What would St. Pancras have said ?

I visited the rebuilt and extended St. Pancras station for the first time since it reopened on Friday. By far the most impressive aspects are the original trainshed roof and the revealed structure of the undercroft. The proliferation of shops of one sort and another is not at all to my liking, there seemed to be dozens of retail outlets with all the associated clutter and obstructions they cause. Given that access to the actual platforms is restricted to ticket holders this means that the undercroft area is not a free circulation space and quite easily congested. There are some clear areas at Eurostar platform level, but because of the hotel butting right up against the main trainshed these are dead ends and in common with almost all London termini there is no grand entrance. The new main entrance is from one side, the Kings Cross side, and this leads into the new link rather than the original station.
The new roof is a total non-event, remarkably low and being flat it barely registers from inside the station. Again access to the domestic platforms is restricted and as I was not travelling anywhere it was not possible to tell what it may be like from the traveller's perspective.
The long Eurostar train sets glide in almost silently and are that removed from the busy public areas they almost seem like a side issue to the shopping and general activity everywhere else. At times it felt like being in a vast supermarket that happened to have trains in the middle. This is the way all the big stations have been treated in recent times, as repositories of retail opportunities rather than their principal function : to allow people to get to and from their train easily and freely. It is by no means as bad as some, Victoria being possibly the worse offender with burger outlets right in front of the platform access, but I had thought this rebuild was going to avoid all the clutter and confusion of umpteen coffee shops and flower retailers.
On the subject of the statue, I can only say that it is even more preposterous in reality than in a picture as it is on a monstrous scale.
In every respect it is the quality of the original fabric and its excellent renovation that impresses and the simple elegance of the roof structure that gives a lift to the spirits.
There are also some wonderful views from parts of the building as the platform level is elevated from street level by a considerable amount. It was raining on this occasion and the vista across to Kings Cross was a view that could only be London, a collision of different buildings with no real coherence while people scatter and scurry with an exaggerated urgency betwixt and between.
Next will be a general tidy up of Kings Cross station, actually the older of the two, and a somewhat 'organic' looking addition taking shape to one side.
All in all a great improvement to the whole area has begun centred on this station it just troubles that there is such an emphasis on peripheral so-called leisure and retail nonsenses. What chance will smaller traders have in the streets around now WH Smiths and M&S etc. have established their bases in the centre of the station ?
On a slightly different subject but somehow related there is a television programme called 'Antiques Roadshow' where people essentially bring objects and artifacts to a bunch of 'experts' to find out how much they are worth. A week ago this was done in the middle of Lincoln Cathedral. Only in England could such a confusion of the secular and the sacred take place with scarcely an eyebrow being lifted.