Gibbets and Lunch Baskets Architecturally it is the London equivalent
of Brighton, the best-lit borough in the country, where the Corporation has taken care to produce main-road lighting which in day- time is not an offence to the eye. Paddington, on the other hand, has defaced itself with triangular concrete gibbets from which hang lynch baskets shedding an odious coloured light and known as 'chastity' lights in the trade, because they make people look so unattractive. These are probably very useful in the Bayswater Road, but there is no need for such lights in 'Little Venice' which, even if it is to become a main road for traffic, is still not one of the places in Paddington where fatal road accidents occur. Concrete columns' will be out of scale and out of texture with their surroundings—surroundings which another department of the Borough Council has taken the trouble to beautify by a well-planned public garden. The Royal Fine Art Commission advised against the columns with that hideous curve; so alien to all street skylines. What, one wonders, is the purpose of the Commission if its advice is sought and ignored?
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