Look Away Now

Train journeys into major cities are rarely the prettiest of trips. Usually the tracks wind their way past old industrial areas and the backside of unfortunately placed apartment blocks covered in amateurish graffiti. The Chiltern Line into Marylebone Station is no exception. In fact, by the time a London-bound train passes Denham there's really not much of beauty to see out either side of the train save for maybe the view of Hampstead off in the distance to the left as you roll over the rooftops of Kilburn.

There should be one very notable exception to this, however. Wembley. As home to the national game the new Wembley was expected to project a certain power. It was intended to be a building that would transfix and inspire all those who saw it. To fill arriving opponents with fear and fans with pride. It was intended to do all these things..but it doesn't.

What it does do is stand as garish a reminder of what a visionless country England has become. That a nation able to design and construct architectural diamonds like St Paul's, The Houses of Parliament, the BBC headquarters, the Lloyds building, St Pancras station old and new, could have permitted the building of such an enormous tribute to averageness speaks of a loss of something at the higher levels of society. Perhaps confidence. Perhaps creativity.

Either way, what commuters passing by each morning see is a very expensive and very forgettable national symbol. The truth is, if you took away that silly and quite meaningless arch few people in this country would be able to tell the difference between the new Wembley and countless other instantly dated glass and concrete sports stadiums around the world, from Dusseldorf to Durban to Dayton, Ohio.

And that's a pity.