NEOM/AFP via Getty Images

The new Saudi city exerting a gravitational force on global morality

NEOM

Probably everyone has something that they know they should think about but just can’t face engaging with because everything about it is too appalling for words. For me right now, that thing is Neom’s The Line, the city-to-be that will cut through the desert of Saudi Arabia like something about to be destroyed by Klingons in a Star Trek movie. 

Work has already begun, judging by the long straight trench being excavated in the desert, so those of us who hoped this was just some peculiar joke have been disappointed.

Neom is the quintessence of one of those architectural dreams that no actual architect would dream of living in. Also, as dreams go, it seems to have appeared after eating far too much cheese. Why, for example, are hipsters in hiking boots and wooly hats having a picnic (with a mini-gas stove but no cooking equipment) on a balcony? Why are two guys randomly DJing next to a waterfall? How will they make the trees grow upside-down? Just looking at the website is enough to make me turn to something less dreadful, like cleaning the toilet, but look we must, not least so we can learn why this monstrosity is called Neom.

The “Neo” bit is from the Greek word for new (why it needs to be in Greek though remains unexplained), and it has been combined with M for obvious reasons: “It is the first letter of the Arabic word for future (mustaqbal) and also the first letter of the name of HRH Prince "Mohammed" bin Salman.” MBS is not the first ruler to claim immortality by naming a geographical feature after himself, though he will presumably be hoping to do better in that respect than Nursultan Nazarbayev, whose capital bore his name for even less time than Cecil Rhodes’ countries did.