Is there anything more depressing than…

The other day I was at PVR Acropolis to watch Tapsee Pannu starrer Thappad. While the movie felt great, PVR’s renovation felt classic and plastic at the same time. When you visit there you’ll notice. The space feels spacious, the floor feels all plastic (courtesy the famed vitrified tiles).

Somewhere in the initial pages of Gavin McCrea’s Mrs Engels, there’s this exchange between Jenny and Lizzie, I can’t forget to share.

In her book, there’s naught worse than a new house that looks new. She said so just now before we left. ‘So long as the thirst for novelty exists independently of all aesthetics considerations,’ she went, ‘the aim of Manchester and Sheffield and Birmingham will be to produce objects which shall always appear new. And, Lizzie, is there anything more depressing than that lustre of newness?’

The lustre of newness is depressing indeed on most occasions. And in the case of copy-paste vitrified tiles, plastic too.