May 3rd is the day on which Poles celebrate the anniversary of their 1791 constitution, which is considered by some (mostly Poles) the most progressive in Europe of its day. Only the American constitution beats it, the national mythology goes. It did not liberate the peasants but it did take on some of the worst […]
True story: an Irish friend of mine went to the bank in Gdańsk for a loan. Everything went swimmingly until it was time to type in his PESEL, the Polish equivalent of a social security number. My friend only had his Irish number. “How many digits?” asked the clerk. “Nine.” “I’m sorry, it has to […]
Romuald Rytwiński, director general of GM Opel in Poland: “The situation is still far from normal. 600 or 700,000 new cars should be selling on the Polish market [every year], not 200 or 300,000 as is the case now.” Blackadder: “It wouldn’t have anything to do with leeches, would it? Doctor: I had no idea […]
It is probably tempting fate to use the words “new low” and “tabloid” in the same sentence but I cannot resist: Polish tabloid Fakt has hit a new low. Their animatronic reconstructions used to be just ridiculous pandering to their non-literate readers but this… Former minister Barbara Blida was arrested in her home on suspicion […]
How much money would the marketing department of a posh vodka manufacturer have to spend on translating their slogan into English would you think? Maybe ten, twenty euros? Surely enough, anyway, to avoid this one: “The king is only one.” Yes and we are many so let’s kill the king. I presume they meant “there […]
While prying through some personal files late one night last week in the local IPN branch I came across one that caught my eye. It was the file of a certain university professor, doctor… well, let us call him “Dr. Wykształciuch” for the sake of discretion. The top sheet was his CV and at the […]
Unilever’s campaign for real profits continues. A full page advertisement appears in the women’s supplement to Gazeta Wyborcza. It includes a picture of the masterminds of this operation. In case the irony is not abundantly clear, I’ll put “masterminds” in inverted commas. These are in fact the Polish drones, acting on instructions from Higher Up, […]
It’s always been a matter of some surprise to me that I have never been busted for tax evasion. I’ve worked in a dozen countries under a kaleidoscopically variegated set of tax systems (Poland alone has at least three different kinds of employment contract) – none of which I have ever understood. A snotty letter […]
They have this TV station here called TVN 24 – yes it is original, isn’t it? – devoted to news only. I happened to catch sight of it over the tremendously boring Easter holidays here. As befits a creative industry, they have copied the western habit of having a ticker tape at the bottom of […]
“Unknown Man: I’ll be around for some time. I have a mission to accomplish. […] Unknown Man: And all the time the volcano beneath our feet is seething and boiling. We are riddled through and through with conspiracies, secret societies, plots… Onek: Yes! The dirty bloody hunchbacks are plotting! Unkown Man: What hunchbacks… Onka: My […]
