The view from Gdańsk is not pretty. As Pinter accepts his Nobel prize, Poland slips further into the absurd and the vulgar. Here is a random selection, from memory, so apologies for any small inaccuracies:

Charges of defamation against a journalist were, after lengthy consideration and great tax-payer funded expense, finally dropped. The charges were brought by a prosecutor who felt that the journalist in question had traduced his good name by writing in a court report that the prosecutor had slammed the door upon leaving a courtroom.

Charges of defamation against another journalist have so far not been dropped by yet another prosecutor. This time the injured party felt he had been traduced by a play of words and the typographical layout of a magazine headline which suggested that he was an asshole. That the body of the article presented persuasive evidence that the prosecutor in question is incompetent was not considered worthy of a suit since, presumably, it is true.

Gazeta Wyborcza, the heavy hitting national newspaper, published a special supplement welcoming one and all to Pozna? the day after a march organised by gay and lesbian groups and celebrating equality was beaten off the streets of that same town by the police while fascists chanted pro-Hitler slogans.

And for good measure, in this country famous for overthrowing totalitarianism with a trade union, a court recently found that it was illegal to strike. Why? Because it might cost employers money.

Before you ask, Poland does have a constitution