(Text and photos © Hugh Pearman. Published in The Sunday Times, April 13, 2003, as "It coulda been a contender")
What a shabby bazaar it has become. The once-mighty home of London's government is now reduced to an ad-hoc collection of burger bars, hot-dog stalls and other associated fast-food joints, attractions varying from the flashing and beeping Namco computer games arcade to the seamy showmanship of the "Dali Universe". There's an aquarium, the ticketing lobby for the London Eye, a couple of hotels, some offices, lots of apartments, a cut-price luggage emporium, kiosks selling this and that - and now the new Saatchi Gallery.