Spent three pleasant hours at the IHS at the SECC on Saturday. Bigger than I had expected. When we got there: five minutes before opening, the queues were stretched way back towards the Finnieston entrance. They had my favourite sausages from Debbie and Andrew. Four packs for £10. Curiously Diane does not think they are morning sausages because they have ‘too much flavour’. When I work that one out, I’ll get back to you.
I did leave in a perturbed and somewhat annoyed fashion. All down to the Prince of Wales. His ‘ideal house’ came fitted with all the technical improvements in windows, flooring, insulation, roofing that you could reasonably expect. All well and good but the structure would not have looked out of place in a Stefan Muthesius book on Victorian domestic dwellings. Some of the more astute readers will have noticed that it’s 110 years since Vicky crossed the Styx, yet here we are trying to build houses that would not have looked out of place in the new suburbs of nineteenth century southern England.
This makes me die. I am not a worshipper at the feet of Hitchcock and Johnson but I do feel for the modern architect with fresh ideas. Forget it whilst the dead hand of His Royal Chuckiness influences our urban planning. And don’t get me started on Poundbury. Ebenezer Howard, you should be alive at this hour – to take the blame or the victory wreath.