The good doctor endures an annoying train ride from Paris to Nimes with a horribly dull passenger chewing his ear off for three hours in this week’s Taki’s Magazine column. Once in the beautiful city of Nimes, Theodore Dalrymple takes yet another aim at the talentless and destructive modern architects who have done so much to disfigure our cities.

Unfortunately, the late-20th-century contribution to the city is rather less distinguished, though not without a certain interest for those fascinated by the degradation of Western civilization. I recommend a visit to what is called the Ville active (as if the rest of the city were dormant, a kind of Pompeii or Angkor Wat) to understand the vision of what arrogant but pinheaded French architects evidently think is a utopia.