Funeral of the milk snatcher

No blip today. Instead I pointed the camera at the TV and took this shot of Maggie Thatcher's funeral, with a little tinkering to make the image more interesting. It is a day of sufficient importance [to me at least] to want to record. Whatever anyone thinks about her, I think we have to distinguish between the woman and her policies, and there's not a lot of sense in hating the one because you disagree with the other. At the end of the day she was an elected politician, implemented a mandated manifesto. But that's my take; feel free to disagree.

Maggie's reelection was doubtless due to victory in the Falklands. I was in Buenos Aires at the time (April-July 1982) and two things stick in my mind. The first was an advert that slipped past the censor of the Buenos Aires Herald (or did it?) offering boot polish in various flavours. The Herald was still something of a community paper for the Anglo-Argentines back then, and the issue divided the community something awful.

The other was graffiti in the British Hospital (also in Buenos Aires). I had noticed in early April someone had written the words Maggie May on a cubicle wall in the public toilets. At the time I was unsure whether this was an admonition to the Argentines to take Mrs T seriously or the deranged ramblings of a Rod Stewart fan. All became clear when on a second visit some weeks later I saw that someone had crossed out the original, leaving Maggie May, and replaced the word 'may' with the word 'did': Maggie May did.

And indeed, Maggie did. Did for Argentine hopes of recovering her lost daughters, and did for her own future what was necessary for her reelection. Whether you approve or not is your concern, but she was not exactly flavour of the month in Buenos Aires at the time, except presumably for those who like the taste of boot polish.