The ExCeL centre – a symbol of where we are
I’m in a high-speed inflatable on the Thames, south of the barrier.
What a godforsaken spot! The ExCeL centre where the G20 leaders will meet on Thursday is flanked by a large scrapyard and rather forlorn-looking Victorian dock.
By the Victoria Embankment
Heaven knows what they’ll make of the place. It’s a great barn. An endless chain of modern warehouse lumps. It has no character, nothing to divert their attention.
It’s so boring that even a G20 ministerial negotiation about the global economic crisis will be fascinating.
What a beautiful river the Thames is once you leave the ExCeL centre behind you! Even Canary Wharf is a spectacular mile.
But if world leaders needed any better signal of the mess we are in, they need look no further than the building excess draped around the City.
Where the chartered Thames does flow
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Agree, Jon. I was there once, on an exhibition. I recall a HUGE building with a cold warehouse feeling, stressful organisational confusion as to where to go, and which of the many doors to enter to get to your dedicated exhibition spot. Car park underneath, as taken from an American action film.
So – not only is it dreadful from the outside, it’s pretty awful from within, as well.
To look on the bright side: Let us hope it will present a fairly neutral venue for the G20 delegates. At least then, they might just concentrate on what they are supposed to concentrate on. Maybe.
One of the sad things about the latter half of the 20th century and early part of the 21st century is that so much of our architecture is so mundane and unimaginative.
The Victorians had many shortcomings but the pride they showed in their civic architecture is something we couild take on board
I’m with you! I live in South-East London and really dug the East-London line all those victorian cut-and-cover tunnels and then Brunel’s tunnel under the Thames. I hope that when the East London line comes back in 2010 (yes it’s not working for 2.5 years – there is a token of a bus replacement that only adds 30mins to your journey time) they will still have preserved those old stations.
A monstrous catastrophe of a building is probably a fitting location. It reflects the situation and the competence of the host government.
I was very impressed tonight by Channel 4 News and your account – ably assisted by Faisal Islam – of the mess London and of course Gordon Brown have made of the ‘boom’ years. There is a sense of nemesis which follows hubris and I hope Brown does not wriggle out of his responsibilities for our calamity. Mandleson’s face was a picture as usual.
I may be alone in being seriously impressed with the new Mandy – now de facto ‘Deputy Prime Minister’.
The years at the Commission have made him more poised, able, confident, up-to-speed and generally an all-round British and European Statesman. Very different to the “I’m a fighter” Mandy of yore.
OK, so I’m alone.