Puginism

-

It is with some interest and not a little vexation that I read that the restoration bill for the Palace of Westminster could reach £14bn over the next twenty years, and that the seat of British (soon to be English, hopefully) government will have to park itself somewhere else for the duration, an arrangement which will really annoy Jacob Rees-Mogg. But, no matter how iconic a building the place is, fourteen billion quid: I ask you? According to the Infamous-Red-Bus-Of-BoJo, that sum represents forty weeks of NHS funding that Europe was supposed, allegedly - no - falsely, to have nicked from us over the years of our membership of the EU.

If the tidal wave of Omicron infections turns into a tsunami of hospitalisations, the extravagance of such building preservation - never mind the billions already slid sideways into the pockets of every Tom, Dick & Del-Boy that Doris and his mates know - will stick very firmly in the craw of any right-minded person without access to the ticket office to the gravy train that is Tory cronyism and establishment folly (most of us). The artist in me says preserve the building. The pragmatist in me says it's simply not worth the cash.

I'm not the kind of Stalinist philistine who would sweep all aside in the service of modernism and Stakhanovite productivity, but at the moment we have far more pressing concerns before us, such as keeping the population safe and fed in the teeth of economic strife, and addressing climate change. It's worth reminding ourselves that the Palace, at the time of its construction, was considered rather modern and vulgar, a further reminder that all things are relative. Chartres, it ain't.

Rational and radical decisions, based on need and available resources have to be made, and not just for this bauble. My solution is simple. Ask half-a-dozen billionaires to pony up a small portion of their net worth each to pay for it. If they're so addicted to the old guard Establishment and the honours and opportunities it affords, then that should be the price of admission. Just don't make Poor ol' Joe Soap pay for it is all I ask.

Comments

  1. Joe Stoner29 December 2021 at 17:03

    We JUST need an equitable and operating system of taxation mate. NO hidden gravy-train rides!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des...
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [...
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more