Thank You, London

Back in March, Bostonist casually mentioned the Irish Famine memorial on Washington Street, and how awful it is. This prompted local blogger Left Center Left to catalog some other ugly local statues. Although LCL suggested some worthy contenders, we continued to believe that the Irish Famine atrocity was the worst, perhaps not just in Boston but in the world. (What really bothers us is the jaunty, kung-fu poses of the non-starving statues.)

Luckily, our good friends across the pond have come to the rescue, providing the world with an ugly statue to end all ugly statues, which makes our poor, starved Irish immigrants look downright dignified. Our cousins at Londonist report that Mohamed al Fayed, proprietor of the famous Harrod's department store, has unveiled a bronze of the late Princess Diana and her late paramour Dodi al Fayed (Mohamed's son) doing some kind of dance involving an albatross. Man, is it ugly. The albatross, we are told, represents good tidings, but Bostonist thinks most people associate that bird with some sort of unshakable guilt or burden (as in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, in which a sailor shoots the good-tidings bird, causing his angry shipmates to hang it around his neck as punishment). Local blogger (and new Bostonist contributor) Blogorelli puts it more succinctly: "Yes, that's right, an ALBATROSS (aside, WTF?!?)"

Anyway, thanks, London, for outdoing us in the super-duper-ugly-statues department. Perhaps with all the new construction you'll have to do for the Olympics, you can outdo us in the collossal-waste-of-money-on-dangerously-flawed-public-works-projects department too.