Having a laugh

Should I predecease you, dear reader, here's a number to remember - £278m. That's what has emerged from a Government feasibility study as the price of flattening the Museum of London and building a new Centre For Music. This, the greatest vanity project perhaps since the days of the Sun King, will include a new concert hall to meet the demands of returning fuzzyhead Sir Simon Rattle.

I don't think he shouldn't have one. I just think the site is wrong - and the price estimate ridiculous, since there's no design, nor selected architect. An opportunity for a new grand site, that might bring life and prosperity to another part of this great and changing city, is being missed. A grim concatenation of boxes will be wedged in between some important Roman remains and the offices of the moneymen and usurers who will fund it, but only ever come to gala concerts, if at all....

And, as one wing of Goverment steadily pulls the wings off English National Opera, another stumps up £5.5m to build a business case for the new Concert Hall. Lord Sugar usually asks for that first....