Mick Hartley

Eliminating language deemed insufficiently “gender-inclusive”

Naturally the news from America over the past few days has been dominated by the scenes in Washington, and the Last Days of Trump. This piece from Abigail Shrier, then, may have got lost in all the fury, but it's still worth reading. Shrier, the author of Irreversible Damage: Teenage Girls and the Transgender Craze, points out that the Dems seem to be in thrall to gender ideology. Their radical proposals on getting rid of non-gender-inclusive language may seem progressive, but in fact it's just one more step in the trans war on women.

On Sunday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic majority proposed to eliminate “father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister” and all other language deemed insufficiently “gender-inclusive” from House rules. They would be ­replaced with terms like “parent, child, sibling, parent’s sibling” and so on.

“Mother” — among the most important concepts in human life — would be erased from the lexicon of the US House of Representatives. It’s important to recognize how radical this is. And no, it isn’t akin to updating federal law to replace “policeman” with “police officer,” a rational corrective sought by feminists for generations....

House Democrats don’t pretend to seek this change merely for the sake of “streamlining” congressional language. The explicit point is to advance “inclusion and diversity” and to “honor all gender identities.” Pelosi & Co. are desperate to accommodate an ­aggressive gender ideology that ­insists “man” and “woman” are fuzzy, subjective categories, rather than biological ones.

Lest you think this a harmless alteration, consider the ways California’s Democrats have run wild with Newspeak. As Quillette ­reported last week, California’s insurance commissioner has ­issued a directive to reclassify double mastectomies of healthy breasts from “cosmetic” procedures to “reconstructive,” necessary to “correct or repair the abnormal structures of the body caused by congenital defects.”

You read that right: The “congenital defect” is a young woman’s healthy breasts, provided that young woman subjectively identifies as “nonbinary” or anything other than “woman.”

It matters what we call things in the public space: Just ask the ­female prisoners now housed with violent biological men in California if our lawmakers’ words matter. This lie — that a girl’s breasts constitute “developmental abnormalities” depending on her subjective state of mind — carries the result that female patients of all ages would suddenly become eligible for insurance coverage for double mastectomies. A small change in language grants doctors the green light to remove the normal, developing breasts of an 11-year old girl. Still just words?

By all means, call people what they prefer. But language in the law, by definition, ushers words into action. Words grant rights or take them away. Words can enhance or diminish status, placing people and concepts beyond the bounds of legal protection.

No one knows this better than Democrats. By pressing for these changes across the country, they have allowed biological boys into sports competition with biological girls, peeling back Title IX protections for women’s sports. If “mother” is now a useless concept under House rules, why shouldn’t it pose an equally offensive presence in federal law?

That’s where we’re headed, isn’t it? Erasing “mothers,” and “women,” because the concepts are insufficiently inclusive to gender ideologues. The rights women struggled to win become undone, paradoxically, in the name of ­inclusion.

Superspreaders

More on North Korea's 8th Workers Party Congress, and the lack of masks that I mentioned last week. According to the Daily NK it was decided that no masks sent a better message to the world about North Korea's supposedly successful campaign against the coronavirus:

According to a Daily NK source in Pyongyang on Friday, military uniform-clad agents of the Ministry of Social Security were checking whether the participants were wearing masks right up to the moment they entered the April 25 House of Culture, where the congress is being held. However, the participants must remove their masks just before they enter the venue.

In fact, if you look at photos of the congress in the Rodong Sinmun, none of the participants are wearing masks, and large numbers of people fill the venue with no empty seats.

However, the authorities are reportedly forcing participants to wear masks after the events have ended. Basically – for appearance’s sake – the authorities are making people take off their masks only during the congress’s main event, which is shown to the international community. 

North Korea’s leadership reportedly weeded out and replaced participants who showed signs of fever prior to the start of the congress, and they considered making ordinary participants seated outside of the leadership podium wear masks during the main event as well.

Ultimately, however, the authorities felt the image of participants wearing masks during the congress, North Korea’s biggest political event, could harm national prestige and amplify the people’s unease regarding COVID-19.

Moreover, Daily NK’s source said that with the authorities emphasizing the congress as an “especially noteworthy major event,” there was little choice but for participants to take their masks. That is to say, there was no room for “imperfections” since the authorities must use the archival film footage of the event for years to come.

The source said that with the international community – including South Korea and the United States – keeping a close eye on the congress, the decision to have everyone remove their masks reflected the need to show off to the world how well the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea is doing in handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of spectators at the event was reportedly larger compared to past events. According to North Korean media reports, there were 2,000 spectators at the latest congress, as opposed to the 1,387 who took part in the seventh congress in May 2016.

There are reportedly rumors in the country that the authorities pushed ahead with the “no mask” congress because North Korean leader Kim needed to be able to read the expressions and moods of the participants.

There are also rumors that the authorities took the measure because they felt wearing masks in front of Kim would “damage his authority.” 

It clearly has the potential for being what we epidemiologists call a superspreader event. If the top echelons of the party all succumb to the virus, well, they've only got themselves to blame.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Leader's constant reference to nuclear weapons at the Congress makes the South Korean government, and its somewhat pathetic belief that the North would very soon amend their ways and seek peace, look decidedly ridiculous. The Unification Minister Lee In-young, in a New Year's speech, expressed hope that Pyongyang would be sending Seoul a positive message seeking dialogue and cooperation: a man living in a different world from the rest of us.

An editorial today in South Korea's Chosun Ilbo:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un mentioned nuclear weapons no fewer than 36 times in a speech at a Workers Party congress last week and boasted that he built the impoverished country into a "responsible nuclear-powered nation possessing an absolutely perfect nuclear shield." There was no mention of the denuclearization South Korea and the U.S. had been touting at the height of the thaw in 2018. Kim's unexpected mention of peace in that year's New Year's address and denuclearization talks that took place over the following years were a sham....

Over the last three years, the Moon Jae-in administration has claimed with demented insistence that North Korea is willing to give up its nuclear weapons. It invited Kim to the border truce village of Panmunjom and put on a laser show for him, while Moon traveled to Pyongyang where he gave a speech hailing and praising the North and shook hands with Kim atop Mt. Baekdu, which is sacred to North Koreans. Moon also played on U.S. President Donald Trump's vanity and persuaded him to sit face to face with the North Korean leader three times. But each time, Kim was only intent on gaining concessions in return for his lies.

Even as the farce was still playing out, Kim unveiled a massive intercontinental ballistic missile and a submarine-launched nuclear missile is getting ready for deployment. Now he is developing nuclear-powered submarines and hypersonic missiles that could render South Korea's defenses useless. At the congress, Kim boasted that he "steadfastly led the struggle to advance nuclear weapons and was able to secure a great new victory."

Kim will not and cannot scrap his nuclear weapons. Surely Moon knows that. So is the president deliberately deceiving South Koreans with this nonsense? His eagerness to cover up for Kim persisted even as the North blew up the inter-Korean liaison office and shot and incinerated a South Korean fisheries official. Prompted by nothing in particular, Moon then bent over backwards and banned the dispatch of propaganda leaflets to North Korea that could provide vital information for the oppressed people there, in the process risking condemnation from the international community for his fat friend up North. His reward is an arsenal of North Korean weapons aimed straight at his head.

Seems about right.

Growing higher inspired by clear policy of the struggle and progress

Last week we heard of the Supreme Leader's uncharacteristic admission, in his inaugural speech to the 8th Workers Party Congress, that things had not being as well as hoped in the People's Republic, with almost all sectors falling short of implementing the five-year strategy for national economic development that had just ended.

Not to worry. On the fourth day of the Congress, as reported in the official Rodong Sinmun, Kim Jong-un set out a bold and comprehensive new plan in the course of his nine-hour speech:

Supreme Leader of our Party, state and armed forces Kim Jong Un in his nine-hour-long report comprehensively and deeply analyzed and reviewed the work of the Seventh Central Committee of the Party, laid down a fresh struggle line and strategic and tactical policies for making a radical advance in socialist construction and set forth important tasks for advancing the cause of national reunification and external relations and developing Party work.

The report on the work of the Central Committee of the Party is a great practical programme as it admits the subjective and objective factors checking our advance and serious mistakes under the prevailing internal and external situations, and indicates clear struggle tasks and ways for innovating overall work of the Party and the state and switching the socialist cause to the next stage of victory.

The gist of the report which clearly indicates the path of the Korean revolution at the present stage is that we must boldly overcome the existing threats and challenges, make a new leap forward in the construction of our own-style socialism and make a clear advance by strengthening our own power, our own driving force, in every way.

The details of this new plan, which set forth new tasks while acknowledging past errors, were universally praised the next day:

There was the fifth-day sitting of the 8th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) on Saturday amid great excitement and fresh confidence and spirit pervading the whole country upon receiving guidelines which will confidently lead our revolution which has advanced under the uplifted banner of great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism to the next stage of victory.

When Kim Jong Un, chairman of the WPK, chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and supreme commander of the armed forces of the DPRK, appeared in the venue of the Congress, all the participants greeted him with hearty cheers.

The Congress continued its work amid political enthusiasm of the participants growing higher inspired by clear policy of the struggle and progress.

Serious discussions continued on the first agenda item "Review on the Work of the WPK Central Committee".

Speeches were made by Ko In Ho, Choe Sang Gon, Pak Hun, Kang Hyong Bong, Ri Song Hak, Ri Kyong Il, Jong Chang Ik, So Chong Hak, Kim Kwang Nam, Yang Yong Gil, Kim Son Yong and Jang Hyok.

They all expressed full support to the report on the work of the Party Central Committee which indicated the direction of advance and fighting goals for our revolution, admitting that it is the great practical programme surely guaranteeing a fresh leap forward and victory of the socialist construction in the present stage.

Lauding the extraordinary and wise leadership of the Supreme Leader who has glorified the past five years with enormous change and miracles to be etched in history with noble sense of duty and responsibility for the Party, revolution, country and people, the speakers expressed their great pride and self-confidence over making revolution under the leadership of the prominent leader.

They stressed that the meaningful successes achieved in developing the socialist construction despite unprecedented manifold trials and difficulties are entirely a precious fruition of the wise leadership of the Party Central Committee.

The speakers recalled the brisk campaign for scientific farming and high yield which had swept the country and a series of precious progress made in science, education, public health and other fields and units in the struggle for implementing the Party policies during the period under review.

They also analyzed seriously the mistakes they manifested by obstructing the economic development of the country and inconveniencing the people, which are ascribed to their failure in study of their fields and units and lack of the spirit of unconditionally implementing the Party policies and devotedly serving the people.

Criticizing themselves for the deviations in afforestation and water-conservancy, land management, public security and others, the speakers repented of their mistakes before the Party Congress and vowed to work harder with fresh readiness and fighting spirit.

Listening carefully to the speakers, the participants seriously accepted the criticized faults as their own mistakes and the lessons of their units and keenly realized once again that the success in implementing the decisions of the Party hinges on their responsibility and role.

All the participants hardened their resolve to thoroughly implement the new five-year plan with the experience and lessons from the work in the period under review as valuable foundation and reliable stepping stone for future advance and development.

Well fancy that: the reason that they'd been making all those errors was because of their failure to implement party policies. 

Onto the sixth day, then. Maybe on the seventh day the Supreme Leader will rest.

Persecuting its own people

Here's a MEMRI clip of the old tyrant Khamenei announcing - as I noted on Friday - that US and British vaccines are forbidden from entering Iran.

David Patrikarakos in the Spectator:

The Middle East is changing. Israelis now splurge at Gucci and Rolex in Dubai. Saudi women speed down desert highways; and once again Turkish leaders kneel before the call to prayer. One thing, however, remains unchanging: the Iranian government’s ability to find new and evermore sadistic ways of persecuting its own people.

Yesterday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced on live TV that Iran would reject the American BioNTech-Pfizer and British Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines. 'Imports of US and British vaccines into the country are banned. I have told this to officials and I'm saying it publicly now,' he said....

Iran is in the grip of a public health emergency. Late last year its deputy health minister Iraj Harirchi warned that the country should 'prepare for a third coronavirus wave'. That has arrived. As we enter mid-January 2021 there are over 1.2 million recorded cases with 56,018 deaths and over 6000 new cases a day.

Iranians are trapped. They die when they’re in lockdown, and they die when they are allowed out. Late 2019 saw mass riots against a hike in the price of petrol, the last straw in a succession of economic blows for the people. The regime killed at least 180 people — and possibly hundreds more. It was the worst violence since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Mullahs were scared; and they were right to be.

Coronavirus saved them from more mass protests and the increased killing that they would have required. But in truth they’ve merely been storing their problems up. One day the Iranian people will be let out: and they’ll be poorer and sicker and angrier than before. If you want to successfully cow a people, you must make them fear you; and you do this by threatening what they have and care about most. If you put them in a position that they no longer have anything to lose, eventually you will lose.

Logic then would dictate that Khamenei must grab onto any lifeline had can. But dictatorships don’t work on logic, or rather their logic is of the perverted sort. Considered this way: his decision makes perfect sense. The 'thin end of the wedge' is a cliché and therefore linguistically tired, but as a cliché it retains aphoristic value. Khamenei knows that the Islamic Republic can’t countenance any sort of détente with the West, when one of its key ideological justifications is resistance to the Great Satan and the 'pernicious influence' of Western culture. This means no western TV or fashion or sport, and definitely no western vaccine to solve a problem that your own negligence has made worse.

With Biden taking office shortly, Khamenei knows that the renewal of JCPOA, cancelled by Trump, is very much on the cards. So best to show your anti-western purity now, before any negotiations take place that might require some give and take. Abandoning the Iranian people to more Covid misery isn't a problem compared to the prospect of negotiating a deal that might ease sanctions and help the regime survive.

Double wipe

More 1950s billboard advertising from Shorpy.

Los Angeles ca. 1955. "New Chiffon -- bathroom tissue that is facial tissue."

[Photo: Shorpy/Pacific Outdoor Advertising]

Not a well-thought-out campaign. Which comes first: face or bottom?

This is not biologically attainable

On the disproportionate number of autistic girls suddenly looking to change sex, from today's Sunday Times:

A global expert on autism has warned in newly released legal papers that girls who are autistic or anorexic appear more likely to say they want to become boys....

Gillberg, a psychiatrist at Gothenburg University in Sweden who holds posts at several universities including Glasgow, is reviewing research into what happens to children who receive treatment for gender dysphoria. The study has not yet been published.

He told the High Court in a written statement that research showed that, left alone, the condition usually resolved itself, and that as girls grew up they accepted that they wanted to live as women. Gillberg said that in 45 years of treating autistic children, he saw few cases of gender confusion until 2013. Since then there had been a worldwide explosion in the number of children saying they wanted to change sex. In Sweden, as in the UK, he said, most were girls who wanted to be boys.

Research showed that teenagers with autism or anorexia as well as those who had endured difficult childhoods were more likely to say they wanted to change sex. One paper published last year suggested autism spectrum disorders had “a prevalence of 6%-26% in transgender populations, higher than the general population”.

Gillberg said teenagers were finding online transgender sites that suggested their problems would be solved if they changed sex. Autistic teenagers, he said, were particularly vulnerable to seizing on a single answer “to the lifelong identity problems they have suffered”.

“Thousands of adolescents are being offered ‘treatment’ with puberty blockers, sex-contrary hormones, and then, finally for some, with a variety of surgical procedures. In the UK as in Sweden, this is in spite of the non-existent research evidence that these treatments are of any long-term benefit to the young people in question,” he said.

IQ might be damaged by puberty blockers, he added, and effects such as a deeper voice and facial hair, as well as possible infertility in girls taking the drugs, were irreversible.

Gillberg said there was “growing anecdotal evidence that many would regret their decision to undergo the biological sex change”. Doctors should tell families that they were “dealing with a live experiment on adolescents and children”.

“Adolescence can be a particularly turbulent time when young people often make reckless decisions they later regret. Young people with autism and young people with anorexia nervosa are particularly vulnerable,” he said.

Gillberg isn't the only expert whose evidence at the Keira Bell trial is cited:

Stephen Levine, professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, who specialises in sex therapy and has treated transgender patients for the past 40 years in America, gave evidence that it was medically impossible to turn a girl into a boy and vice versa. Many transgender people, he said, had sexual difficulties and suicide rates were high.

Levine also said that black and Asian children, adopted children, girls and autistic youngsters were more likely to be diagnosed as trans in America. “Contrary to trans persons’ hopes that medicine and society can fulfil their aspiration to become a complete man or woman, this is not biologically attainable ... It is a rare gender-dysphoric young person who has no associated psychiatric diagnosis or symptoms suggesting one,” he said.

Levine also told the court that because trans activists attacked critics as transphobic, few dared speak out. He said: “Critical and cautious voices are shouted down as transphobic, hateful and engaging in conversion therapy. Such a climate has created an intimidating and hostile environment where silence and acquiescence are the inevitable consequence. It is left to those of us at the end of our careers, who have nothing to lose, to voice our concerns.”

John Whitehall, professor of paediatrics at Western Sydney University in Australia, another expert witness, said that information given to families attending the Tavistock clinic “does not appear to share with confused children and their parents and carers the statistical assurance that almost all confused children will revert to an identity congruent with chromosomes through puberty, that ‘puberty blockers’ and cross-sex hormones have structural effects on the brain, and the warning that the rate of suicide in adults is significantly higher after transgendering.”

The evidence couldn't be clearer: the whole Tavistock GIDS [Gender Identity Development Service] needs to be rethought, and preferably closed down altogether.

Black birds, white birds

Round Alexandra Park this morning - from pollarded plane trees to the boating lake:

Soleimani and Palestine

An under-appreciated aspect of the career of Iranian terror chief Qassem Soleimani - happily no longer with us thanks to a US strike a year ago authorised by Trump - was the role he played in arming Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Here's a MEMRI clip of an interview with the Secretary-General of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziad Al-Nakhaleh:

Ziad Al-Nakhaleh: "With the capabilities at hand today, Gaza can confront Israel for a prolonged war. These expertise did not come from nowhere. They are the result of a great effort by Hajj Qasem [Soleimani] to enable [the Palestinian] fighters to reach that goal. [...]

"[Soleimani] did not train [the Palestinians] himself, obviously, but he gave instructions to the experts who supervised these matters."

Interviewer: "Were his plans implemented?"

Al-Nakhaleh: "Of course. Nothing happened without his direct orders and supervision. What stage was reached, the results, all these things – he supervised all that. This was in addition to the strategic step of sending missiles and weapons to the Gaza strip. It was almost miraculous. It was very expensive in terms of technology, security, and capabilities..."

Interviewer: "And the logistics..."

Al-Nakhaleh: "But it was accomplished. [Soleimani] himself invested a lot [of effort] into this. He traveled to various countries, made plans, and set up guidelines to deliver these weapons [to the Gaza Strip]. And indeed, these weapons were delivered [to the Gaza Strip]. I can say that the missiles that [Soleimani] delivered to the Gaza Strip were the ones used to attack Tel Aviv. I can say that Hajj Qasem played a pivotal role in the fact that the Palestinians ventured to attack the capital of the Zionist entity. From that point in time, weapons were developed in Palestine, and the Palestinians began to manufacture all the missiles themselves as a result of the experience they gained thanks to the decisions of Hajj Qasem. This is a great and important issue, and without a doubt played a role in strengthening the Palestinian resistance."

See also this interview with Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahar:

"The first time I met Qasem Soleimani was after I was appointed as Foreign Minister in 2006. I traveled to a number of countries, one of which was Iran. I met the [Iranian] Foreign Minister, and then some Iranian officials. The last meeting I had before I left was with Qasem Soleimani. The meeting with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a positive one. We made a number of requests, and he referred me to Qasem Soleimani. In the meeting [with Soleimani], we said that our main problems were the wages of our government employees, people who needed social aid, and the aid that had to be given to the people, when a siege had been imposed on us after our success in the elections. The decision was taken immediately. I was supposed to fly out the following day. I discovered 22 million dollars waiting for me in suitcases at the airport. We had agreed on a larger sum, but there were only nine of us and this is all we could carry. Each suitcase weighed 40 kilograms."

In Tablet, Peter Theroux looks at the career of Soleimani - The Life of Iran’s Most Celebrated Mass Killer - in the light of a new biography, The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the U.S., and Iran’s Global Ambitions, going back to the Iran-Iraq war where the man developed his reputation and his bloodthirsty style:

The Iraq war showcased Soleimani’s fearlessness within the young man’s damaged psyche. His role in operations Dawn 8 and Karbala 4 are noted twice; both were debacles. The butcher’s bill of Karbala 4 and 5, indeed the whole futile Iranian war against Iraq from 1982-88, was atrocious—James Buchan called it the greatest catastrophe to befall Iran since the Mongol invasions—but in Soleimani’s world view there was no disaster or guilt.

The self-aggrandizement and tolerance for slaughter that were planted in Soleimani’s youth achieved their greatest scope in the destruction of Syria in order to buttress the Assad regime and the near destruction of Lebanon through the arming of Hezbollah and backing of its attacks on Israel. Soleimani was also particularly proud of the IRGC’s role in arming Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and training their bomb-makers and logistics officers to wage missile warfare and suicide attacks.

And this:

Following the terror attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, American diplomat Ryan Crocker opened a diplomatic channel to the Iranians on working together against al-Qaida. Shortly thereafter, in January 2002, President George W. Bush scolded Tehran as being part of an “Axis of Evil.” In D.C. mythology, the president’s description of Tehran’s elites—“an unelected few repress[ing] the Iranian people’s hope for freedom” and “pursuing nuclear weapons”—so offended the Iranians that their negotiators quit, and American diplomats experienced a “traumatic moment.” At the State Department, Bill Burns was especially dejected.

My own tiny mind boggles at the fact that a regime that kept up a daily stream of insults at the United States, with “Death to America” being chanted in its parliament, mosques, schools, along with ritual immolation and trampling of the American flag for four decades retreated to a fainting couch at a single insulting reference in a speech and ruled out working together against al-Qaida—many of whose surviving leaders found refuge in Tehran.

I've seen that before: the absurd notion, happily spread by the Obama crowd, that Bush's "axis of evil" speech was somehow a blunder that sabotaged the chances of peace with Iran.

Plus an interesting comparison with the al-Qaeda head:

Osama bin Laden merits understandably few mentions in Azizi’s book, since the two killers never met, and yet to grasp Soleimani it is worth a comparison with his Arab coeval (the two men may have been born less than a week apart in March 1957; historians spar over the three possible birth dates for Soleimani, with Azizi favoring the earliest one). They had much in common: high intelligence, a flair for theatrics and motivational speaking, and similar pathologies rooted in early-life humiliation. Both showed the world, and their closest confidants, modest, humble, and soft-spoken exteriors that masked ruthless egoism and bloodlust.

Some parallels originate in the two regional wars birthed by the Islamic revolution. Iran’s torching of its relations with its American ally, and the diplomatic isolation brought on by the hostage-taking of American diplomats—plus the purge of its own senior military personnel (possibly exceeding 12,000, according to historian Abbas Amanat)—emboldened the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan and Iraq to invade Iran, two aggressions unthinkable had the shah been in power. The Afghan jihad shaped Osama as the Iran-Iraq War shaped Qassem. Both budding psychopaths experienced slaughter at an early age, and both men’s world views were formed during the barbarities of those wars, both of which were consequences of a revolution that was a disaster not only for Iran but for multiple neighboring countries—yet is still often treated as a somehow necessary and desirable consequence of the shah’s rule, for which the United States is assumed to bear a large portion of responsibility.

But whereas bin Laden ended up hiding out as a fugitive in Pakistan, Soleimani only became bolder with time, increasingly seeking publicity in the belief that he was safe from harm. Which he wasn't.

Chicago then and now

The People's Gas Company Building on Michigan Avenue in 1912, just after its completion:

[Photo: Shorpy/Detroit Publishing Company]

And in 2017:

[Photo: TimeAndAgainPhoto]

London cafes, again

I featured Peter Marshall's gritty photos of London cafes in the 1980s last week. Those were black and white. Here are more of the same, this time in colour, and edging into the 1990s:

Cafe on Deptford High St, Deptford, London, 1988

Cockney Hideout (Paul’s Cafe), Marshgate Lane, Stratford Marsh, Newham, 1990

The George Cafe, George Lane, Catford, London – 1990

New Oxford Cafe, Brookmill Rd, Deptford, London, 1988

Lorraine’s Cafe, High St, Walthamstow, 1989

Victory Cafe, Holywell St, Shoreditch, 1986

Cafe, Deptford High St, Deptford, 1988

Mickie’s, Cafe, Coulgate St, Brockley, London, 1990

Cafe on Cranbrook Rd, Ilford, Redbridge, 1992

Farina’s Cafe, Poplar High St, Tower Hamlets, 1988

Cafe on White Hart Lane, Tottenham, 1991

Luna Bar on Worship St, Shoreditch, 1986

Blackwall Tunnel approach, Bromley by Bow, 1988

Stoke Newington High St, 1989

Stoke Newington Rd, Shacklewell, 1989

The Classic Cafes website, devoted to "The Very Best of London's Vintage Formica Caffs", is still there, but hasn't been updated for ages.

The same applies to Russell Davies' quirky Eggs Bacon Beans and Chips, though that extended its brief beyond London.