Blame whoever you like for the demise of manufacturing – dopey bosses not checking their rearviews for the foreign competition, the three recessions of Thatcher and Major, New Labour writing off industry to chase the mirage of a "knowledge economy" – the outcome has been a manmade disaster.
Raise your eyes and a verdant patch of forest comes into view - like a mirage in a desert.
The $2bn expressway, which opened in 2012 and cut the driving time from Delhi to Agra by up to four hours, appeared as an alluring mirage: three pothole-free lanes in either direction, clearly marked and stretching off into the hazy distance.
It will be a shame if too many grounds follow Warwickshire's template, although it's gratifying to see the Rose Bowl create something from the last days of The Raj in Southampton, feeling like a mirage on its industrial estate location.
All but one of the 87 members of Sheffield Council belong to the Labour or Liberal Democrat parties.But it is precisely in cities like Sheffield that the Ashdown-Blair vision of close co-operation between their parties seems most like a mirage.
He is undoubtedly a visionary, but many biologists think that his visions are not so much insights as mischievous mirages, for he believes that anti-ageing technology could come about in a future that many now alive might live to see.Vision or mirage, Dr de Grey has defined the problem precisely.
Too many people Teflon Winnie Anything you can do Awkward guest The mirage that won't go away ReprintsThe United States has more reasons than trade theory or mere goodwill to listen to both regions.
With a presidential election not due until March, and with no convincing candidates emerging, the prospect of Argentina recovering from its shocking economic collapse seems to recede like a mirage on an endless Pampas road.The government is still going through the motions of trying to reach an agreement with the IMF which would at least roll over Argentina's obligations to the Fund itself.
Is this the real thing, or another mirage?
Bad for the king A mirage of rights ReprintsFreedom House, an America-based global advocacy group that ranks countries on political rights and civil liberties, has downgraded five of the Gulf's six monarchies in the past two years.
