And it's so sad that I'm so glad that you're so bad for me

[alexsarll]

Just as the Hammersmith Palais bows out, it is confirmed that the Spitz is also on the endangered list. I can just about accept the sacrifice of the Astoria to Crossrail, but all these others are being replaced with shops, offices and gastropubs - things of which I've never noticed any shortage in London.

Today's mind-bogglingly Wrong, I-really-hope-this-is-a-hoax website: Thank God I.... They believe that "by becoming grateful for EVERY experience in our lives we discover that we are in fact NOT victims of circumstance but beings worthy of love and a life filled with divine porpose & inspiration!" [sic. And if only they'd typo'd one further and said 'divine porpoise' eh?] Which is a stupid bloody idea, but one with some centuries of history; they've just managed to express it in an especially queasy form by coating it in modern self-help gloss and producing such charming images as this. They're looking for stories for various forthcoming titles, so do drop them a line if you'd like to see your contribution appear in such inspiring volumes as "Thank God I Was Incested", "Thank God I Have A Small Penis", "Thank God I Am Crippled", "Thank God I Am A Dwarf/Midget", "Thank God I Had A Miscarriage" and "Thank God My Pet Died".
(Of course, coming from a christian POV they do count as afflictions some things which others might not. I can imagine a few people I know might be able to offer entirely sincere contributions to "Thank God I Am Bi-Sexual")

If a German commemoration of the war dead in 1970 had seen a senior member of their government declare "The Sudetenland is German, it always was, it always will be," nobody would have found that remotely acceptable. So how come Argentina restating their claim on the Falklands in like terms is passing with so little comment?

Comments

[srk1.livejournal.com]

The Germans had a much stronger claim on the Sudetenland - which did at least have a permanent German population at one point - than the Argentinians had on the Falklands. The latter claim is entirely based on alleged geographical proximity (ie they're 300 miles from the Argentinian coast) and the fact that France established a settlement a year before Britain, and then transferred its territorial claim to Spain. There was an Argentinian settlement on Port Louis for a grand total of seven years before America kicked them out in a fishing dispute and Britain reasserted its (never relinquished) territorial claim.

It's just a silly thing the Argentinians won't get over, in the same way the Spanish won't get over Gibraltar.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Believe me, you're preaching to the converted here. And though the press coverage does tend to mention how our defence of our own borders brought down a dictatorship in Argentina, not once have I seen any reference to that dictatorship's other crimes such as the Dirty War.