Today's news includes bits and pieces about a new building in London which has been nicknamed 'The Shard'.Not having seen the building, I have no idea why it's acquired this moniker, however, the only thing that seems to be of interest to most of the media is its height, which is something around a thousand feet.
No one has yet explained why we need such a monstrosity in central London, apparently built on top of a railway station and slap bang next door to a major hospital, or what its purpose is. All that I've heard is that it has a mere 48 parking spaces, mostly for the disabled according to Ken Livingstone, getting to the top for a bit of sightseeing will cost a family of 4 £90, and iit has an assortment of multi-million pound luxury penthouse apartments atop its structure.
In a city which, by all accounts is desperately short of affordable housing and parking space, one has to wonder which pillock gave this idiotic scheme the go-ahead. Reportedly, most of the finance has come from Arab investors and the design is by some Italian with a silly name; KL's involvement in an item this morning makes me think that he probably had his fingers in the pie somewhere too.
To answer my initial question, of course it has a point, the point being to bring kudos to the city of London; that, at least, is what the politicians and others who've been involved will say. In truth, it's a colossal waste of money designed to promote the designer and architect and the politicians who backed the scheme, and to provide ludicrously wasteful and expensive accommodation for a few super-rich bankers or oil tycoons. The vast bulk of the people will gain nothing from it.
And so to answer my initial question again, of course it has no real purpose. It is about self-aggrandisement and nothing more. It is yet another pointless blot on our landscape.
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