During a visit to a rescue team in July President Kaczy?ski was introduced to a sniffer dog. The dog’s handler said: “Ira siad!” (“Era, sit!”). Poor Lechos?aw is reported to have said “Irasiad jest bardzo zdenerwowany” (“Erasit is very agitated”). I won’t say I wouldn’t have made the same mistake.
Asked by Niedziela (“Sunday,” a Catholic weekly) if he was in favour of withdrawing Polish troops from Iraq, Lechos?aw Kaczy?ski, primesident of Poland, replied: We have gained a few things thanks to it [our engagement in Iraq]. It’s completely senseless, Polish soldiers have died there — that’s the most important thing because the life of […]
They did things differently in the past. Road signs in Poland did not always strictly conform with the strait-jacketed expectations of west European motorists. For instance, there are at least two different signs to indicate pedestrians crossing! How many accidents has that little fanebrium caused? One shows a girl (she has a pony tail) and […]
Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz used to be the (quite popular) prime minister of Poland. For reasons not entirely clear to me (“wasn’t in that day, sir”), he stepped aside so that the president’s twin brother could take over. He is now the president of Warsaw, according to his blog. (I was under the impression that he was […]
Another journalist is in trouble for insulting a government member. This time it’s Mariusz Ziomecki, who called a League of Polish Families deputy a “babsztyl” (big fat aul’ one) and a liar in a tabloid, and is now being investigated for “defaming a public functionary.” The prosecutor’s office called him in for questioning. What interests […]
I went up the country. It turns out that not all life in Poland revolves around pubs and discos. Out there the centre of social life is the shop — the only one for miles around — sometimes open on split shifts: 6 to 10 in the morning and 6 to 10 in the evening. […]
“Nie podnosimy cen bez powodu” says the startling sticker on the door of a kiosk near my house. It means, translating freely, “we won’t raise prices for no reason.” The campaign bears the imprimatur of those noted advocates of centrally planned economies Gazeta Wyborcza and the Polish National Bank. In a free market am I […]
“Lebanese Children want to be Martyrs” is the surprising headline in Friday’s Gazeta Wyborcza. The subhead: “Thousands of children are the victims of Hezbollah’s war with Israel [not Israel’s war on the Lebanon]. In photographs from the Lebanon one sees mostly the dead or those injured after the explosion of bombs. But most of them […]
It turns out we’re all going to die in poverty, regardless. The problem is too many nasty old people hogging the social welfare budget and too few young ones contributing to it. In Friday’s Gazeta Wyborcza three young Polish economists make their contribution to the debate. Billed as an “appeal” and complete with exclamation marks […]
The following is a first draft of a translation of an episode from Bruno Jasie?ski’s novel Pal? Pary? (I Burn Paris – the title arose from a misunderstanding on Jasie?ski’s part of the French idiom). In the novel, Paris is cordoned off after being hit by a plague and ascends into anarchy. There are different […]
