This building, known on campus as the chocolate cake, because of its wedge shape and endless brown-ness, is the absolute reverse of something good. You know what I mean when you say “it’s not what’s on the outside that’s important, it’s what’s on the inside”? Well this building is actually quite lovely outside (brown notwithstanding) – a quirky shape with lots of interesting facets but on the inside it’s the most pig-ugly building I’ve been into in ages. The designers decided not to bother to finish it off, instead it’s raw concrete. It’s ugly, noisy and utterly without charm of any kind.

I’m told that the reason is that it gives the building “integrity” by showing off what it’s made of. Would we be happy if folks started going around naked and saying “I’ve got integrity because I’m showing what I’m made of”? No, of course we wouldn’t. In fact, I think that the naked rambler has been thrown in the clink several times for just that. Despite sitting here in a 29 year-old gig tee-shirt (wet wet wet for anyone interested) and a ten year old pair of trackie pants I still have a fundamental belief in “dressing up”. That applies to people and to buildings. People simply look better in clothes – that goes for almost everyone except possibly Kate Moss. I’d even go as far as to say I look better in my wet wet wet tee than I’d look naked and that’s going some because I must confess I don’t feel proud of this look. Places look better “in clothes” – plaster and paint on the walls, soft furnishings, decent lighting etc. It’s the clothes that make buildings special.

In its defence, I DO think the fact that it’s not a rectangle is a good thing. Also in its defence, I’m a girl who thinks that St Pancras Station and the Natural History Museum are among the most beautiful buildings on the planet so for anyone who doesn’t know what they are – think gothic Victorian, think twiddles for the sake of twiddles, think use of different colours for no other reason than the joy of a different colour, think curves and grand and over the top. In other words, beauty first, not cheapness and I'm never going to love a building that's clearly based in the latter, not the former.

If I was Roland Levinsky (ex-vice-chancellor of the university) I would be raining down pestilence and fire on the person who pressed the button to commission the building to punish them for the monstrosity in my name - oh did I forget to say, the building is named after him. Of course that assumes that he’s “somewhere up there” which presents me with a dilemma given my belief in earth to earth as I have mentioned before. So, the moral of this story is if anyone wants to build a building to remember me by, make sure it’s got plaster on the walls and plenty of brightly coloured paint or you know what will happen!

Also, DM met me inside this building tonight and said he thought it looked in desperate need of refurbishment inside. I explained that the building was only 5-6 years old. He said he thought it was a twenty-year-old place that had seen better days.