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Posts by Mister H  

Joined: 4 Jan 2008 / Male ♂
Last Post: 5 Feb 2016
Threads: Total: 11 / In This Archive: 6
Posts: Total: 761 / In This Archive: 553
From: Hove, UK
Speaks Polish?: no

Displayed posts: 559 / page 2 of 19
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Mister H   
3 Nov 2009
UK, Ireland / Why do Poles come to England? [514]

With out the Polsh people, Britian may be evan more in the shiettttt

Your generalisations are rather tired if you ask me.

Yes we have a problem with benefit culture in this country, but that is for us to sort out. Filling the country full of foreigners on the take, which many (but by no means all) are is not helping.
Mister H   
3 Nov 2009
UK, Ireland / Why do Poles come to England? [514]

I disagree,when they work and pay taxes they should be entilted to the same benefits as the rest.

Not straight away they shouldn't.

Maybe after three or four years or it should be based on NI contributions and the amount of tax paid.

The UK is not a cash-cow.
Mister H   
27 Oct 2009
UK, Ireland / Britain's bad teeth [77]

It can be hard to get on the books of an NHS dentist and they often do private work too.

I'm on the NHS books so I can only have an appointment between 9-5, Monday to Friday (when most people work) and if I want an appointment outside of those times, I have to be seen privately.

Also if I just go for a check up, I don't think that they spend as long on me as they would with a private patient.

I do see some people with some pretty bad teeth though. I think it is a combination of treatment that is too expensive and poor diets.
Mister H   
27 Oct 2009
UK, Ireland / What is the best period to go to work in the UK? [18]

If your english is good then stores, such as Argos, Poundland,Lidl and Tesco's have a large turnover of staff during the christmas period.

Working in Argos over Christmas !!!!!!

All those screeching chav women in their trackies buying gold sovereign rings for their knuckles scraping the floor boyfriends !!!!!!

There has to be somewhere better to work over Christmas than Argos, Poundland and so on.

If that is all that is on offer, however, choose your town/city very carefully and don't work anywhere too near a council estate.
Mister H   
27 Oct 2009
UK, Ireland / What is the best period to go to work in the UK? [18]

i'm a girl and i'm aware it's more difficult to find a job for a girl. i want to leave for a few months as i'm planning to go back at uni in october '10. is it difficult to find a job in winter?

I think that you will find that it's more difficult to find a job in a recession more than being a woman wanting a job. That shouldn't have too much to do with it.

It depends what you want to do and where as to how many jobs are around.
Mister H   
15 Oct 2009
UK, Ireland / Legally changing my Polish name [28]

When I arrived to US my polish names were some how changed to very difficult to pronounce version. I had to wait to change them back to original polish form until I became US citizen. Regaining my real name made me fill very good.

Are you saying that your name was changed without you doing it yourself ? How could that happen ?
Mister H   
15 Oct 2009
UK, Ireland / Legally changing my Polish name [28]

I am not really ashamed of where I come from, besides it's not like I'll ever pass for an English person with my accent.

An English sounding name, together with a foreign accent from a country that doesn't typically have English names, tends to mean fraudster to me - but I've worked in credit card fraud before, so I tend to have a suspicious mind about such things !

It's not the question of people mispronouncing or misspelling my name either. I am just afraid that when I will start my foundation year next year, I am going to be Dr What's-his-name and in the competitive environment it's always going to be easier for the nurse to call Dr Gray, Dr Stevens or Dr O'Malley than me.

Considering you're training to be a doctor, you seem to know a lot of stupid people.

In my experience, most people only need telling once that someone's surname is said a particular way.

From what you have said, I don't think you need to go to all the hassle of changing your name legally, just to make life a little easier from people that will probably get the hang of it anyway.

Maybe rather than changing it legally, could you not just use a different name for work ?
Mister H   
14 Oct 2009
UK, Ireland / Legally changing my Polish name [28]

Hey Dr Colon :-)

Your name is part of who you are, so unless it sounds a bit saucy, rude or just utterly hilarious when said by an English person, I would keep it.

I like to think that I (as an English person) can cope with a foreign surname and I always have a stab at saying it right and am happy to be corrected. I even like to think that I can get them right pretty much first time. Just don't expect me to spell it right ;-)

While I'm the first to say that foreigners should do their utmost to integrate and be part of the local community, it doesn't involve them having to change their surnames to sound "more English".

Also I think your parents, particularly your Dad, might feel rather crushed.
Mister H   
11 Oct 2009
UK, Ireland / Sad life of a Polish immigrant in the UK. Ch. 2 - Stress [63]

Everyone takes it easy in Britain, you have local newspapers, local radio, football teams and pubs, and that's about it. You don't fret over the politics as much as we do, you're not bombarded with Gazeta Wyborcza and TVN living in a state of permanent catastrophe.

This is what draws people over here, that lack of stress.

I'm having real trouble understanding your situation and how you are seeing things. Everyone I know has stress of some kind and most of it is down to getting through life and hoping that they have enough money to keep their bills paid and a roof over their heads.

Life here can be very stressful.

This is what makes people not care what job they are in - even if it's 200 pounds per week, at least the petrol is dirt cheap.

Petrol is dirt cheap compared to where exactly ? You're talking about £60 to fill up the average family car. It's only cheap if you drive a Polish registered car and escape road tax, MOT and (probably) insurance. Petrol is probably your only running expense.

I changed jobs specifically so I could walk rather than drive to work to cut down on costs.

It's not stress free for all of us. Especially with the nasty comments: not in the papers, not in the internet, but at work. But definitely your life is easier (and the roads go without saying)

You are sounding very self-indulgent.

But she decided that it would be better to fiddle the benefits system and sit on her a**

I hope you shopped her to the authorities.
Mister H   
11 Oct 2009
UK, Ireland / UK recession on the way? [58]

How are things now?

I think that depends on what people have done themselves to improve their situation. Some try and find another job, cut back on their expenditure and try and live within their means. Others just sit and wait to be rescued and blame anyone and everyone if things don't improve.

Personally, I think that the recession is far from over and the Government are just doing a bit of PR on the figures to make them sound better than they really are.

We're a country built on debt and all the major parties now accept that cuts will need to be made, but they're still too afraid to come out and say how much needs to be cut and from where. David Cameron has made some noise over those on Incapacity Benefit and trying to get them into work instead, but no one really wants to admit yet how bad it could turn out to be.

Anyone that relies on state handouts will be in for an even rougher ride I reckon.

Kwaƛniewski, ex PM of Poland, was apparently told that the crisis will stop when certain people want it to. He met some high-profile people who explained it to him.

Sounds very cloak and dagger. I dread to think what really goes on behind closed doors when such things are discussed.

The UK doesn't mind recessions as, like a Swedish porn star, it is accustomed to boom&bust :)

Maybe porn will be the career of choice for people that have their benefits cut ;-)
Mister H   
6 Oct 2009
UK, Ireland / Sad life of a Polish migrant in the UK. Ch. 4 - Language [66]

Sorry if I am being daft, but I don't really get what happened.

Points to ponder:
1. Why would I speak so that everybody can eavesdrop?

It's natural in public to earwig a little in case you overhear someone planning a bank robbery or a murder (that's what I always hope for anyway!)

2. If Brits come to Poland do they speak Polish?

Depends on their reason for going. If going for a holiday, them it is common courtesy to make the effort and learn enough to get by. If going to live, or stay for a long period and work, then it would be essential.

3. Was that polite to interrupt us, even though we were 'just Poles', or 'just immigrants'?

No it wasn't polite, but he sounds like he was drunk. I'm too polite to tell foreigners to speak English, although it has crossed my mind a few times, but that's just down to the sheer numbers that seem to around these days and I sometimes feel a little outnumbered.

Mister H   
27 Sep 2009
News / ARE POLISH PEOPLE TAKING OUR JOBS OR DOING OUR JOBS??!! DISCUSS. [126]

Overrun? Well, if the demand is there then there is no problem. If it wells up, as so often happens in times of recession, then the social state kicks in and performs its role.

The demand is there because of the wages issue. Virtually every cleaner in the offices I have worked at has been foreign and it isn't because the British see certain jobs as being beneath them.

Pregnant women make their contribution too. Or do you think they should be eternally punished for what Eve did? ;0 ;) ;)

The NHS does not have the resources to deal with so many more women giving birth and if a foreign woman arrives with young children and/or is pregnant, then what exactly does she contribute ? Nothing, she is just another cost burden.
Mister H   
27 Sep 2009
News / ARE POLISH PEOPLE TAKING OUR JOBS OR DOING OUR JOBS??!! DISCUSS. [126]

I think that we should have tried our luck and remained outside of the EU. AS I have said before, it is fine to have sensible trading arrangements, but immigration should be a process that you go through to see what you can "bring to the table".

Mass immigration: No!
Controlled immigration: Yes!

So you believe in an ending of attracting the best graduates in finance to the world's financial centre - London? Or an end to attracting desperately needed new talent to Scotland, which even launched the Fresh Talent Initative in order to attract quality individuals that just couldn't be found in Scotland?

But do we really get that or do we just get overrun with builders, burger flippers and toilet cleaners that all have young children and pregnant wives ?

The thing is that there *isn't* enough decent British people to take the jobs. It's been documented widely that Brits just didn't want to do the jobs strawberry picking for instance - although this is partially the fault of a ridiculous benefit system which doesn't encourage part time work.

I notice that no-one here remebers that many Brits moved to Spain and took advantage of the freedom of movement of labour. If

Yawn ! The British are lazy and what about the ex-pats in Spain........

Change the record.
Mister H   
27 Sep 2009
News / ARE POLISH PEOPLE TAKING OUR JOBS OR DOING OUR JOBS??!! DISCUSS. [126]

They would need to be radical and it would involve some very uncomfortable decisions, however, putting British people first means that you're putting first the needs of a whole range of people. Being British doesn't always mean being white and doesn't always mean being Christian (and I'm not suggesting that you think that at all), therefore being aligned with the Nazis just wouldn't be correct as being British means so many different things now.

what will happen is one of the parties will introduce an immigration bill, the other two will sit back and observe then copy or criticise.

And we'll get nowhere and the madness continues.
Mister H   
27 Sep 2009
News / ARE POLISH PEOPLE TAKING OUR JOBS OR DOING OUR JOBS??!! DISCUSS. [126]

What i cant understand even more is why oh why are no leading poloticians tackling this head on, do you think theyre afraid. Im sure it would actually increase theyre popularity. I suppose theyre worried that everybody has a foreign friend, relative etc.. and would be polotical suicide.

The issue is so thorny that no one wants to touch it and they are afraid of being called racists. However, as you say if they tackled it correctly their popularity would increase and also the likes of the BNP would become redundant.

What the three main parties need to do is agree on a policy on immigration, so that it is not a political football at the next election.

It wouldn't be political suicide if handled correctly. Everyone I talk to about this agrees it is out of control and I don't just talk to white, English people ;-)
Mister H   
27 Sep 2009
News / ARE POLISH PEOPLE TAKING OUR JOBS OR DOING OUR JOBS??!! DISCUSS. [126]

Denying them freedoms is not the answer, Mister H. They were lumbered with communism and are only now enjoying the benefits that Dassonville and Van Binsbergen established. It's more a matter for national states to resist the fullest manifestation of those freedoms by imposing limits and using national apparatus to do so. There are agendas working higher than them and that's the problem.

With freedom comes responsibility and it is the responsibility of the UK Government to control immigration so it does not take place at the expense of the natives (for want of a better expression).

Ahh didnt many EU countries cap immigration? isnt there a certain amount of flexibility within EU? Its not as black and white as that.

Some did and some did not. The UK did not and to this day I cannot understand why. There was probably some backhander in a smoke filled room somewhere that guaranteed no cap on EU immigration into the UK.
Mister H   
27 Sep 2009
News / ARE POLISH PEOPLE TAKING OUR JOBS OR DOING OUR JOBS??!! DISCUSS. [126]

Which means no more EU membership, yes?

EU memberships fine as far as trade and business is concerned, but total freedom of movement is insane and countries that join the EU should all be on a par with one another.

Poland should never have been allowed to join the EU.

Why would you only hire people with British passports if you had a much better qualified immigrant on offer, though?

I believe in "British jobs for British workers".

If employers pay decent money and don't expect people to live on fresh air, then there are decent enough British people out there already to hire.
Mister H   
27 Sep 2009
News / ARE POLISH PEOPLE TAKING OUR JOBS OR DOING OUR JOBS??!! DISCUSS. [126]

Very true.

If I ran a business, I would only employ people that hold British passports, but then I would probably end up in some court or other.

Similarly, I wouldn't want to hire a woman that had just got married and was more than likely about to have kids and disappear of maternity leave and cost me £1000s.
Mister H   
27 Sep 2009
News / ARE POLISH PEOPLE TAKING OUR JOBS OR DOING OUR JOBS??!! DISCUSS. [126]

he talks about job stealing amongst other things

A student with ridiculous hair, that is probably only here in the first place on the strength of his mum and dad's cash, talking b0ll0cks !

"How can you steal someone's job? You can steal a car or a mobile phone, but how can you steal a job!?"

By doing it cheaper and pricing everyone else out of the market !

And as for saying that he only ever seens Eastern Europeans in the Job Centre ! That's because we all know the that the Job Centre never have decent jobs. I've not been to one in years and have changed jobs three times in the last 5 years or so.

There are flats available *today* to take. I have a good friend involved with housing in Aberdeen who assures me that if you want a roof over your head, you can have one tomorrow. Of course, your neighbours will be mostly the scum of the earth and you can expect to have at least one heroin addict in your block, but that's not the point. The flats themselves are habitable, they're secure and pefectly livable.

Personally I would never see the attraction of moving to another country to live in such conditions.

If you want anything halfway reasonable in living conditions and have to rely on the state to provide it, then the lists are long.

Do you have any means of enforcing debts on people that have gone by to Poland, for instance? If not, then it points even more at utter incompetence by those running the lending departments.

I don't know the specifics, but I think it is possible to sell the debt to a collections agency based in the country that the debtor lives in.

One look at Poland should have told them that credit isn't so easy to obtain here and to lend accordingly - people unused to easy lending will by nature go wild.

And go wild many have. I would imagine that there are some pretty flash cars running around the streets of Poland bought on the strength of money still owed to UK banks.

I agree to certain extent in that New Labour have never been on the side of the British and its way of life, but having said that, poorly managed immigration goes back decades. This isn't a situation that has dropped out of a clear blue sky.

I'm pretty much the same and have never relied on the State or the Government for anything other than the NHS and my recent experiences there are enough to make me try BUPA !

The cost of living has gone through the roof in recent times, but wages do not keep pace with it. Anyone from Poland or anywhere else that plans to stick around for any length of time will soon realise this.

Immigration needs to be properly controlled, a cap placed on numbers and an end to being able to get married for a passport. End of story.
Mister H   
27 Sep 2009
News / ARE POLISH PEOPLE TAKING OUR JOBS OR DOING OUR JOBS??!! DISCUSS. [126]

That's because you're a traditional Brit who has to buy sandwiches every day and a coffee.

Anyone that that buys a huge coffee from Starbucks on their way to work and then gets their sarnies from M&S at lunchtime and does this everyday is chucking at least £60-100 a week down the drain.

I very rarely buy lunch at work or from the nearest supermarket. It's basic economics to take your own grub in.

It's funny how much people in the UK actually are in a sea of debt, just because they cannot change their lifestyle and instead blame immigrants for everything.

I work in collections for a major High Street bank and as I have said before on here, the percentage of foreign nationals in debt compared to the percentage of foreign nationals in the country is wildly different. You're talking about 30-40% of a bank's bad debt book being made up of foreign nationals, but they are in no way 30-40% of the population.

The Polish have more than there fair share of the UK's bad debt.

For a single person, you can get a council flat in Aberdeen no problem for less than 50 pounds a week.

Have you any idea how long a single person would need to wait for a council flat ?

Someone who is single and without children would be on the waiting list for years. A married couple/unmarried couple that have been together for ages, but without children, would probably be encouraged by the housing authority to punch out a couple of kids to help bump them up the list.

I know of someone that was told that he and his longterm girlfriend were looking at ten years waiting for a council property unless they had children.
Mister H   
26 Sep 2009
News / ARE POLISH PEOPLE TAKING OUR JOBS OR DOING OUR JOBS??!! DISCUSS. [126]

Darling they wear name badge in all the supermarkets..no magdas or Polish and none of them are pakis...We are doing our own jobs! Or at leat in Manchester...maybe different in Scotland...maybe??

I really wish you wouldn't use terms like that, you know that it is more regarded as an insult.
Mister H   
26 Sep 2009
News / ARE POLISH PEOPLE TAKING OUR JOBS OR DOING OUR JOBS??!! DISCUSS. [126]

This Marcus Brigstocke guy is talking nonsense. As he admitted himself, he didn't have much experience with immigration and was purely coming at it from the Polkski Pete vs Bob The Builder angle.

He needs to get out into the wide world, which is made up of much more than Radio 4 listening, Guardian reading, sandal wearing, muslie eating types that think living on an estate involves a country mansion.

It's not a case of immigrants taking jobs we won't do, as has been said before, the wages that some jobs have just don't pay a wage many can live on.
Mister H   
23 Sep 2009
UK, Ireland / "Angry swan eater" - The British media view of Polish immigrants? [63]

Don't know about that, but it was a couple of Lituanian chaps that fitted my new shower.

They didn't mention swans and were nice guys in general, although one did spit in the street while he had a smoke break.....yuk !

Their English was pretty dire though and that alone put me off ever using them again, although I couldn't fault their actual work. Cost wise, they were cheaper than the quotes I got from some others, but not by that much in the end.
Mister H   
23 Sep 2009
UK, Ireland / "Angry swan eater" - The British media view of Polish immigrants? [63]

Whether or not the family you mention had "indefinite leave to remain", the fact that this couple are relying on a welfare system they've not really be paying into means that they shouldn't get help.

I know this won't make much difference to the Polish and other citizens of EU countries, but it's my understanding that 'indefinite leave to remain' has been scrapped.

Those who are living here with such a status on a foreign, non-EU passport will have to apply for British citizenship when it expires or leave.

I think this is the Government's way of quietly accepting that their immigration policies have failed, but they can't throw out people from Poland and so on, so they're starting with non-EU citizens instead.

Many of us don't give a Castlemaine XXXX what the British media thinks but this thread seems to have potential and it'll expose who reads the papers and who doesn't.

Although there is a lot of rubbish written on the internet, their is a lot of sense as well. I hope Gordon Brown spends some of his downtime reading its content.

As for the papers, we'd all get much further if they weren't around. They just stir the pot to cause trouble and to hell with any consequences.
Mister H   
21 Sep 2009
UK, Ireland / "Polish ambassador warns - think twice about coming to Britain for work " [126]

sad but true, PL people are not among the most honest in the world - if they can pull out some money they will...

And that they have ! However, as with a lot of other stuff linked to immigration, any actual "rules" in place have only had lip-service applied to them and have largely been ignored.

Someone new to the country and with no credit history should have only have been given a basic bank account and at the very most a small overdraft. Buried somewhere in the tiny print of some treaty or other it probably says something similar, but no pressure has been put on the banks to make sure they adhere to such things.

Anyway, Mister H is right to mention the credit situation. It shouldn't be like ping-ponging between Poland and the UK. They may be flocking back in their droves, yes, but what are they leaving behind? How much unpaid stuff?

I don't have any statistics, but what I can say with 100% certainty is that compared to the small numbers of Polish and other Eastern Europeans in the country, our bad debt book shouldn't contain many Eastern Europeans, however, I would say it is about a third (and I'm not just saying that for affect).
Mister H   
21 Sep 2009
UK, Ireland / "Polish ambassador warns - think twice about coming to Britain for work " [126]

Actually, there is a lot of people coming back recently, a lot of my colleagues came back from UK and Ireland, some of my friends did as well. Those who are living in London are thinking about coming back within a year or so.

A Polish customer I spoke to recently said he was planning to return to Poland after paying off the debts he had run up through living in the UK - credit cards, loans, overdrafts etc.

The sad fact is that if the bank had been more responsible, he wouldn't have been allowed to build up so much debt in the first place.

Good on him for wanting to pay it back though, many don't and just use the last of their credit limit for an Easyjet flight, which is more than likely a one-way ticket !
Mister H   
21 Sep 2009
UK, Ireland / An emergency, Embassy information and advice [9]

I'm in Mexico and I've no way to be there for her

But you obviously have access to the internet, why didn't you just use that to look up the address for the Polish embassy ?

I never been to an embassy, so no idea what they do and don't do, but would assume it's who you would turn to if you got arrested or something pretty serious was happening.

Her problem is mainly she (and her friend) got scared when their cellphones stopped working.

Sounds like they're just having a few problems adjusting to their new situation and maybe didn't do enough research before they came.

Not sure what the embassy would do other than tell them to calm down and to stop being so dramatic.