemon pie, a lamb cutlet,   
   > smoked herring, and several cheesy crackers, and everything banal and   
   > tasteless even before you smush them together.   
   >   
   > In short, the building is appalling, and it’s not going to get better   
   > over time. It is a dud. A turkey. A calamitous flop. It is the   
   > Millennium Dome. It is Fyre Festival. It is Triangle, the BBC soap opera   
   > set on a North Sea ferry route. It is Raise the Titanic. It is Harry   
   > Hill’s I Can’t Sing. It is Keir Starmer’s prime ministerial career,   
   > rendered in concrete and plastic. It is my first novel, Absent Fathers,   
   > which got a cheque for zero pounds zero pence, as a computer could not   
   > believe an author could sell so few copies, so sent a cheque anyway.   
   > Finally, it is the architectural equivalent of Via Galactica (1972), a   
   > space-themed musical with actors on trampolines, which lasted seven   
   > performances.   
   >   
   > But here’s the thing. For all the creative disasters listed above,   
   > someone responsible paid a price. Even the lavishly coddled Millennium   
   > Dome project damaged careers. And yet, if you design and erect a hideous   
   > building, equivalent to these aesthetic catastrophes, you pay no price   
   > at all. And this despite the fact that, unlike a rubbish novel, you   
   > can’t chuck a bad building in a bin. No, the building squats there, for   
   > decades, blighting the lives of everyone who must look at it. And given   
   > that this particular building is situated in one of the most conspicuous   
   > sites in the capital, opposite two of its grandest railway stations,   
   > that is going to be a lot of people.   
   >   
   > Worse, there’s a decent chance the architects of this carbuncle will get   
   > an award. Because that’s what they do in architecture world. They have   
   > hideous ideas, then they force them on the rest of us, and then they   
   > give each other prizes. Until, about 40 years down the line, everyone   
   > accepts the obvious truth, and the pile of ugliness is finally demolished.   
   >   
   > If you need proof, just look at the lists. Salford’s laughable Centenary   
   > Building, Britain’s very first Stirling Prize winner (in 1996), was set   
   > to be knocked down just 30 years later, to much applause. The Tricorn   
   > Centre Portsmouth won the Civic Trust award in 1967 and yet was   
   > demolished in 2004. Pimlico Comprehensive School collected a RIBA prize,   
   > then it was flattened in despair. Gateshead’s Trinity Square car park   
   > was recognised as a ‘most outstanding modernist building’ by the 20th   
   > century society after it was blasted to hell. Add to this, our own   
   > Belgrove House: yes it won a World Architecture Festival Award in 2023.   
   > Yes, they’ve already given it an award. Perhaps they got excited by the   
   > potential ugliness. In any other art form, failure is failure. In   
   > architecture, terrible failure makes for a garlanded career.   
   >   
   > Clearly, what is needed is some kind of disincentive for architects. A   
   > way to punish them for the pain they inflict. Or they will keep   
   > inflicting this pain on us. We need the equivalent of West End reviews   
   > so bad they close a dismal show, thereby bankrupting producers.   
   >   
   > So who are the Guilty People responsible for Belgrove House? Who should   
   > we hold to account? It’s invidious to name names, but the names are   
   > Simon Allford, Jonathan Hall, Paul Monaghan and Peter Morris, and they   
   > are the leading partners of AHMM Ltd. But for the rest of us AHMM will   
   > be the company responsible for ruining the views of St Pancras and   
   > King’s Cross. That’s the company responsible for ruining the views of St   
   > Pancras and King’s Cross.   
   >   
   > Unsurprisingly, AHMM disagree. Simon Allford told The Spectator:   
   > ‘Belgrove House is a 21st century landmark building sitting confidently   
   > opposite its Grade I listed 19th century predecessor. Like Lewis   
   > Cubitt’s King’s Cross station, Belgrove House is an innovative,   
   > engineered building.’ He also dismissed criticism of the building as   
   > ‘fast fading social media outrage, in this case sparked by clickbait   
   > from an arts critic turned TV personality. History will be the better   
   > judge.’   
   >   
   > But how should AHMM be judged? It’s amusing to think they might be put   
   > in some 21st century version of the stocks, pelted with virtual dung. Or   
   > they could be sent to Rockall, to design toilets that never happen. But   
   > maybe best of all would be to rent them a cheap flat, where they have to   
   > live together for the rest of their lives. A flat with magnificent   
   > views, from every room, of Belgrove House.   
   >   
   >   
   > Sean Thomas   
      
   It's embarrassing. My sympathies. The sickness appears to be universal, sign   
   of the times, or something.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)