The hard up English, are selling off the once charming gardens that formed part of the British embassy. The sold land will be used to build yet another unnecessary shopping mall. The reason the English give for destroying part of historical Bangkok and the ever diminishing green spaces is that they need the money to pay for the upkeep of their embassies around the world?
Hardly historic - the British Consulate moved to new buildings on this site in the late 1920s. It became the British Embassy in 1947. During the war the Japanese boarded up the statue of Queen Victoria but a peephole was made so that she could see out. The gardens have not been used for any public events for some years due to security and so they are to be sold off. Seems pretty reasonable to me. The US Ambassador has a house just up the road. It is a small house in vast gardens - not very well tended but with a moat around the perimeter. Perhaps they would like to present this to the Thai Government for a park in this area of prime Bangkok real estate?
England is just one country that makes up Britain. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are the others.
The British Embassy in Bangkok History
I hope that my posts will be of use.
I am aware that "Britain" is a term used to cover England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? That's why I did not use it. What's your point?
Because the "English" don't use the land should not mean it should be sold off by the English to the Chinese for profit to be used to build a shopping mall? This cashing in on a property boom is both very greedy and environmentally backward. We are not talking about a "local city council" here but a government void of petty cash.
If they are so hard up that they cant afford to keep up their embassies perhaps they should sell that ugliest of all, Buckingham palace. Their queen has decided to stay at Windsor castle in any-case. It would make a very good mall. They could tart it up a bit to look more continental and the garden could be used as a car park, as the wall is so high at the moment the public will hardly miss her collection of Camellias.
The American compound would make an excellent public park, lets hope in the unlikely event the Americans need to stream-line operations for lack of maintenance cash, that in a city with one of the lowest ratio of open green spaces to population density in the world, that they make this sensible and generous offer to the people of Bangkok their hosts.
Hard up English sell part of historic Bangkok - quote Cedric
Should read British sell part of historic Bangkok.
My points are that The British are not hard up but prefer to send high funds to the poorest countries on earth to prevent massive starvation ( and have involved the rest of the EU in committing to do the same. Sadly efforts to involve the US have failed) in preference to providing parks for the good citizens of Bangkok. Britain has the 5th largest economy only recently surpassed by China it was 4th. Maybe you can approach the Thai-Chinese Mandarins to provide parks?
The other point is that the Embassy garden is not historic.
Buckingham Palace is historic, though the frontage was remodelled in 1913. The Queen spends most of the week there and weekends at Windsor.
"George III bought Buckingham House in 1761 for his wife Queen Charlotte to use as a comfortable family home close to St James's Palace, where many court functions were held. Buckingham House became known as the Queen's House, and 14 of George III's 15 children were born there. In 1762 work began on remodelling the house to the King's requirements, to designs by Sir William Chambers, at a cost of ┬г73,000.
George IV, on his accession in 1820, decided to reconstruct the house into a pied-├а-terre, using it for the same purpose as his father George III. As work progressed, and as late as the end of 1826, the King had a change of heart. With the assistance of his architect, John Nash, he set about transforming the house into a palace. Parliament agreed to a budget of ┬г150,000, but the King pressed for ┬г450,000 as a more realistic figure. Nash retained the main block but doubled its size by adding a new suite of rooms on the garden side facing west. Faced with mellow Bath stone, the external style reflected the French neo-classical influence favoured by George IV.
The remodelled rooms are the State and semi-State Rooms, which remain virtually unchanged since Nash's time." more on www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page568.asp
The former frontage to Buckingham Palace
Isn't this all fun?
I hope that my posts will be of use.
To be totally accurate (and anal to boot), Britain is infact made up of England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland joins these other three countries as part of the United Kingdom not Great Britain.Originally Posted by TeePee
TeePee:
While the State of California is not a nation state, it has an economy that outdistances that of England. Within a few years, the economy of Los Angeles County alone will rival that of England.
While we make fun of "breeders" - it is the failure of Western Europeans to successfully breed that makes their non-immigrants populations not fit, in Darwinian terms.
As for England's global generosity, a drop in the bucket.
The first part is true but irrelevant - in a couple of years the US economy will be eclipsed by the Chinese, so such comparisons are essentially meaningless.
The second sentence forgets that the US's economic performance is paid for by the Chinese, Japanese and others - the US lives on borrowed money and time. The IMF and the Brookings Institute actually suggest that the combined EU economy is probably slightly larger than that of the USA with a 2005 GDP of 12,865,602 million vs. 11,734,300 million (USD figures) (using nominal US Dollar GDP). And in terms of purchasing power parity, the EU may actually be larger than the USA.
Economic growth isn't everything. In terms of the best cities in the world in which to live, using New York as the base, Honolulu is the top ranked US city - at 27th - while San Francisco is 28th. The top three are Zurich, Geneva and Vancouver. The worst - American-occupied Baghdad - http://www.mercerhr.com/pressrelease/de ... nt/1173105
Moreover, in terms of Quality of Life, the Economist in 2005 ranked the US 13th, behind Australia, Singapore and 10 European countries (not in that order). see http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.pdf
As for global generosity, the world saw how generous the USA was on the occasion of the Asian tsunami - until it was shamed into giving more! On December 31, 2004, the amount the United States had pledged was eclipsed by the $96 million promised by Britain, a country with one-fifth the population, and by the $75 million vowed by Sweden, which amounted to $8.40 for each of its 9 million people. Denmark's pledge of $15.6 million amounted to roughly $2.90 per capita. And the American pledge was 12 cents per capita!
And the rich USA cannot afford to pay for relocating its forces from Okinawa to Guam, so the Japanese are paying 59 per cent of the costs.
All of which has nothing to do, of course, with the fact that the British wish to sell off part of their Embassy Gardens.
Impossible, unfortunately, as that land is not owned by the US government. It is leased for a very nominal amount from the Crown.The US Ambassador has a house just up the road. It is a small house in vast gardens - not very well tended but with a moat around the perimeter. Perhaps they would like to present this to the Thai Government for a park in this area of prime Bangkok real estate?
Which benighted country has the honour of counting you amongst its citizenry, Cedric? I was under the impression your school was Slough Comprehensive, so believed you to be English yourself
Is there any pie in which queens don't have a finger?
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