Bertie Ahern, Taoiseach (or “prime minister”) of Ireland, has an article in yesterday’s Gazeta Wyborcza. While it is too boring to read, one thing does stand out: the man’s impeccable Polish (no translator is credited). Unless – perish the thought – a Polish politician or bureaucrat wrote it and Ahern just put his name to […]
Hardly do I open my yap about Gazeta Wyborcza’s occasionally one-sided picture of how great it is everywhere in the EU except Poland than economist and journalist Waldemar Kuczy?ski chimes in (on the pages of GW) on the same note. In today’s paper he writes “in the short term nothing can be done to stem […]
On a recent visit to Empik, the chain of book shops which appears to be approaching monopoly in Poland, I saw a book adorned by the image and likeness of Donald Trump. I have not been able to find the book on the internet and it is already gone from the displays of Empik but […]
Back in January I took a look at a dodgy Irish Times article on Poles travelling between Poland and Ireland. Six months later (17-18/6/06) Gazeta Wyborcza takes on a similar subject in an article entitled “Warsaw-Dublin, flight nr. EI 363, departure time 12.15.” It’s shorter and more factual, with less of what was contemptuously refered […]
As a westerner, it’s hard not to feel cheated sometimes when a book goes Eastern European, as does Sandor Marai’s A gyerty�k csonkig �gnek (Embers). The deep, abstruse contemplation on the Nature of Things is in full swing. You are following. It’s difficult but somehow, with the help of your abundantly stocked classics library, you […]
A few weeks ago I mentioned in passing newspaper reports that the president of Poland was displeased at the continued rule of a lefty in PZU, a state controlled insurance company. The incumbent was duly sacked and his successor was announced by treasury minister Wojciech Jasi?ski. The lucky man, whose appointment is still to be […]
Two old soldiers meet again after 41 years to settle – it seems from the carefully built up tension of the novel – an old score of some sort. The first half of the book is an artistically faultless evocation of the Austro-Hungarian empire and then, exactly half way through, it goes all Eastern European: […]
So goes the slogan in a cack-handed ad for a credit card. It means, roughly, “make sure you’re up to his tricks.” The ad (I can’t find a decent picture to link to) shows a dodgy looking guy in a tracksuit with a gold chain around his neck. Underneath the slogan (which is not in […]
“The jury is out on Chavez” announces the headline of Denis MacShane’s article on Venezuela in the Guardian. If only it were. Any reporter I read seems to have his mind made up to give Chavez a fair trial before execution in the court of public opinion.