From the Institute September 2010

The Institute recently received several persons dressed as film and television science fiction characters seeking, as so many do, our assistance and approval in finessing business plans, permits, etc.  

This was about a concept restaurant in Docklands which did little to inflame passion amongst our team of dedicated thinkers and their research assistants.   

As, one by one, the elements of the business format were broken down to be analysed, it became clear that the adornments of the initiative were not so objectionable that the quality of Docklands’ life issues could be offended.

The look: Steel and glass, utilitarian, brutalist in the extreme. Nothing unusual there.

The food: Molecular transmogriphication cuisine including the use of liquid nitrogen.

Paraphernalia: Cutlery made for alien limbs, uncomfortable for humans. What could be worse than chop sticks?

Live food: No mere fish from tanks, but lying in a coral will be a five metre salt water crocodile.

Bathroom fittings: Of impossible complexity and unknowable purpose.

Signage: In incomprehensible symbols.

Do we require our imaginations, the thoughts and dreams behind our idealising aspirations, to be brought down to earth? We think not, and have rejected the proposal.