Food / Anybody in Poland actually eats soup-mix soups? [27]


I do my best to, but often eat out. Which leads to the next point:


Why? Poland is the frozen fries capital of the world. Even restaurants use them. When I asked why a few years ago, I was told "Oh, we used to have to chop potatoes in the communist times but now we have good modern food". Poland has resolutely turned to processed food and hasn't yet had the slow food revolution or the rise in farmers' markets that the UK has. I doubt that many people get their 5 portions of fruit/veg per day. If you think about is, much of the traditional food of Poland (kielbasa, ogorki, kapusta kiszona etc) is preserved and processed.


Why?

History / Polish Officer in NATO, Col. Ryszard Kukliński. [145]


If the cap fits. Perhaps you think Kim Philby and the Julius Rosenberg weren't traitors either.


At least you've got one part of your diatribe right.


I doubt that.

Life / Indian Stores In Warsaw [139]


Sounds OK, but if you want to go to an actual shop, there's one in Raszyn sort of behind the old church on the main road.

Life / Supermarket culture rules in Poland? [18]


Only a handful in Warsaw. Plenty in the UK (especially Northern England and Scotland) in markets. Talking of which, Pol3 should have a look at Hala Mirowska (particularly the newer part on the right as you face the entrance). Some good shops in there. Also the little market at the junction of Pulawska and al. Lotnikow (the smaller bit opposite MaccyD's, not the big empty part across the road) - some nice shops including a good fishmonger.

Life / Supermarket culture rules in Poland? [18]

They're still around if you know where to look, usually in the middle of older housing estates. But the relentless march of the supermarket is continuing here.

News / Anti-Szymborska hate content on Polish websites [38]

Clue: see above. Poland was very lucky to have four Nobel literature laureates in the 20th Century. The last of them has just died. I don't see any candidates on the horizon.

History / Lech Kaczynski - was he a good leader? [88]


Aside from that statement being very close to the classical definition of fascism it begs the following question - perhaps the masses that were seduced to vote for the PiSuarzy and Kaczynski as president were very, very wrong? In the case of the PiS administration, it's refreshing to see that people quickly came to their senses.


Easily. You can indeed 'be sometimes right' however evidently not very often and certainly not today. In this case you are very wrong. The Kaczynski Twins' regime was a disgrace. It produced no lasting benefit, brought international ridicule on Poland (see posts by various people above), left a bitter taste in people's mouths and several years on, despite constant media whoring by the PiSuarzy shows no sign of being allowed back.

It seems I have a more positive view of Poles than you do - at least as far as believing they've made the right choice of government in the last two elections.

History / Lech Kaczynski - was he a good leader? [88]


Because as you have just acknowledged, he is right.

News / Anti-Szymborska hate content on Polish websites [38]

Now you're trying to divert the thread from the main issue - the virulent comments (mostly on-line) about a great poet.

BTW, Dario Fo and Kenzaburo Oe were both acknowledges as giants in their field.


Perhaps most of the worlds great writers are 'left-leaning'? ;-)

History / Lech Kaczynski - was he a good leader? [88]


Odd and paranoid.


No problem - I'm fully proficient. Evidently you think Polish voters are being somehow manipulated when they vote for the party you don't like, but miraculously cast off their blinkers when they vote for the one you do like. Now that is funny!


He fitted in very well indeed - the twins (to expand on what Lech Wałęsa said) have led a life in the shadows; of fitting in and working the system

News / Anti-Szymborska hate content on Polish websites [38]


And just how does 'what you can gather' about Adolf Hitler relate to Szymborska's literary prize?

News / Anti-Szymborska hate content on Polish websites [38]


Outside it. The thread is about Szymborska.


An irrelevance. Any government can nominate anyone they so choose.The laureates however, especially for the Peace Prize, are not necessarily nominated by anyone.

Interesting you think the Nobel prize is somehow compromised, and therefore that the few which have gone to Polish recipients are somehow unimportant. A view we can expect to hear more and more from the trolls here, now that Poland has only one living recipient.

News / Anti-Szymborska hate content on Polish websites [38]


A different committee as it happens, but Szymborska still received the highest international accolade a poet can get, whether you appreciate her great achievements or not.


No.

History / Lech Kaczynski - was he a good leader? [88]


Fortunately today's Polish voters are better informed. I suspect if the PiSuarzy were still in office you wouldn't have made that comment.


I don't think anyone sane would seriously suggest Polish voters are somehow manipulated.

News / Anti-Szymborska hate content on Polish websites [38]

The Nobel committee however considered her work to have great merit. A sad loss.

History / Lech Kaczynski - was he a good leader? [88]


The voters of Poland certainly think they are better.

News / Anti-Szymborska hate content on Polish websites [38]

Yes. Either Szymborska or Milosz. Much was made of both their passing, however Szymborska's work was so wonderfully accessible and so many people had a genuine fondness for her poems.

News / Anti-Szymborska hate content on Polish websites [38]


It isn't unusual to make a song and dance when somebody important dies here - look at Dr Religa's televised funeral. Szymborska's death was significant: she was arguably Poland's greatest late 20th Century poet; and Poland's only living Nobel laureate.

History / Lech Kaczynski - was he a good leader? [88]

I only heard Poles, average or not, speak negatively of the twins. Being caught on camera insulting a homeless man ("spieprzaj dziadu") didn't endear him to anyone.

Life / Russian Language - is it offensive if I speak it to Polish people? [69]


One problem with the Carter visit was that the interpreter they got in the end was supplied by the Polish government. He deliberately mistranslated certain politically controversial phrases.

Food / Anybody in Poland actually eats soup-mix soups? [27]


It's not so much about having one for a quick office lunch which is not unreasonable - the issue is more about serving pot noodles, pop tarts etc at home instead of cooking.

History / Lech Kaczynski - was he a good leader? [88]

When a party have anti-corruption policies as one of (if not the) main points in their election manifesto, spotless is the one thing they should be. PiS were far from spotless. LK's words on assuming the mayorality in Warsaw (''now it's our ******* turn'') told people what they were really about. At least the Kaczynski gang were thrown out of government at the earliest opportunity.

Food / Anybody in Poland actually eats soup-mix soups? [27]

I wouldn't touch them either. Home-made is much better. But judging by the rate that they fly off the shelves here, plenty in Poland do.

Interestingly most of Europe's packet soups and pot noodles are produced in Poland by Unilever.

Love / More loveless sex of Poles living in the regained lands [73]

I doubt there was much of a study. Just Izdebski and a journalist cooking up column inches. If he's lucky there may even be a daytime chat show and a couple of radio interviews in it for him. Much better than paid advertising.

History / Lech Kaczynski - was he a good leader? [88]

One of the many fallacies the above post is that he had some sort of role in the fight against corruption. He didn't. He did however have a history of, sometimes illegally ,intervening when anyone other than he and his brother's cronies we're getting their snouts in a trough that they had their eyes on.

LK was a national disgrace and an international joke. Poland lucky he is no longer around.

History / Lech Kaczynski - was he a good leader? [88]

His twin seems to have been politically marginalised, not least by his increasingly paranoid comments and behaviour. One question is, which was the worst of the two twins?

History / Lech Kaczynski - was he a good leader? [88]

He was never the leader. The leader of Poland is the Premier, as in Germany. And how many people can name the President of Germany without checking.

LK choose to ignore that, flouting the constitution whenever he felt like it, not least with his treasonous 'fourth republic' project. Allowing a situation to arise where the president and premier are identical twins, His behaviour after the PiSuarzy were thrown out of office (refusing to sign off presidential appointments, turning up unannounced and uninvited at international conferences, unconstitutionally threatening to block legislation on party political grounds etc) coupled with.his 'now it's our f#cking turn' attitude to corruption all point to him having been the worst politician in Poland since Bierut if not Dmowski.

The only good thing he did for Poland was to die in office before he could do any real damage. To use his own words, spieprzaj dziadu.

News / Anti-Szymborska hate content on Polish websites [38]

There are plenty of those on here. The phenomenon is called Internet Deindividuation. Writing particularly vile and aggressive things online that they'd never say in real life.

Off-Topic / Book: Gogol's Taras Bulba [37]

Though oddly enough the Sudanese government use it whereas the Ukrainian government go bezerk when newspapers use 'they'd.

Love / Living with a Polish man, but he has a drinking problem? [60]


Mine said that too.


Most ways of dealing with stress are better than deliberately making yourself ill.


Alcoholics do tend to head on a downward path.


Good luck and God bless! When one door closes another opens and you really will feel better once you have moved on!