And more rambling.

So, I’ve been watching TV this evening…at least, after I’d put my clothes away (*mutters at *). The Scrapheap Mega Challenge, that was cool, but not what I was going to ramble about. I had to agree with Janet Street Porter. Do you know how utterly wrong that is? Do you realise the pain and just sheer awfulness of that statement?

See, I was watching Demolition which (for those of you who can’t be bothered to click on the link) is a show where people get to rant about buildings they don’t like and think should be demolished. An example of this was Northampton Bus Station; a building which I’ll grant has no architectural merit. But the problem with shows like this is they make me rant at the telly. Why? Because most people seem to be small minded and have little imagination. And much of what they ‘hate’ is simply dilapidation and poor maintainence. That and the fact that architectural fashion changes so quickly, currently we’re in a ‘the 60s and 70s were the worst decades for design ever’ period, and buildings which are architecturally important and probably could be fantastic with some imagination, are being lost.

In the centre of Bristol were some really ugly looking tower blocks. Staggeringly ugly. But someone, somewhere had the vision to revitalise them using ‘colour’ – and although I’m not a fan of tower blocks – they look so much better, you suddenly realise what the designer had in mind. These buildings that people hate, they’ve forgotten that they were meant to be. They’ve lost the understanding that these buildings are not meant to look like the Victorian/Georgian/Edwardian buildings around them. And building millions of mock victoriana would lead to a staggeringly bland landscape. Yes, some of them are dismal, but mostly they’re dismal because concrete’s got ingrained dirt and pollution; cleaning the buildings will often transform them.

Gaaaah. People have no imagination.

I am a huge fan of Victorian and Georgian styles. I love them. My favourite buildings are generally very old; I hate modern suberbia. But at the same time I understand it, I can see why people love it. And similarly, even when buildings are completely at odds with their surroundings, they can be ideal – challenging – different – iconic. And it’s that which makes the built environment special.

Yes. Breathe.

Anyway, after that I was shocked to see that More4 is showing The Corporation. It’s not something I’d expect to see on TV, I’m really pleased they’re showing it, it just sucks that they’re showing it when I’m not able to watch it. Anyway, people, you should watch this (are you easily lead?).

And in other news, I heard a few days ago that the EU want to allow paid for product placement throughout Europe. It’s actually legal in some countries, and in the UK product placement is legal, but they can’t pay anything for it. So, they can say “hey, please use our new Grand Zuchini 4×4 in your next thriller” and supply a car, but they can’t pay them to do so. Anyway, the EU want it to be legal to pay, which I don’t want.

And y’know why I don’t want it? Because the guy from the Screen Writers Guild (I think) on the C4 news managed to say exactly the things I fear; that scripts and shows would be modified to make them better fit the products. What a fucking awful future. If anyone’s read Ben Elton’s Stark they’ll be sat there going ‘noooo, please no’. Because the future is all written out there. The loss of the concept of a story just for the sake of a story; the incoming concept of a story as a means to place products. *sigh*.

Still, I guess I don’t have to be a part of this new world order; I only barely take part in it now.