Reading. The edge of town. Blank-box executive homes, inches apart, five to a plot in place of old bungalows. '70s semis with barn-sized extensions. Driveways packed with Land Rovers and 4X4s.

Mock Tudor houses... Mock Georgian ones, with pebbledash rendering and plastic windows... Great estates with roads named after flowers, after colours, after days of the week... All the styles of history and mocking history. All the styles, and all at once. This is the end of the world, W. says. The eternal end.