Help! I’m being chased by the Tate Modern!

The Tate Modern in general, and its Turbine Hall in particular, has been creeping into my life over the last month.

First there was the installation of the helter skelter slides.

Then there was the scene in Children of Men where Theo arrives to meet the art curator. Despite arriving at the iconic Battersea Power Station, Theo drives into the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern (formerly Bankside Power Station, which has been cinematically grafted onto Battersea Power Station).

Incidentally, Battersea Power Station hit the news a week ago. Having been bought by Parkview International (backed by the Taiwanese Hwang family) in the 1990s for £10m, it has largely stood dormant (more likely, weathering and disintegrating) since then.

Planning permission for a £90 million regeneration was passed by Wandsworth Council on 10 November, and it was subsequently sold to Irish-owned Real Estate Opportunities for £400 million twenty days later.

A 40 times increase in sale price in ten years! Not a bad profit for little interim outlay. Even beats the rising property prices in Northern Ireland.

And then the Turbine Hall cropped up in the closing scenes of Quatermass (repeated on BBC Four last week).

Oh, and not to forget the free-into-any-Tate-exhibition-for-a-year card I was recently given as a prize in work. (More like half a year ... it expires at the end of April!)