Having been round this building endless times during its protracted construction, I knew just where to go to avoid the crowds. So, there I was on the top-level walkway overlooking the vast foyer, George III's King's library in its totemic glass tower at my back. Way down below, the tiny figure of the Queen had just made her little joke about this project having been in her pending tray for longer than most. And then Chris Smith, Culture Secretary, stepped forward. To a different microphone - presumably there's some asinine protocol about nobody sharing a mike with the monarch.

Now, even Chris Smith's best friend wouldn't claim that he is much of a public speaker. The good man holds the record for the most turgid speech I have ever heard from any government minister, let alone a secretary of state. On this day, however, he was managing reasonably well, if not brilliantly, when all of a sudden applause broke out, spreading like an aural Mexican Wave right round the foyer and up all the levels to my eyrie. Smith paused and looked up, taken aback. Quite clearly this had never happened to him before. Then he twigged. He had just name-checked the architect.

This was the moment to savour. Earlier I had met Colin St. John "Sandy" Wilson, dapper and wry as ever, the architect who has had this albatross round his neck for the greater part of his working life. What Sandy has endured on this project from politicians, project managers and princes does not bear thinking about. Was it only two years ago that the British Library was coming in for one of its regular kickings from the Public Accounts Committee, and was engulfed in a firestorm of bad publicity stoked up by the irredeemably ghastly Gerald Kaufman? It was. At the time, I found myself on what seemed like every television and radio station in the land. This was because I was the only person they could unearth who would defend the building.

It was good, I said. It was going to be a great place. Who cares if it's gone wildly over budget, I demanded - it's only the price of, say, the handful of Tornadoes and Harriers that routinely get ditched in the North Sea ever year. They should list it as historically significant the moment it was completed, I added. The broadcasters loved this and I had great fun, but then I had something of an advantage over the knockers. Unlike them, I had been in and seen the Library. Very nearly everyone who takes the trouble to do that is instantly converted.