Beacon For Urban Regeneration

M@
By M@ Last edited 216 months ago
Beacon For Urban Regeneration
The penthouse of a thousand migraines.jpg

We can’t claim that pun as our own. It’s the work of Berkeley Homes bloke Mark Dickinson. That’s his colourful description for a new glowing box that’s just been unveiled near Borough Tube.

The brownfield beacon sits atop a tower block in Tabard Square, a spanking new residential development that’s so new, it’s not even in our new A-Z, newly bought from the new Transport Museum shop.

Hey, and here’s the really clever bit: the beacon glows different colours depending on the barometric pressure. Red for very high; green for very low. How astoundingly useless. Perhaps it should be topped with a luminous swingometer to indicate Powergen’s current FTSE share price, or a magic wheel to track the sidereal coordinates of the outer planets. Why on earth should anyone give a flying cluck about the number of molecules residing above SE1?

Sorry, we really don’t mean to be sarcastic here. We love a bit of eccentricity and inventiveness in our illuminations. Look here, we really do. It’s just that its such an easy target, and it’s Friday night, and we should be down the pub with our mates, but instead we’re writing about glowing boxes on top of places we’ll never be able to afford to even look at, and, let's face it, it's a bit of a non-story, plus Editro’s away for a couple of days, so anything goes. Alright?

Sorry, got carried away there.

Not all local residents are pleased. Obviously. There’s nothing more contrary in press reports than ‘local residents’. Some are worried over the light pollution, others think it’s a waste of energy, blah, blah, blah. Frankly, we’d be more scared about problems with giant moths.

Anyone seen this cube of iridescence, this box of radiant flux, this marketing gimmick? What do you think? Let us know.

Picture shamelessly nicked from London SE1, one of our favouritist sites. We love you guys, so please don’t take umbrage.

Last Updated 03 March 2006