A couple of quotes from the godlike genius Jonathan Meades which made me laugh out loud this week. In his latest idiosyncratic documentary for the BBC, Off Kilter, Meades takes a tour of Scotland, concentrating on the dormer-window and granite vernacular of Aberdeen, and Donald Trump’s plans to build ‘a global golf destination tourist-hub, New Trumpton-on-Sea’.
“There is no architect left on Earth who fails to proclaim the mantra of sustainability, which means whatever you want it to mean. Green. So green it gives you verdigris. It’s a slogan of conformist unoriginality, matched only by the interchangeable, glossy, foamo structures nearly all these biddable people design…The very act of making a building is energy hungry and vastly wasteful, even if the building is an eco igloo of Fairtrade otter droppings, carbon-neutral panda scraps, ethical vegan meat, organic yoghurt pots, recycled slurry and biodegradeable avocado face wipes. The only truly sustainable present is one in which we do not build.”
And, later,
“Why should we seek to preserve, let alone emulate, the bucolic horror, the numbing boredom, the prying intimacy, the enforced mateyness, the illiterate poverty, the silage stench and the bestiality workshops which characterise village life? Real villages are why we live in cities.”
I hope he continues making documentaries forever.