This week City of London planners have approved a new ‘the’ skyscraper to join the Gherkin, the Walkie Talkie, and the Cheese Grater on London’s skyline: the Tulip, so-called because it looks like how someone crap at drawing would draw a tulip.

If it actually ends up getting built, the Tulip will be stand out in function as well as design in that it will serve no particular function other than being there. You can go up, look around, and make yourself a certificate saying “I went up the Tulip” to show to your tired family when they ask what you’re doing with your life.

Social media is going CRAZY about it, i.e. several articles have been written on the basis that they’ve found at least one tweet saying it looks like a sperm or a sex toy. Historic England are furious that it will ruin the “setting of the Tower of London”, which is clearly enough of a sex toy for them. But wait until they find out about this top secret list of future London skyscrapers someone’s just leaked to CityMetric:

The Satire

A single flat at the top of a long pole which costs more than the net worth of anyone on earth to rent. For a day.

The Brexit

Not so much a tower as a 2000 foot high gaping void into hell that burns anyone who looks at it regardless of whether they thought it was a good or bad idea in the first place.

The Allen Key

Slowly unscrews its own foundations out of the earth, then falls over in order to temporarily restore London’s historic reviews while they send the crane to haul it back up.

The Bernard Matthews Turkey Drummer

The first skyscraper in London to made out of reconstituted meat product is bootiful but controversial until tests reveal that the meat content is so low that the tower is actually vegan.

The Queen Elizabeth

A building that has absolutely nothing to do with the Queen inexplicably renamed after her presumably just so weird pervert royalists can enjoy going up inside it.

The Post Office Tower

Replica of the BT Tower built nearby purely to annoy people who keep calling it the Post Office Tower like it’s still 1973 or whatever

The Old Post Office Tower

A second replica of the BT Tower built nearby because you’re not going to call it that either.

The Jenga

Innovative skyscraper design featuring inexpensive, but largely fatal, removable office spaces.

The Swan Vesta

Opening 5 November 2021. Reconstruction to start 6 November 2021.


The Shard, Except Upside Down

The Tower That Looks Like A Horse Doing The Washing Up

The Sword Out Of Thundercats

The Nelson’s Column But With A WeWork In It

The Battery That’s Never The Size Of Battery You Need For This Particular Remote Control

The Kinder Egg

The surprise it has capitalism inside.

The Pop-up Pirate

The Bollard

The Annoying Branded Pint Glass With A Stem On It

The Proctoscope

The Spirograph

The Scaletrix

Will be closed indefinitely after someone makes the lifts go too fast and they shoot out of the shafts and get smashed to bits.

The Spanner

Tower in the shape of YOUR FACE, owned, you idiot.