We that are true lovers run into strange capers.

Is there anything more excruciating, more desperate, more ridiculous than a one-sided declaration of love? I can't think of much. And what if the suitor wrote you a love letter IN FULL CAPS? What would you think? Needy? Creepy? Slightly deranged? But then what if the declaration of devotion was not only in full caps but underlined and repeated page after page? Would you want to meet that person? Would that approach really win you over? Would you think, Aw bless! They genuinely do think I'm the applet of their iPhone, the best thing since PlayStation 3! Or would you be more likely to call the police and get a restraining order? If you were unlucky enough to find yourself in the same room as that person would you make sure that you had an unimpeded, fast route to the exit, and maybe a couple of cans of Mace, just in case things kicked off?

Of course I'm talking about We Love Holbeck. It's not that I dislike the place or want to do it down. Just the reverse. I live here, got roots in the area going back four generations at least; grandparents lived in Domestic Street

, my parents were married in St. Matthews Church

and I went to school just up the road. I really love the Round Foundry too. I'd surgically remove my left kidney with a sterilised Stanley knife and sell it to the highest bidder on ebay if I could get an office in the Green Sand Foundry.

I just don't think a kidney would cover the rent. Gorgeous place though. So why am I so incensed by the We Love Holbeck website.

Well, I suppose a lot of it has to do with what John Popham called Local Civic Pride. I don't really believe the developers/designers behind that site really know or care very much about the area, beyond it being an investment opportunity. Let's face it, the site is there to flog some pretty fancy real estate . . . the offices are lovely, the area is fabulous, and I genuinely hope the spaces are let quickly. It's a shame seeing the place so empty. My quibble is, why call the site We Love Holbeck? Doesn't that conjure up some folksy, warm and fuzzy, sentimentalised notion of "community?" Everyone knows that Holbeck Urban Village and the Round Foundry have nothing to do with the real Holbeck/Beeston; it's just a government subsidised, grant-funded fairy tale, a tax payers folly . . . a very glorious and beautiful folly, but to pretend it is part of some authentic community is simply phony and fatuous. And I'm not the only one to find it insulting.

The problem is that developers come in from the outside along with the designers and decide to bless the blighted and benighted locals with their superior wisdom, taste and knowledge. I'm all for development. I love good design. But I do think it has to be some kind of dialogue. It can't be imposed from above without creating resentment. I don't know one local resident who appreciates the go-faster stripe on the We Love Holbeck branding. Every time I go by those adverts for office space to rent in Round Foundry I wince. And who the hell thinks a sheep is a good logo/mascot/brand for Holbeck? Fair enough, the sheep is schematic and stylish . . . but a designer sheep is still a sheep! Why would anyone want to identify with a sheep? Surely branding and marketing is about emotional engagement? If the design actively alienates people, creates antagonism, generates resistance and mockery, then there must be a problem? Time for a rethink, perhaps? Time for the developers and designers to get to know what it is they are messing with?

Time to set up Hush Hush Holbeck?

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