Thomas Vonier, an architect who has consulted widely with the US State Department on security matters, cites the Disney theme parks as one of the best contemporary examples of what he terms "large-scale urban control zones". Inside, the architectural highlight is the "Fantastic Fountain", featuring 866 Coke bottles which uncork a laser-like flow during a choreographed sound-and-light show.Another significant component of the Disney model is its elaborate but largely invisible surveillance and control system. Urban culture here translates into the "Coca-Cola Salute to Folk Art", which displays the work of artists from 14 nations who have designed oversize Coke-bottle sculptures using an array of styles. Engineered to capitalise on the worldwide recognition of its brand name, the World of Coca-Cola contains a series of interactive exhibits which celebrate Coke bottles, jingles and memories, as well as a retail store which sells Coke-themed products. But reassuring as it may be, Disney-inspired architecture is also blatantly commercial - a fusion of consumerism, entertainment and popular culture.At "The Showcase Mall" in Las Vegas - a non-gambling entertainment complex on the famous "Strip" - the "World of Coca-Cola" is fronted by the world's biggest Coke bottles, 100 feet high. To package the new entertainment destinations, they have embraced an architectural style which is designed to create an aura of fantasy, delight and wellbeing among onlookers.Whereas shopfronts along traditional high streets are often diverse, and compete with one another visually, the retail establishments in fantasy cities are uniform and harmonious, suggesting consensus and contentment. I've already seen Tahiti at the Polynesian Village."In adapting the Disney blueprint to the contemporary "theme park city", architects, developers and planners have borrowed and refined two key Disney strategies.

After returning last winter, one of the dads observed (without irony): "I don't need to go to the South Pacific any more. Each year, during the March school break, several families from my wife's home town in rural Canada faithfully make a pilgrimage to the Disney resorts in Florida. This "sanitised razzmatazz", as the New York Times architecture writer, Herbert Muschamp, calls it, can easily triumph over the real thing. Instead, city life means sampling "old tyme" fudge or listening to a brass band in the town square.Similarly, exotic foreign locales are rendered accessible and safe: no language or currency problems, stomach upsets or political instability. Whether in California, Tokyo or Florida, Disneyland visitors need not worry about tripping over garbage, being accused by panhandlers and "squeegee kids", or being mugged in the middle of the day.

To appeal to its mainly white, middle-class suburban market, Disney crafted a simulated vision of the world which was both idealised and stripped bare of any significant risk, conflict or controversy. What is missing is a sense of the serendipity, diversity and humanity of traditional street life.The template for these quasi-cities is the Walt Disney version of the theme park, which has forever changed our image of what urban life should be. Like the pod-bred clones in the science- fiction movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, they seem to be genuine, but something is not quite right. Elsewhere, as in Flint, Michigan, they have failed financially and dragged much-needed investment into non-productive dreams.Critics, such as the US writer Paul Goldberger, argue that this new urbanism of leisure will further encourage the privatisation of public places and the erosion of neighbourhood identities. Goldberger labels developments such as Destination Technodome "urbanoid environments". In places where the infrastructure is present and the demand is there, such as Florida and Las Vegas, they may be commercially successful. The projects in Britain are much smaller in scale, so far, but at least three British companies - Rank, Virgin and Tussauds - are involved internationally.

With the troubles in Asia, American corporations are now expected to turn their attention even more to Europe. These urban projects are being marketed as the saviours of declining downtown cores and of stagnant suburban shopping centres. In Florida, Disney has gone one step further and recreated an entire village designed, managed and protected by Disney, never to feel the threat of crime or a speck of dust. Multimillion-dollar theme complexes are now being planned in Brussels, Barcelona, and Germany. Destination Technodome is one of a new breed of entertainment centres intended to anchor the "fantasy cities" of the future, where tourism, entertainment and retail development are to be bundled together in a "themed" environment. The $450m indoor entertainment and sports complex will be built on the site of a former air-force base on the northern edge of Toronto. The facilities will include a year-round, 150m ski hill, a white- water rafting course, mountain-climbing walls, a Hollywood-inspired theme park and a 30-screen multiplex cinema. And that is in addition to a fabricated tropical rain-forest and a replica of Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

But would you mind mentioning that Hamlet cigars sponsored the Bad Sex Awards?. IF ALL goes according to plan, sometime early in the next century a consortium of companies, led by Canada's Reichmann family (late of the Canary Wharf project in London's East End), will open the doors to "Destination Technodome". And the essence of sex, it may sound affected to say so, but Jane Austen is quite sexy because there's an erotic tension there.Have you had a defining erotic moment at all?In my life? Not prepared to discuss it, if so I'm sorry. And I don't expect you to talk about your impressions.Given your loathing of bad sex, I presume you've never attempted a titillating paragraph yourself?Yes I jolly well have, and I'm ashamed of it. At the first award, which Melvyn Bragg won, he produced one of my early novels which had a rather bad sex scene in it.Was it was very bad sex?Well, it was certainly bad enough to have been put on the shortlist.Is it possible to write good sex?I think if you're going to, it's got to be a proper erotic novel.Hardcore eroticism rather than just a gratuitous sexual insert?Exactly.