If we are to believe today’s super serious and responsible Dziennik the European Union is soon to forbid drinking at night. That’s what the headline on page one says anyway but if you read on it turns out that you will be allowed to drink at night. It’s just they plan to make it harder […]
Back from a short break from the blog after a weekend in Berlin: A truly great city, easy to navigate with an excellent U-Bahn & S-Bahn system, and with a laid-back ambience that seems at odds with the white-knuckled atmosphere that sometimes seems to choke Dublin. (Monday-morning rushhour in the German capital seemed positively somnolent […]
Over the last few days Gazeta Wyborcza has been running an excellent series devoted to Komitet Obrony Robotników (Workers’ Defence Committee), to mark the thirtieth anniversary of this, the first open opposition movement in the Soviet bloc and the forerunner of the Solidarity movement. Authors include well known opposition figures and people still prominent in […]
I found this today in the New York Times: We don�t use future tense, we don�t use passive voice, we don�t have long chapters. (We’re not too keen on definite article either.) The speaker is Diane Steele, publisher of the “…for Dummies” guide to stuff. I knew the philistines had it in for the passive […]
This weekend’s Gazeta Wyborcza has a story headlined “Bush agrees to the Geneva Convention.” How good of him to agree to something his legislature signed into law half a century ago. Who would have thought the day would come when the agreement of the US not to torture prisoners would be news? The US! The […]
It must be great to be an artist. You get to puncture pretentious ideas about art and literature and no one has any come back because you’re the one doing the art, not just talking about it. Here is Beksiński in conversation with Henryk Brzozowski: Zna Pan na pewno te wszystkie komunały, które od lat […]
A storm in a teacup has erupted over Romano Prodi’s injudicious comments regarding the Pope’s security in Turkey. In New York for the UN assembly, having just come back from a trade delegation to China*, embroiled in a controversy over suggested governmental improprieties relating to Telecom Italia, Prodi responded brusquely to a reporter who asked […]
Andrzej Lepper, leader of Samoobrona, a farmers’ party, has left the coalition government. Primesident Kaczy?ski accused him of warcholstwo – brawling, troublemaking. In response, Lepper called this accusation “chamstwo,” which might be translated as “boorishness” but has also been translated on occasion as “assholeishness.” Although “warcho?” (troublemaker) may seem innocuous enough, the word has interesting […]
“Jealousy is the illusion of clairvoyance.” Well, I thought it was good. The above apercu is from recentish review in the Times Literary Supplement by Craig Raine of a London production of James Joyce’s only play, Exiles. The TLS was also quoted a while back by John Boland, better known as the Indo’s TV critic. […]