Dialogue: Big dome doomed from the start

According to the publicity material, 3300 London buses could be parked inside it, it has the volume of 12 St Paul's Cathedrals, Nelson up his column wouldn't have been able to get a finger near the navel of the structure - and 100,000 visitors would be able to walk about without treading on each other's heels.

Yet despite such staggering specifications, London's Millennium Dome closed for the last time on the last day of last year.

It was while visiting London that my interest in the dome was born. The doomed attraction was beset with difficulties and, let's face it, other people's troubles do make for interesting reading.

Naturally, I visited but I'm sure I enjoyed it more than most because I didn't pay to get in. It's easy to look kindly into the mouths of gift horses. Had I paid the hefty admission, I probably would have considered myself ripped off.

Consisting of 12 themed zones, all with multimedia and virtual reality components, the idea was that it should be a hands-on experience. Sadly, by the time I got there most things had already been done to death - all those hands on had rendered a lot of gadgets useless.

One group of visitors took the hands-on ethos way too far and tried to steal 11 rare diamonds, among them the world's largest flawless bauble, |the Millennium Star. For once, though, the dome triumphed and the thieves' plan was foiled.

There was also a tangible pall that covered the place, a shadow of the controversy that has dogged the dome since day one. I asked a woman who was working there what the feeling among staff was, and she said: "We just come in each day and hope for the best. There used to be 40 of us in this department; now there are only five."

Poor dome never really stood a chance. It was the target of public concern as early as 1996 when people wanted to know if the land, a former gasworks, would ever be clean after more than 100 years of chemical polluting.

Then the Church of England got up in arms, angry that the exhibition was virtually without a scared element. Churchmen argued that without Jesus there would be no millennium. A valid point. Regardless of one's beliefs, the calendar is based on the supposed timing of the birth of the baby Jesus Christ.

As a result, the faith zone was created, and the Anglicans were again outraged when asked to pay £50,000 to be the preferred religious partner in the dome's official souvenir brochure.

The opening ceremony, on New Year's Eve, 1999, was a fiasco because the invitations weren't sent out on time and many of the big shots and celebrities had made other plans. Then, those who did make it had to queue for hours to pass through security x-ray scanners. The media were consequently pretty uncharitable about the dome's charms.

Architecturally, it still is a grand building and few visitor attractions have generated as much publicity, warranting at least a couple of mentions in the British press each week, a situation that pretty much put paid to the maxim that any publicity is good publicity.

The attention it earned only served to convince the public that the dome was a giant anticlimax and best avoided if possible. Visitor numbers reached only about six million, just over half the number expected.

By the time I left Britain the Lotteries Commission had propped up the dome to the tune of £240 million and no one had a kind word to say about it. Newspapers debated whether those in charge were supremely optimistic, stupid or just lying in their projections for visitors, profits and success.

In response, Lord Falconer, the Millennium Minister, would say only that he was not exactly sorry but that, yes, he did have regrets.

As for the embarrassment so many involved with the project must be feeling, their comments are coming back to haunt them now. Simon Jenkins, a member of the Millennium Commission, said early last year that "by the end of the year it [the dome] must, in some sense, have defined its moment in time."

Visitors must recall not just a jolly good day out, but an event that banged a notice into the ground saying this was "Britain 2000 - remember it." It'll certainly be remembered, all right - as one of the greatest flops of all time.