From: julianlzb87@gmail.com   
      
   On 18/02/2026 15:28, Wilson wrote:   
   > On 2/17/2026 6:20 PM, Tara wrote:   
   >> Tara  wrote:   
   >>> 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.’   
   >>>>   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)