Janusz Głowacki used to smuggle criticism past the censor by dressing it up as extravagant praise, comparing favourably, for instance, the since-forgotten socialist realist book Głupia sprawa (A Silly Matter) by Dobrowolski with the publication of the first Polish translation of Ulysses. He says he got letters from some readers saying: you know, that Głupia […]
“Don’t worry, trade unionists. The government is not going to change the law to emasculate you.” “What? The government is going to change the law to emasculate us?” “No, no. You misunderstand. The government is not going to change the law to emasculate you.” “But why would the government want to change the law to […]
Government by opinion poll is probably not the best way to run a country: bye bye art, culture, education; hello football, soap operas and institutionalized bribery – no wait, that’s not what I was trying to suggest. Hang on… But surely you can’t ignore the public all the time? For instance, this week’s Polityka reports […]
Trade union membership in this country which owes its existence to trade unions is 14% of workers. Nie has a cover story this week about Solidarity’s disgraceful behaviour during the recent miners’ strike. In brief, a profitable mine was joined with a much less profitable one where the miners earned more, having recently received a […]
Poles are slowly realising that plastic bags are an unsightly, long-lasting non-biodegradable blot on the landscape – no, sorry. They’re realising that a cheap PR buck can be made by pretending to be concerned about the environment. Spotted on a typical plastic bag from a multi-national supermarket company operating in Poland: “This bag is environment […]
A lorry driver died in the 20-mile queue at the Ukrainian-Polish border crossing at Dorohusk. Warsaw sat up and noticed: Poland has an eastern border. To be sure, Poland’s joining the Schengen pact has meant its virtual closure to Ukrainians, but the emphasis in the national press had been more on the feel-good opening of […]
We have America to thank for what must be or should be or maybe already is a popular new adjective: subprime. Northern Rock crumbled but Poland is safe because as any neophyte knows the market never falls. A brief survey of the advertising of bank loans here: 1. We will not check your credit rating. […]
2007-05-30 Telekomunikacja Polska. Press release. Darmowe rozmowy przez całą dobę. (Free conversations all day long.) That was May. This is December. The company’s subscribers have received a letter from one Jacek Mrozik, Marketing Director. Certain changes have been made in the nomenclature of Telekomunikacja Polska’s rich array of offers. Namely: “plan tp 60 minutes for […]
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: […]
The people of Poland woke up this morning slightly dazed, slightly confused, by the million-strong army of industrious party activists who were busily engaged in removing and ecologically disposing of the election campaign posters that had appeared over the last six weeks of intense but cheerful campaigning. Battered but proud, ex-prime minister Jarosław Kaczyński spoke […]
