I’ll never tire of this one. Here’s Gazeta Wyborcza‘s page one headline from 10-11th of November: “Hugo Chavez brata się z Kolumbijskimi terrorystami” “Hugo Chavez fraternises with Columbian Terrorists” Turning to the story within it emerges that Chavez is mediating between FARC and the Columbian government in the matter of prisoner exchange. Mediating, fraternising – […]
Further, it is obvious that since form is a principle of choice […], new forms will reveal new things in reality, new connections, and naturally, the more the internal coherence of these new forms is stressed in relation to others, the more rigorous they will be. Michel Butor, “The Novel as Research,” translated by Gerald […]
Today’s online version of the New York Times prominently featured a picture of Irish writer Anne Enright. It accompanies an article discussing how Enright’s Booker victory stoked up a bit of storm in a teacup over an article she had written in the London Review of Books about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. The centre […]
In yesterday’s entry I forgot to mention the huff that president Kaczyński disappeared into after Tusk’s victory. Apparently, before the wheels of government could be set again in motion, Tusk – like it or not, the people’s choice – had to apologise to the president for all the nasty things he said. Like for instance, […]
This morning I was unsure whether I had really heard the phrase. Perhaps I had only imagined it being uttered on last night’s RTE news–such an absurdity seemed more likely to be coined during a particularly choppy REM pattern.But no. It was confirmed, in black-and-white, by this morning’s Irish Independent: Mr Ahern said the increases […]
No, not really. He is bitter to the end. He is claiming that a judge’s decision to force a couple of PiS-sympathetic journalists to appear in court in a libel case is evidence that the new rulers of Poland are in cahoots with the judiciary to do down PiS. I know, I know it doesn’t […]
Around 80 pages into Anne Enright’s The Gathering, I remarked to a friend that the experience of reading it with a heavy cold felt as enjoyable as walking up Croagh Patrick barefoot. However, just as pious pilgrims probably feel some sense of accomplishment while they gingerly massage their shredded soles after completing their climb, I […]
The prosecutors in Poland’s most highly politicised prosecution service (Warsaw) have had enough. Exclamation mark. They are rebelling. Exclamation mark. Nine or ten of them are resigning over the political interference in their work of putting criminals where they belong. Oh yes. Up with this they will no longer put. It’s pretty easy to resign, […]
Valiantly overcoming a cold virus that seems to turned half the city’s populace into snivelling wrecks, I dragged my diseased carcass (perhaps the prose style of my current livre de chevet, The Gathering, is getting to me) into the city centre yesterday to see the indomitable Seymour Hersh hold forth at the Amnesty International Lecture. […]
Word comes my way of a book by the name of There’s an Egg in my Soup by one Tom Galvin describing his experiences as an Irishman in Poland. It sounds awful but that may well be the fault of the publicity machinery behind the book. Here’s the cliché ridden summary on the publisher’s website: […]
