Local elections are approaching and all over Poland (presumably — I haven’t been all over it myself) teams of workers are energetically engaged in infrastructural work. Roads are being resurfaced, roundabouts rationalised and parks prettified. It’s not fooling anyone: “kie?basa wyborcza” (election sausage) is what Poles call this transparent bribery of the general public. My personal favourite flavour of kie?basa wyborcza is the “kostki brukowe” (small, fancy interlocking paving stones that cost several times as much to lay as just about anything else) which pop up in the most unlikely places around Poland: not just on salubrious tree-lined boulevards in the big cities, but at seemingly random intervals alongside devestated, seldom-trod country roads.

And it’s all on the never never a friend who is running for election as a counsellor told me.