Writing, Thinking, Ranting: What Kevin McCloud REALLY Thinks - scoop No. 2 from a Grand Designer's Secret Diary

Sickening Success and Magnificent Miss

There must be times when Kevin McCloud is racked with battling emotions.

I hear him hiss, 'if there's anything called justice in this world, these savages and their execrable house will vanish from the face of the earth ...

... and then, whispering on the wind, comes his despairing plea in response to another project, 'they're mad, they're infants, but please, oh please, let them finish this dream'.

Here's how it comes about in scenario 1:

Take one thrusting, ignorant, self-made legend of commerce (they're always self-made and stunned by their own glory); add one shallow, compliant spouse; season with a pale child or two designer dogs; throw in several shiny German cars, a furnishings train-wreck, a pea-sized imagination and a vat of cash - and, hey presto, there stands a brutal new monument to mediocrity, just begging for a visitation from Bulldozerman.

Sweet revenge - if only!

But no, it won't happen. Sir Kevin weeps inwardly while somehow calling on deep reserves of personal decency to salvage merit from the pointless structure confronting him.

I'm a professional, he'll say. There's got to be something here that isn't stupid or wasteful or gross. They seem to like it. Yes, there, that light works well, that room might get some use, the dogs and the sofa pretty much match, and what about the view! They didn't touch that.

Manfully grasping at straws, Sir Kevin withdraws from wankersville, leaving the noble impression it is a richly deserving creative expression. It must be so for someone, surely.

And on to scenario 2:

Enter the penniless crusaders, the visionaries brimming with ideas and other intangibles. They're determined to have what they want too, but in a hopeless, helpless, low-fat, lovable way.

Home sweet home - as planned

God, if only they could pull it off, they and their five kids and mini zoo, their biscuit barrel of savings (or alternatively, their tenuous treaty with the bank), their earth roof and wind turbine and macrobiotic walls.

Told you so - macrobiotic walls

Things look bad and KMac salts the wound with dire warnings of imminent disaster at the hands of malevolent forces.

But you can't fool us, Sir Kevin.

Behind your presenter's facade you swell with admiration. Yes, you are anxious for the future of this modest home but we know you'll muck in for them - lime plastering in the fog and tamping mud bricks till the sweat fills your boots. You'll probably throw in a hundred quid if it comes to that.

You desire beyond reason for the project to succeed but, true to form, you must appear the balanced man.

With what result?

Well, this place was tragically a bridge (er, house) too far; this one's on hold - it's a wonderful 'watch-this-space'; but this, well this, I knew it all along - no high street furniture, no glistening limousine, no echoing caverns of space, no grid-sapping panoply of electrical toys, just - how shall I put it - a GRAND DESIGN.