The Gogarty wave has hit Poland. Naturally it has been shorn of almost all context, leaving Poland with an image of Irish politicians as pugnacious, uncivilised and immature. But it’s much worse than that. Gogarty apologised for saying to his honourable friend “fuck you” one second after saying the words. Later that day he said [...]

At first I put it down to my intoxicated state as I looked at the ad on the TV screen over the bar. Also, the sound was turned off. But I saw the ad again in a friend’s house and it really does go like this: a well-dressed man gets into a taxi where he [...]

While the barman was ejecting some difficult guests last night someone switched channels on the TV above the bar to a news show. The sound was on. They were talking about Afghanistan. It seems that Barack Obama gave prime minister Donald a bell and Don immediately agreed to send another hundred thousand or half a [...]

Newspaper editors everywhere are gnashing their teeth to find that two politicians have been put in charge of being called president and minister (or special envoy or whatever) for foreign affairs of the EU. This Herman Van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton – can they even be googled? What’s to cut and paste here? Has either [...]

The (TV) media in Poland has been getting very exercised about the A1HN1 flu lately. It’s running wild in Ukraine. The government here hasn’t bought enough vaccination shots. Somebody died in Poznań but we’re not exactly sure of what. The human rights ombudsman is threatening to take the government to court if jabs are not [...]

You know you’re getting old when something like this not only fails to move you but leaves you baffled, wondering why on earth anyone would want to subject themselves to it. Today’s Gazeta Wyborcza carries an ad for a night of advertisements in the cinema. That’s right: you go to the cinema and watch ads [...]

Dublin, Ireland
There were violent scenes at Fitzgibbon Street this morning as members of the public forcibly ejected the gardai who had been staging a sit-in occupation in direct contravention of a High Court injunction directing them to vacate the station by 7 am. When the 45 police officers failed to comply a citizen squad armed [...]

Dublin, Ireland
Former gardai staging a sit-in occupation at the force’s Fitzgibbon Street station may risk prison after deciding to defy a High Court order to vacate the building. Mr Justice Michael Peart heard the 45 former police officers had been told by their union that they needed to obey the court order to [...]

It looks like I took a bullet for the team. That quarter-page ad for a college that guaranteed an MA degree in two years was a cunning Gazeta Wyborcza hoax. They say the interest generated by the ad was enormous, with people from all corners of Poland. I’m not exactly sure what GW thinks this [...]

Gazeta Wyborcza sent in the foreign legion today in a lack lustre affair which could hardly be described as a decisive victory. They found a handful of obliging foreign students to complain about Poland. One said that the backup facilities in Poland were much worse than in Portugal, “doubtless because Poland values education very lowly [...]