Serafino Murru passed away in 1994. It would be difficult though to accept the terminal shockwaves of this roughly sketched street balladeer after the scraping acoustic spears of Lo Scudetto In Sardegna rip through any dustclouds gathered in the decades since Luigi Riva and the Rossoblu last ran rings around mainland hierarchies. Murru is the archetypal everyman, […]
Another year, another disaster. I mentioned before how the answers to some mock school exams leaked last year, thus giving pupils ideal preparation for the vicissitudes of life. April 2009 rolls around and – yes – exam answers leaked. I don’t know which subject(s), which paper(s), which precise exams (“gymnazjalne”, I think) and also, in […]
A medieval Irish monastery under siege by the forces of darkness, who find their breach in the cell of the unfortunate brother Fursey, a monk blessed with a stammer who thus can’t adequately perform the rites of exorcism required to keep the monastery safe. The premise alone, regardless of the excellent execution, should be enough […]
A couple of weeks ago Jacek Dehnel had an article in Polityka in which he described his visit to Vienna. This week it’s Michał Witkowski’s turn: he was in Jerusalem and writes an interesting piece on it, on Polish-Jewish relations and on stereotypes. Here are the last lines: “What is the truth? What is a […]
The following comes in its entirety from Roman Daszczyński’s article in Tuesday’s Gazeta Wyborcza (April 7th). The penalties for drunk-cycling in Poland are extremely harsh. You lose your driving license for one (yes – your car driving licence). There are currently 1,931 cyclists in Polish prisons for drunk-cycling. The maximum prison sentence is twelve months […]
I’ve solved the economic crisis. After months of study and intensive thought I’ve finally cracked it. To be fair, I arrived at my earth-righting conclusion by standing on the shoulders of giants. I’ve been reading the newspapers, turning over in my mind the pronouncements of the experts, sifting through the policy initiatives of the finest […]
It seems like a good year and a half since I’ve read a novel that didn’t involve a writer writing a novel, so I started Domenico Starnone’s First Execution wearily, almost out of duty – despite the fact that the original Italian version of the book comes highly recommended. It has though, thus far (I’m […]
They say all news is local so here’s a taste of Poland from the pages of a typical urban local paper, a weekly freshet. There are three headlines on the front page and each of them is an order: “Close this alley,” “Talk to the president” and “Fight the Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner.” Poles are […]
Alain Bihr‘s contempt for the term “human capital” is almost tangible: “As if capital, that cold monster, that accumulation of dead work, which lives only because it constantly preys on living work and exploits the labour of billions of people whose lives mean nothing to it, condemning more billions to poverty, insecurity, unemployment and socio-economic […]
