Pictures from an Exhibition Centre

So G20 in London has come and gone and for the next week or so will appear as a great triumph for Gordon Brown. But what has been achieved? The communique, as expected, tells us that everyone will work together in many ways to sort out the problems of the World. Well, we knew that anyway. No one was going to refuse to help in sorting out problems that affect us all, rich and poor. In spite of President Sarkozy's histrionics, no one was going to walk out without looking an idiot. But is there any substance to it. On the whole, I think that the world's leaders have achieved more than I anticipated, provided that they now get on with the various tasks that they have set themselves. Otherwise. there will have been no point in coming to the UK, spending £50 million of our money for the school photograph and numerous snapshots of "Me with President Obama". Putting the system right in the short term is one thing but will they really eliminate the tax haven bolt holes for hedge funds, over-paid financiers and crooks?

But why was it decided to hold this conference in the Excel Centre? A previously anonymous conference centre with fewer attractions than a wet February in Great Yarmouth, it is a windswept monstrosity on the north bank of the Thames, down the East India Dock Road, east of Poplar, in Canning Town. It has the architectural sophistication of an abandoned communist supermarket with surroundings designed primarily, it appears, to use up a surplus of concrete and to collect litter from the whole of East London. From a security point of view, it has advantages, of course, in that the area is usually empty of all life forms. In addition, in these times of collapsing international trade, there is a first rate reminder of the effects of trade disappearing completely in the shape of rows of stationary, unused, dockside cranes. There is also an excellent view of The Dome in Greenwich - another tribute to government mismanagement. Best of all, alongside the ExCell Centre, there are berths on the dockside for the yachts of any visiting billionaire -oligarchs. Hmmm! Perhaps the venue has a lot going for it after all, when so obviously money, gambling, greed and excess have become more important than artistic merit, sophistication and morals.

We will see.