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In 1954, the French critic and semiotician Roland Barthes began a series of essays in which he analysed the popular culture of his day. He called his essays "Mythologies." In this series of witty talks, the acclaimed writer and critic Peter Conrad delivers a series of 21st Century Mythologies in a French accent of the mind. Conrad ranges over the defining effluvia of our era, from the Cronut to the Kardashians. Today Conrad looks at that defining landmark of the London skyline The Shard.