The recent political sex-scandal here has brought the primitives crawling out of the woodwork. We have been reminded of such pearls of wisdom from the Polish political classes as “how can you rape a prostitute?” (In fairness to Poland’s backwoodsmen, no one has quite equalled Putin’s congratulating of the Israeli president.) But such primitivism is not limited to a few unenlightened ape-like creatures from the parliament.

Recently I had a rare opportunity to revel in the unmitigated delight that is Polish televsion. Oh, the wonders… I could fill an entire beermat with them. But one ad in particular caught my attention. It features a young Polish actor called Boris Szyc (it’s pronounced “shits” so he’d better make hay while his Polish sun shines: he won’t break Hollywood that easy). In it he and someone else are racing cars at great speed and with reckless abandon on public roads in a glorification of dangerous driving that was banned years ago in more civilised countries. For some reason the other boy racer ends up in the backseat of Szyc’s car, handcuffed to Szyc’s headrest. Szyc starts up the engine and indicates to his be-balaclava’ed prisoner that he should fasten his seatbelt. The prisoner shakes his handcuffs to show that he can’t. Szyc just grins and hits the accelerator.

So we hit a tree (pedestrian etc) and you die screaming? I’ve got an airbag and a seatbelt. Tough Szyc.