The other day I was stuck in a local traffic jam. In front of me was a Land Rover Freelander, and covering its rear light clusters were machismo-looking grids which served little or no real purpose. I wondered why superficial garnishing like this was used to spoil and otherwise attractive rearwards design. The superficial and meaningless dominates our life here in the UK and examples are legion – especially within the music industry. Take, for example, the practice of surrounding TV music performers with a bevy of beautiful men and women dancers, while the artist (more often than not) mimes the words to music that is obviously not worth singing for real. Then of course there’s the biggest pretenders (or liars) of all, the politicians, who, beautifully preened for TV, spout off rhetoric intended to make us believe they are worth voting for. It’s like we’re on a slippery slope down to nowhere; following trends, the media, advertising and celebrities like the most obedient sheep. It’s enough to make one puke.

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