From: tsm@fastmail.ca
On Feb 18, 2026 at 10:36:21 AM EST, "Julian" wrote:
> 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
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