Three Monkeys Online

A Curious, Alternative Magazine

Henry Grodsk

The Journalist’s Art

Saturday, October 13th, 2007

Gazeta Wyborcza has a regular feature in which they ask the same set of questions about tourism of various people. You know the type: “I left my heart in… [answer]”; “My best holidays were in… [answer]”; “My favourite hotel… [answer].” This week the respondent was a Daria Pawęda, described as a journalist and traveller. Her […]

Lucifer is in the Details

Thursday, October 11th, 2007

Aleksander Wat was a precocious young fellah. He wrote “JA z jednej strony i JA z drugiej strony mego mopsożelaznego piecyka” (I from one side and I from the other side of my little herring-iron oven) at the age of 14 and a short story “Lucifer Unemployed” in his early 20s. With a title like […]

Comprehensive Guide to Polish Popular Music

Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

“Rockman” is a word in the Polish language.

O’Brien Leads, Sosnowski Follows

Tuesday, October 9th, 2007

A character called Jakub Sosnowski has gone into business in Poland selling cog notes for ignoramuses. That is: you pay him and he tells you what such and such a book is about or what such and such a record is like. In this way you can shine at social gatherings to which you have […]

Editors and Authors

Friday, October 5th, 2007

“Sometimes publishers get texts which have not been properly read, even by their own authors – books in a terrible state,” says editor Filip Modrzejewski in this week’s Polityka. It’s worse than that, Mr. Modrzejewski. Sometimes readers get books that even the authors haven’t read. The picture painted in the article is dispiriting. For one […]

Who Cares Who Spies?

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

Poor Gazeta Wyborcza. Your heart has to go out to them. They must feel like they’re banging their heads off a brick wall in there. Today’s lead story is about how the Polish National Insurance is about to open up its records on 25 million Poles to the CBA (Central Anti Corruption Bureau, in reality […]

A Sea Change in Polish Politics

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

The signs are unmistakeable. All over the land it is evident that Polish politicians have shaken off the complexes and shackles of yesteryear. The East is awake! The last time I saw election posters here almost every single photograph of the candidate had the very top of his or her head cropped by the photographer. […]

Grunt Killed, Important Person Injured

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

That’s the message sent by both Dziennik and Gazeta Wyborcza today. The Polish ambassador to the Poland-occupied nation of Iraq was injured in an explosion. Someone else was killed. Here’s the GW (electronic version, today): W Bagdadzie bomby raniły polskiego ambasadora Dwie lub trzy bomby wybuchły na trasie konwoju polskiej ambasady w Bagdadzie. Zginął funkcjonariusz […]

Less Panic

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

Poland has agreed after all to allow international observers inspect its elections. They are trying to say it was all a big mistake caused by the incompetence of the minister for foreign affairs. She is pretty incompetent, though, so it might even be true.

Of Achievers and Wasters

Thursday, September 27th, 2007

In connection with research by one David Amodio, Krzysztof Szymborski writes in the current Polityka that the results of scientific experiments and research are often incorrectly interpreted by journalists and misunderstood by readers. Results presented in the cold, clinical language of science inevitably become valorised, which can disgruntle the reader. Perhaps he has in mind […]