Millennium Matters

Q. Is Britain's Millennium Dome as bad an idea as people say it is?

A. Yes. Firstly because the British are spending massive amounts of money on an "experience" that is supposed to be celebrating two millenniums of human endeavour but the structure itself will last only about 25 years - anybody see the irony in that?

While the public seems to agree with Richard Branson's announcement that "the dome is the greatest white elephant of our time", New Labour continues to plough millions into it, with Tony Blair sticking fast to the party line that the dome is "the most exciting thing happening in the world in the year 2000".

Get a grip, Tone, we're all with Branson on this one.

After seven years of planning and construction, we should have known there was something quite amiss about the whole thing when its architect, Richard Rogers, said he envisaged the completed building as "an odyssey into the future, a 21st century Stonehenge". Which is all very well, up to a point. Stonehenge was built in the middle of rural olde England, not on a London peninsula full of toxic waste from sustained industrial use.

The first thing to go was the dome's PVC roof, after Greenpeace successfully rallied against it, labelling it a "toxic, plastic, throwaway monster".

The other sign of danger was the term "multi-media", which the organisers used incessantly when describing what the contents of the edifice would be like. In days when the odd computer terminal and a Tannoy sound system qualify as "multi-media", we can be forgiven for not being swept off our feet by the description.

What you're going to get if you buy an over-priced ticket for the "experience" is 12 "segments", each representing a different "street" in time.

"Each zone will pose questions about the way we live, work, eat, play and interact with the environment and the rest of the world," runs the bumf, which also alludes, somewhat less mysteriously, to "virtual forests" and "dark rides".

If it all sounds like a tarted up Funderland, you might change your mind when you get to the intriguingly named "Tower of Serious Play". However, as it's all supposed to be a secret, we don't really know what to expect from that one.

What we do know is that there's going to be a vast, three-dimensional human figure which you can step into. There will also be a brand new sport called "Surfball", which is supposed to be a mix of "surfing and ball skills".

Given its transient nature, it's perhaps more instructive to look at the neighbouring Millennium Village, which will provide environmentally friendly living on a 32-acre site. More than 1,000 homes are currently being built, using the latest energy-efficient construction techniques.

The houses and the dome itself will be accessible by a new train station on the Jubilee line. The Millennium tube stop (designed by Norman Foster) will be the biggest in Europe if it's finished on time.

Sounding like a lot more fun is the idea dreamt up by a team of architects and engineers to hold an Ice Fair on the River Thames.

By using a mixture of glycol and water, they hope to freeze a halfmile stretch of the river in December.

Not a bad idea for the Liffey.