Cutty What?

So the Cutty Sark was set on fire and now 'needs' another £18 million spent on it. The original bill for restoration was a whopping £25million. Can we really not think of anything better to spend £43 million on?

Before I go on, I know all the usual counter arguments - it's our heritage, it brings in the tourists, it's a unique part of our history. Hmmm,...well, yes to an extent - but £43 million? When finished, the Cutty Sark will probably only be about 10% original - so why not just build a replica? Or why bother at all?

A few years ago I visited Angkor Wat in Cambodia - a huge network of temples nearly a thousand years old. They were, of course, 'restoring' some of them, the result being awkward brand new blocks of stone laid among the beautifully aged ones. It looked awful.

Conversely, the smaller temples in the jungle have had no such restoration, and there are trees and vines climbing all over and through them, pushing the stones out of place and slowly destroying these centuries-old monuments. These temples looked fantastic - hundreds of years of decay right before my eyes.

Ok, so these temples and the Cutty Sark will disappear for ever if we don't save them - but the cost of restoring them, and the ridiculously fake result of doing so, is proof that we should just leave them be.

I await the day that one of the rocks at Stonehenge finally falls over, and we rush in with a gleaming block of sandstone to replace it to 'preserve' it for future generations.