“It’s War,” says today’s Dziennik, referring to further political revelations, machinations and deteriorations of relations in parliamentary politics which I won’t go into here. But there is one intriguing item in the article: once, many years ago, Donald Tusk made fun of Jaros?aw Kaczy?ski’s voice. Kaczy?ski repsonded by pulling a (legally held) gun on Tusk! […]
This week’s New Yorker features a short story from Roddy Doyle, called “The Photograph.” It’s not bad, clearly the work of a skilled practitioner. But I’m not sure if it deserves its occupation of what are probably the most coveted pages in Anglophone letters. Doyle’s style–which might be dubbed “proletarian stream of consciousness”–is beginning to […]
“Everyone knows the key to building wealth is through saving and investing” begins one of those newsoid articles that internet portals use to pad out their pages. Written by God knows who at the behest of God knows what financial institution, the opening line at least has the merit of ditching that ridiculous myth about […]
I came across an ad in a current affairs magazine today. Here it goes: “Most women put quality first! 100% fewer hot flushes, 94% less excessive sweating, 98% less sleeplessness. [brandname]. Active extract SE 2000. Choose [brandname] medicine whose [sic] effectiveness and safety have been confirmed by scientific research!” Phew, I thought. Those other medicines […]
I’m wondering why I have failed to greet North Korea’s recent gatecrashing of the nuclear club with appropriate foreboding. I’ve come to the conclusion that my blithe response must be rooted in the fact that my image of Kong Jong-il as a terrifying dictator has been irreparably damaged by his singing manikin manifestation in Team […]
In a previous post I grandiloquently claimed that “we will have to find Arctic meltwater lapping at our doorsteps before we jettison the freedom [of cheap air travel]”. Alas it’s not just stag parties jetting off to Prague or the bourgeoisie retreating to their weekend g�tes that are to blame. Even people who are paid […]
Yesterday’s Observer mimicked a poll undertaken by The New York Times earlier this year and asked “150 literary luminaries to vote for the best British, Irish or Commonwealth novel from 1980 to 2005”. This geographic hodgepodge mirrors the eligibility for the Man Booker Prize. But why be so coy about what makes an author eligible? […]
The EU and the US have come to a new agreement on the “sharing” of passenger information on transatlantic flights (or the west-bound ones anyway). The negotiations were carried on under some duress – err, with a degree of urgency – because the previous agreement on spying on (among other things) the meal preferences of […]
Last week’s Polityka has an article on that most intrusive of the arts: architecture. Like their fellow members of the ??e-elity at the Gazeta Wyborcza, they seem think it a terrible shame that Poles are so backward looking. They just don’t appreciate the efforts made by thrusting, forward-looking engineers — errr, I mean architects of […]