No Modernist Houses here. After morning Mass I spent my Bank Holiday Monday tootling around the local vicinity in search of sights which might run counter to our near total national submission to consumer lusts.

Near a Morrison's Supermarket which was full to the gunnels with sallow and obese drone youths taking advantage of the weekend's special offer on cases of Stella was this cluster of empty flat-roofed houses obviously ready for demolition. Walking around these silent reminders of faith in the square and the functional at Doxford Park near Sunderland I wondered what such nostalgically appealing International Style boxes might soon be replaced with. Nearby was a slick sign announcing "another exciting new development from (forgotten corporate name)". I should have known, more expensive and cramped houses to enslave mortgaged couples in atomised isolation, their only consolation being they are at last on the "property ladder"!