The Esplanade Theatres on the Bay will soon be a year old. I've always hated their appearance. The hideousness, I believe, speaks for itself. The ugliness is intensified when you consider how incongruous those spiky ovoids look against the Marina Bay skyline and against the Padang. And let's not get into the sheer costs of building and running the place......

Is this really how we want to hurl our arts scene into that nebulous, semantic realm of the "first-class"?

However, there are fantastic views of the bay. Particularly from the Library@Esplanade on the third floor. That library is a wonderful place to relax with a good book, or just to think, with a mug of coffee and the bay sprawled out beneath you.

A good way to spend a Sunday afternoon.