A report in The Sunday Times today tells us that the United Nations has commissioned a £12m decorative ceiling for its building in Geneva (pictured).The work, at the headquarters of the UN Human Rights Council, is to be unveiled this week by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain and Jose Luis Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister.
It was produced by Miquel Barcelo, 51, one of the world's most highly paid abstract artists, who was hire to redesign a 14,000 sq ft dome. Barcelo has said his design aims to create a "grotto", with stalactites reflecting "infinity and the multiplicity of view-points". He has built a honeycomb of aluminium from which to hang resin stalactites up to 3ft long. They are coloured with paint containing pigments from all over the world.
Needless to say, the expenditure has prompted furious protests from campaigners who believe it is an extravagant misuse of development funds. They are right, of course, but it will not make a blind bit of difference. As in all things, these tranzies are totally out of control and can happily stick two fingers up to outdated concepts such as accountability, responsibility, good governance …
Well done the Sunday Times for reporting it. But what do we do now?
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