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Anorak News | Come, Friendly Bombs

Come, Friendly Bombs

by | 21st, February 2005

‘AT last there comes a programme where fans of direct action can see some real politics.

‘We said Cumbernauld, not Cumbria’

The Telegraph says that TV broadcaster Channel 4 is offering its viewers the chance to vote for the destruction of the country’s most vile building.

As Caroline Ross Pirie, producer of the four-part Demolition show, says: ‘We want people to nominate a building which they feel blights their lives.’

Votes for Ken Livingstone’s London abode, Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street and for some modern day Guy Fawkes to do for the Houses of Parliament are sure to be popular.

But the Times says there already seems to an early front runner.

And rather than a single building, residents of Cumbernauld, a 1950s carbuncle 15 miles north-east of Glasgow, have contacted the show about the delicious prospect of their entire locale being detonated.

The paper’s pictures prove it to be a truly ugly place, indeed. But it did not always appear so and back in the 1970s, when brutalism was all the rage, the concrete town centre built on stilts won architectural awards for excellence.

Now it looks revolting, a place where architect Geoffrey Copcutt, who designed it, and his descendents should be made to live for the duration of their natural lives and beyond.

But a TV vote may not be enough to see the town’s end. So, mindful of President Bush’s European visit in the area, we make mention of the town’s stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and how much everyone living there hates the USA.

Then we’ll sit back and watch those blessed bombs fall…’



Posted: 21st, February 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink