Love / Why Polish girls are awesome? [141]

Of the ladies I work with, only one of about 15 could be considered overweight. At last year's Christmas dinner, every one of them was well dressed and looking gorgeous. If half of them weren't married... Oops! Did I just say that? Stereotypes are just stereotypes. I have seen lots of nice looking Polish women (but still not enough) - okay so most of them are lovely, but like any nationality: not all of them. But perhaps all women are beautiful, just each in their own different way.

Can you tell I've been drinking? A night out ahead of me. I wonder if there will be any Polish girls in the pubs of St. Albans for me to practise my linguistic skills with...

Life / "Children in Exile" - Polish documentary film about children who were taken to Siberia [5]

With friends like that, who needs enemies?

Life / My girlfriend wants to go back to Poland as she thinks lifes better there [36]

I just asked my flatmate about going to the shops for a few essentials, and his eyes looked glazed and he just continued to mutter half-comprehensibly about those green American dollars. I couldn't get any sense out of him... until I said we could go to the park on the way and smoke noisily. He's decided to stay in the UK rather than go back to Poland in September as previously planned.

I just had to correct a typo there - planned came out as polanned!

Home may not be the best place in the world by other people's standards, but if it is your home, as they say: home is where your heart is.

UK, Ireland / My Views Of Poles Working in the UK [169]

Health, education, law and order, taxation, pensions, lending rates, house prices, Tescos taking over the world, the rubbish they put on TV nowadays, that new car that apparently looks quite good, will there be enough milk in the fridge for another round of tea, global warming, football, religion, the fragility of life itself, the awesome power of the human mind, maybe even immigration...

UK, Ireland / My Views Of Poles Working in the UK [169]

Where did you get this 58p from? Do you have any sources? How do you know this 58p doesn't balance loss and gain to the economy? What happens if I find that 5 złoty coin I think might have slipped down the back of the sofa? Why does Coco Pops turn the milk brown? Where have all the flowers gone? How long is a piece of string?

Language / How Many of you love the Polish Language? [79]


But how?

UK, Ireland / Why so many British can't spell ? [83]

We British pronounce it wrongly, given that vitamins means vital amines.

There hasn't been much mention on here of English-speakers from all English-speaking countries having bad spelling.

In Polish, it seems you can't just learn one form of the word and know how it works in all cases and instances. Likewise, in English, you have to learn it at least twice - once for the spelling and again for the pronunciation.


bed is a good word for this.

Life / Dungeons & Dragons - big in Poland?/Who here plays it [45]

When I was a student, there was a mate of mine who did that sort of thing (role play, I think he called it - I'm not referring to S&M). Every evening when he returned home, we used to ask him 'Did you win?' After a while, we could see this had started to get his goat. Luckily, I think the goat turned out to be quite useful when combating pixies or something.

Life / Dungeons & Dragons - big in Poland?/Who here plays it [45]

Dungeons and dragons... Never heard of such a thing. Nothing to do with sado-masochism, is it?

Life / How will I be treated in Poland by Polish people? I'm an English person. [26]

They'll love you to bits.

Although the doggy's answer is probably better.

Language / How Many of you love the Polish Language? [79]


You mean the penultimate, of course.

The level of stress is quite good in Polish. It's not as up and down as in English, or too typewritery like Spanish.

News / Plac Wilsona Metro Station selected as most beautiful in the world ! [22]

Then, all of a sudden, they all dramatically, simul-flipping-taneously changed their minds.
Must be something to do with smoking noisily in parks with their funny-looking noses or something, eh, Micky?

Language / How Many of you love the Polish Language? [79]


As if there is a language called African and it sounds really horrible.

If I knew the Polish for 'Get a life', would I start to love the language?

Even though I don't love the Polish language, I obviously like it enough to want to learn it.
French sounds nice when spoken by a lady, but for me: no thanks.
German sounds nicer than the usual stereotypical view of it, but I really don't like the sound of Poles, Slovaks and Lithuanians trying to speak German.

Now I do like Portuguese.

Life / Where would you rather live in Poland? [54]

Should I choose Gdańsk too? I've never been there.

Life / Horticulture in Poland [63]


Perhaps I am a ventriloquist as well as a horticulturist.


Now I know why some of my customers tell me their trees didn't survive after planting.


I do enjoy weeding by hand. No white suit, face-shield, Wellington boots or protective gloves. Just the sound of root and soil seperating. Not everyone thinks this way.

Language / Text to speech program in Polish and more! [15]

... and why not!

I am amending this post. I tried it and it didn't work.
But then I refreshed the page and tried again and it did work.

Life / Where would you rather live in Poland? [54]

£omża.

Although possibly not.

Language / How Many of you love the Polish Language? [79]

I don't think it's inherently beautiful. I don't love it. But I'd still like to be able to string a few more words together properly. It depends on who is speaking it, what they are saying and how well they have mastered the language. That means I love my own language more than perhaps I should.

UK, Ireland / More Polish workers leaving the Isles [28]

Shame. I thought you were going for a moment then.


The closest he could do to running a newspaper is doing a paper round.

News / Poland wants $55bln of new roads for Euro 2012 [51]


I suppose so did Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. The Baltic states freely chose to give up their pre-war independence just so they could be more like their bestest friends, those lovely Soviet Russians, who they had all been itching to climb into bed with from the year dot.

No. Wait a minute. It was forced on all the others, but Poles are too stupid and have ugly noses and smoke noisily in parks so they went for the idiot's option. Right, Micky?

Life / Horticulture in Poland [63]


Salad can be more interesting than mind-altering substances. Sorry about not answering the question.

The EU and national governments regulate pesticides. I don't know about the specific kinds of weeds for different crops or different substrates. In the ornamentals sector, we tend to use granular pre-emergence Ronstar 2G straight after planting, followed by a liquid spray of Flexidor every 4 to 6 months. For unplanted areas, stronger chemicals are used.


Not like my experience of over 10 years.

Life / The strangest things in Poland [468]

Sat-nav systems in cars that get people lost within a stone's throw of the country's biggest airport.

Or can that happen in any country?

Life / Horticulture in Poland [63]


A few: yes. Most: no.

There are weeds with a wide-ranging distribution, some of these as a result of humans accidentally taking seeds or even plants with them. Other plants may not be weeds in their native habitats, but do become problem plants once transported to a new environment.

Lamb's Quarters / Komosa biała (Chenopodium album) - Grows all over the place in the Northern Hemisphere.
Jimson Weed / Bieluń dziędzierzawa (Datura stramonium) - you're asking me about psychedelic drugs aren't you?
Pokeweed / Szkarłatka (Phytolacca spp.) - probably not, but there are people who grow funny plants, although from Poland, Amsterdam is not a particularly long flight away. Then again, maybe pokeweed doesn't contain mind-altering substances, but is a perfectly innocent plant that only damages people when not cooked properly.

Life / Horticulture in Poland [63]


Good. People should just get what they like. However, I'm not thinking so much about yearly trends - thinks fall in and out of favour over a slightly longer time period than that. Gardeners are supposed to be patient people who can let their plants grow over many years.

Last year there seemed to be a big thing for palms such as Bismarckia nobilis. I imagine a lot of people spent a fair bit of money on these things, only for them to die.

But with the property business doing well, a lot of plants tend to get traded as well. Gardens have a load of new plants thrown in (usually cheap ones) to make a property look good for sale. Then once sold, the new occupants then change a load of plants for things they like. A little while after that, they have to replace a load of these plants with ones that can actually grow in the conditions they have for them.

Or is it that not everyone is as garden-obsessed as the British? A Polish colleague moved back to Poland last autumn with a load of Wisterias and Fuchsias and stuff. Now a Slovak I work with has caught the garden bug - mostly for Roses and Camellias.



Plants that date any British garden to the early 1980s.


Best of luck to you, sir. Good to see you have signed up to PF as a member now as well.

Life / Horticulture in Poland [63]

What are the really trendy plants to get this year in Poland?

UK, Ireland / Do Polish immigrants wish to stay in UK - long term? [92]

The colder it gets, the less people wear. I've seen Newcastle on a Saturday night, and most people are dressed in a way that could either be described as minimalist or scantily... and that's further south than nearly all of Scotland.

Are there any Poles in Shetland?

UK, Ireland / Do Polish immigrants wish to stay in UK - long term? [92]


There are the Southern Uplands too.


Is there something else in the middle? Is that mountainous too?

UK, Ireland / 90,000 Scottish Immigrants in Poland! [67]


A wearer of woad then? Will you be changing your name to Piktja2008 and getting a nice new Piktja to go with it for your avatar?


Try reading this - Piktowie
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piktowie

UK, Ireland / 90,000 Scottish Immigrants in Poland! [67]


Lots of people were described as Wlesh, or various different forms of the word.
There was a group of Celts the Romans cvalled Volcae. (Ask Crow, he'll tell you they were Slavs). The name was borrowed into Germanic as *walkhaz to mean Celts generally.

This word gave us the modern names of Wales (and derived surnames such as Wallace), Walloons (French-speaking Belgians) and Vlachs (various Romanian groups). In Polish, the Vlachs are called Wołosi (or is that Wołosi?). Does anyone know if that is anything to do with why Italy is called Włochy, and why is that plural (if I got that right)?

Anyway, southern Scotland was in Roman times inhabited by Brythonic speakers (Welsh) rather than Goidelic speakers (Scots, Irish). So Scotland's heritage is a mixture of Welsh, Irish, Pictish (whatever that means), Roman and Saxon... and Viking... and Norman... and Polish (ha ha!)

News / My Tribute To Poland [29]


None of us live in the 1st world. We all live in the 3rd world. Let me explain...

1st world = Mercury
2nd world = Venus
3rd world = Earth
4th world = ... not sure. Is it the Moon? Is it Mars? Is it Grzegorz's ego?


Not entirely. See my last point. I think it's big enough to pull things into its orbit, whether they like it or not.