Three Monkeys Online

A Curious, Alternative Magazine

Henry Grodsk

Classy to the End and Beyond.

Tuesday, November 6th, 2007

In yesterday’s entry I forgot to mention the huff that president Kaczyński disappeared into after Tusk’s victory. Apparently, before the wheels of government could be set again in motion, Tusk – like it or not, the people’s choice – had to apologise to the president for all the nasty things he said. Like for instance, […]

Kaczyński Bows out with Class

Monday, November 5th, 2007

No, not really. He is bitter to the end. He is claiming that a judge’s decision to force a couple of PiS-sympathetic journalists to appear in court in a libel case is evidence that the new rulers of Poland are in cahoots with the judiciary to do down PiS. I know, I know it doesn’t […]

Brave Sir Robin

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

The prosecutors in Poland’s most highly politicised prosecution service (Warsaw) have had enough. Exclamation mark. They are rebelling. Exclamation mark. Nine or ten of them are resigning over the political interference in their work of putting criminals where they belong. Oh yes. Up with this they will no longer put. It’s pretty easy to resign, […]

Poland is Modern

Thursday, October 25th, 2007

Word comes my way of a book by the name of There’s an Egg in my Soup by one Tom Galvin describing his experiences as an Irishman in Poland. It sounds awful but that may well be the fault of the publicity machinery behind the book. Here’s the cliché ridden summary on the publisher’s website: […]

What do they be teaching the young ones

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

I don’t know. Actually, I do: administration and marketing with some broken English in case a multi-national corporation should become aware of your existence and deign to give you a job. How different things were in 1918, when I was a boy, taking my school leaving exam with Aleksander Wat. I won’t divulge my own […]

What a Night!

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

The people of Poland woke up this morning slightly dazed, slightly confused, by the million-strong army of industrious party activists who were busily engaged in removing and ecologically disposing of the election campaign posters that had appeared over the last six weeks of intense but cheerful campaigning. Battered but proud, ex-prime minister Jarosław Kaczyński spoke […]

The Revolving Door

Friday, October 19th, 2007

According to the latest Polityka Rafał Antczak has a new job. Antczak was one of the three authors of an article in Gazeta Wzborcza about how we can’t afford to be so rich. I was later able to reveal (i.e. I read the paper) that the think tank Antczak worked for (CASE) received funding from […]

Entrapment

Friday, October 19th, 2007

Yesterday’s entry on Beata Sawicka’s corruption charges was a little hurried. Here, for those with strong stomachs, is the sleazy story in more detail. In January 2007 the CBA (Anti-Corruption Office) agent meets Sawicka on a training course. He poses as the representative of a western property developer. On October 1st Sawicka is arrested for […]

Pre-Election Sleaze

Thursday, October 18th, 2007

Where to begin? Beata Sawicka, an opposition party deputy was caught red-handed by the CBA (Anti-Corruption Office) a week or two ago accepting a bribe in connection with the sale of land. A CBA man had gone undercover as a developer and elicited the bribe from Sawicka in an operation that lasted months and months […]

Worth Quoting

Sunday, October 14th, 2007

Here’s Sławomir Sierakowski in the latest Polityka: In a country where according to official statistics more than half of Poles live below the social minimum but discussion of economics usually begins with the flat tax and always ends with lowering taxes populists are bound to win.