I don’t know if yesterday was particularly black but look at the dates in this chart of the worst days on the FTSE 100. It’s like, how much more black could this be? The answer is none – none more black. And only a few years ago the Onion was looking into even more precious […]
In a glowing portrait of Gordon Brown (who appears to be doing something about the crisis other than make soothing noises) in the latest Nie, there is the following quotable quote: “…unemployment in Great Britain is expected to reach a terrifying 6%, which is regarded here [UK] as a catastrophe. In Poland 11% of people […]
Gazeta Wyborcza continues its “Poland is no Country for Old People” series. The Onion was there first.
Back in September rumours spread in Ireland that one of the country’s biggest banks was close to going bust. Total nonsense, the experts said. Everything was A-OK. But the rumours persisted. On one radio talk show a caller pointed out that savings in the Post Office Bank were state-guaranteed in their entirety. Within hours millions […]
Dr. Grzegorz Makowski of the Institute for Public Affairs says that corruption is not the gigantic problem in Poland that everyone thinks it is. Among the reasons everyone thinks the problem is so bad is Transparency International. TI was a good idea but later “… TI began to sell it [its corruption index] as a […]
“Poland is no country for old people,” Gazeta Wyborcza announced on Friday, with much handwringing in a full page spread advertising an upcoming series of heartrending etc etc. The text continues: “You humiliate us You forbid us love and sex Fast cars You tell us to throw pots and make wall hangings Look after your […]
While still in school I and most of the other children realised that cog notes (okay, “crib” notes if you must) were not really much help even if it was common to brag about how much writing you could fit on the back of your tie. You can write “Famine: 1845-1849, million dead” on the […]
Witold Gadomski has a lengthy article on the crisis in Saturday’s Gazeta Wyborcza. It’s a tremendously boring article about the central bank, the bank oversight commission and some elected jerk who picks up a pay cheque for punching the clock at the ministry for finance every day. A big problem is that the important offices […]
The papers the other day reported that the Baltic countries are in serious trouble. The crisis has hit them harder than it has Poland. Latvia’s economy contracted 4.2% in one quarter. I patiently await a rash of articles highly critical of the flat tax which the Baltic countries embraced in the 90s. Patiently waiting… Waiting […]
The Tailor and Ansty (sometimes known as The Tailor and Anstey) by Eric Cross was considered so fiendishly obscene or indecent in its general tendency that it was for many years banned in Ireland. When parts of it were quoted in a Seanad (senate) debate in the 1940s there were calls for the quoted bits […]
