Gold against the soul

When Donald Trump called the White House "a real dump", one of his most vocal and prolific Twitter critics pointed out that this was coming from a man who "lives in an apartment Liberace would be embarrassed to haunt".

Trump's taste, if you can call it that, could be categorised as "dictator chic" - and indeed has been, by someone who wrote a book called Dictator Style. The president's comment about the White House won't have come as any surprise to Peter York, who back in the spring noted that the architectural style preferred in Washington DC - low-rise, non-showy, restrained and solid - "was designed to avoid Europe's autocratic excesses" and to project "a message of simplicity, democracy and egalitarianism - precisely the opposite of the new brand in town".