London's sprouting towers like San Gimignano; just not as good. Homes for the international filthy rich they say (Rapunzel! Rapunzel!) well vaults actually, a concrete consequence of international money laundering and fear. Juxtapose The Shard with Aleppo; in the modern world each crystalline vision demands an equal and opposite pile of rubble. London is now, apparently, a safe haven for the worlds worst wealth, and it shows.
It is astonishing just how quickly London's authorities, once sobbing their eyes out over each view of St Paul's, have grasped this rather tawdry opportunity, but it is even more astonishing that the populace at large has meekly accepted it. There's been hardly a murmur. There is something Victorian about it all, a bit high church and no knickers. We know our place.
So why? Like internees we have got used to looking after ourselves amidst the filth, we can't see the clearing in the forest or the barbed wire or the smoke for the trees; we accept this horrible existence as just the way of the world. 'Bunk up everybody! Squeeze in! There used to be a saying; a philestine is somebody who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
For thousands of years mankind has striven to create cities and now we couldn't care less. That is a travesty, and it's a dereliction of duty, at least as a European (free copies of Benevelo all round!) I can't blame the Americans; they understand their Moloch!
The moral compass of the sewer rat is highly contagious. There is no point in debating comparative merits; just dress 'em how you like. It's a fashion show; like speed hairdressing, with an all you can snort buffet.
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