We don’t want to add to the general gloom – storms, a virus, a despot in Downing Street, our European identity being wrenched from us – but this week on the Post we are featuring an extraordinary book (which of course we sell in the shop) by ‘the Gentle Author’ who writes the equally extraordinary blog, Spitalfields Life. The book, and several of the entries on the blog (from which this week’s photos will be taken) is about the beastliness of façadism ie. a property developer being given permission to build virtually anything (it seems) as long as he (is it ever a she?) keeps the eighteenth or nineteenth century facade. Here, to start with, is one example from Smithfield: the facade has been kept but it will be backed, surrounded and enveloped by some faceless office block.