MONDAY Meeting of the Olympic Rebadging Taskforce. The gravity of the situation is taking its toll, even on Games Minister Suzi Towel.
That compulsory Mexican wave we have before Apologies for Absence gets more perfunctory each time. Nobody does the good-natured booing now when the wave gets to Treasury Steve and he refuses to join in. Oh sure, Suzi still says ‘Yay!’ every time the word ‘Olympics’ is mentioned. But these days it’s without the exclamation mark.
Still. Not all gloom. The IOC inspectors came over for a tour of the building site – correction, Delivery Park – and went home happy. It’s amazing how much international goodwill can be generated by a good lunch, a Cornetto on an open-topped Routemaster and a nap on the plane home. No awkward questions about the £9.3 billion budget, which we’re rather cleverly rebadging as being ‘under control’.
Suzi explains. ‘A dog is for life, not just for Christmas. And the Olympics – yay – is for the sustainable regeneration of east London, not just for a fortnight of world-class competitive sport and various sponsorship opportunities. We’re still three years off, and the budget is very much a puppy. It’s under control in the sense that we’ve taught it to wee and poo outside, but obviously it has to develop into a complete dog, doesn’t it?’
Meanwhile, we’re further downgrading architectural expectations to Level 2 (‘mild irritant, avoid contact with eyes’), ironically announcing plans to ‘recycle’ the Velodrome, and redefining ‘shit-eating grin’ as ‘brave face’.
TUESDAY Britain now languishes at the bottom of the World Nomenclature League, and the Department of Entertainment is looking for a Building Nickname Czar. Fingers crossed.
WEDNESDAY Working on my nicknames. It’s time this country took them seriously. In Seoul or Reykjavik, a new building is automatically assigned an architectural name by the relevant federal bureau of appellations. The result? Some nondescript bollocks is called The Sexy Rainbow Wand or Enfolding Love Bun.
In Britain we leave all naming to our journalists. Result? Desaturated rubbish such as The Gherkin, The Shard, The – come on, for God’s sake – Cheese Grater. Worse, they always pretend buildings have been ‘dubbed’. When a journalist says ‘dubbed’ it means ‘given a nickname, by me’. Bastards.
THURSDAY Prep notes for a lecture at the Institute of Plasmic Arts. It’s called ‘The Misery of Excellence’ and will convince everyone that I’m in the middle of writing a sarcastic masterpiece about how architecture has been sidelined into a zero-risk compliance culture, even though I’ve only actually written this sentence so far. ‘He who lives by the kitemark, dies by the kitemark.’ That sounds good, I might say that.
FRIDAY The Architectural Nickname Czar gig would look great on my portfolio, which this year runs to half a page of A4. I email the following universally deployable building names to the entertainment department:
The uPod. The Kebabel. The Shiny Tumulus. The Chamfered Cock. The Glazed Rictus. The Parenthesis. The Fat Bonus. The Clumpty. The Saucy Dalek. The Eco-Eco-Bang-Bang. The Big Ask. The Dreamed Vortex. The Petrified Discharge. The Stilty Lump. The Sentient Plume. The Perpendiculon. The Urban Stook. The Skyfister. The Messaging Ascender. The Pishtank. The Iconic Pandemonium. The Chip Naan. The Very Hungry Fuckerpilla. The Bosh. The Cloverfield Thunderbolt. The Laughing Prolapse. The Extrudel. The Batard. The Carbon-Retentive Colon. The Vertical Conga. The Paranoid Fishcake. The Aircosh. The Digital Tampon. The Niggling Appendix. The Satirical Standup. The Shish. The Glandmark. The Convincing Wig. The ! The Crispy Beacon. The Megaphor. The Arrested Gush. The Token Block. The Aerodoodle. The Heliographic Slatfarm. The Lifecake. The Courgetto. The Lesbian Tongue. The End.
SATURDAY Absolutely no response. Sod them. Decide I’ll get absolutely wankered at lunchtime. I’m meeting my old friend Darcy the architecture critic and his overdressed dachshund, Bauhau.
Then a text cancelling lunch. Odd, not like Darcy at all. And as excuses go, ‘Bauhau’s got a migraine’ seems a bit feeble.
SUNDAY Oh lovely. Brilliant. In the Creative on Sunday, a drivelly piece on The Preciousness of Our Named Heritage. ‘By the entertainment department’s new Architectural Dubbing Czar, Darcy Farquear’say …’
There’s a photo of him holding what looks like a squirming Beef Wellington. It may be a small dog in some sort of fashionable polycarbonate sheath. Or not, who cares?
March 5, 2009