UK, Ireland / Time for the Poles from the UK to go home [437]

Seanus I actually agree with you. I just get sick of the lumping together that goes on.

LOL when I am asking a question like that I am trying to provoke an answer - I'm interested in helping people learn the language, that's all.

Amathyst, what a charmer you are with that last comment. Talk about nullifying any good points you make by being so crass.

UK, Ireland / Time for the Poles from the UK to go home [437]

Amathyst my mother was English. I was born in Yorkshire, raised in Yorkshire and I could pretend I was just English but actually I rather LIKE to celebrate my own diversity.

LOL Darek, behave :)

I dunno about you Seanus but I have yet to find any Pole no matter how bone headed and clodlike who has any problem with the Vietnamese.

UK, Ireland / Time for the Poles from the UK to go home [437]

Amathyst
Well actually darling I AM as much English as Polish. Yorkshire to be exact, as far back as there are any sensible methods of understanding where people are from. YOU made that assumption. I did say dual blood (more accurately duel blood, but I let the typo stand).

Tough. I am right in the middle of both worlds and can see both sides, I would like to agree with you about the points you make correctly but it's very difficult to warm to someone who is coming from a clearly defined point of "anti".

You don't know my reasons. Here is the rub. I am always opened minded about anyone's lives - what I hear time and time again is "you this" "them that". Glad you're not worried that our lads spread themselves around the world making us look like idiots - personally I am ashamed of their behaviour but I do make sure to say "this is normal in the UK".

Seanus, I have used that argument in work about an influx from other countries, and the answer is unequivilcally "that would not happen here". I am not so sure it won't but then again who knows?

UK, Ireland / Time for the Poles from the UK to go home [437]


I am as much English as I am Polish. There is rarely as much bile injected towards the English - well, go to Krakow and you might see it there based on people acting like thoughtles yobbish twats. Why are people on here unless they have some interest in Poland? I am not on forums about Tonga after all.

PS I have temporarily helped the UK situation since I *could* have sat on my arse complaining when I was made redundant, claiming dole. Sometimes with the nature of work here it is a period of famine when I would be MASSIVELY better off on the dole at home. Guess what? I'd rather paddle my own canoe than sit ******** in a country being sold down the river and sold abroad. LOT of Russian money in the UK.

Happy Sunday!

UK, Ireland / Time for the Poles from the UK to go home [437]

Oh well done. Have you a term you would prefer where people make sweeping hateful negative comments about someone because they are not from that country? Alrighty then - XENOPHOBIA, happy now? It is not accurate because that in it's own right raises more questions than it answers.

Anyway I am going to post the actual thread I came here for, have fun with your debate, I shouldn't have let myself get sidetracked in the first place.

UK, Ireland / Time for the Poles from the UK to go home [437]


I should clarify "whom I have had a run in about this with" since I can't comment about other people (cos it would be generalising, lol).

UK, Ireland / Time for the Poles from the UK to go home [437]


I think this is rose tinted. There WAS ill feeling towards Poles - for sure, where my dad worked there was a scam artist trying to screw Poles out of their pensions by pretending o befriend them. Your point about the island not being that big is very true, granted, and I was recently told by someone that since I had gone to work abroad I had forfeited my right to ever live in the UK again. When pressed, I was told if I had gone somewhere else or not been "a ******* stupid Pole" (I'd not fancy this guy's chances in an IQ contest) then fine... just not Poles.

Whatever. I am tired of the whole racism thing and to take Seanus' point even further reasonable people are in every country, unreasonable people are in every country. Shrugs.

UK, Ireland / Time for the Poles from the UK to go home [437]


Exactly Seanus. I have cause to use a UK chatroom occaisionally and I get so sick and tired of people complaining "taking our jobs" etc etc. It's the same old tired crap as thrown at other people. Fact is that there are Poles over there with lots of skills and qualifications doing jobs way way beneath them cos they are prepared to work. Every single person - and I am not generalising this is fact - who is racist about Poles has been sat on their arse claiming dole money.

UK, Ireland / Time for the Poles from the UK to go home [437]

winston, remind me next time I am back HOME in the UK (birthplace, dual nationality, duel blood) then I should arrange some scat munchers to come visit you. You talk **** and they'll eat it all up.

Sadly there is a lot of anti-Polish feeling. It's jealousy.

Life / You are Polish if... [433]

LOL I'll happily proofread it but I can't translate yet. Half Polish!!! lmao

Life / You are Polish if... [433]

LMAO the one about horseradish is so true!! Thankfully my dad never said it to me personally :)

Life / You are Polish if... [433]


One of my colleagues told me about a student who had gone to the UK and must have really REALLY annoyed someone (he was by all accounts annoying in general) because they told him that housework was 'blow job' and he would not accept that "I am going home to do my blow job" was wrong. He was enough of an irritation that she didn't even argue much when he told her that "You are wrong, I was told by someone ENGLISH not POLISH". So it cuts both ways :)

- When you like someone cos they complain
- When you can navigate a three inch wide gap in the snow to walk double file without crashing but in a wide open street you have zero spacial awareness

- When you can look at someone on a bus without it becoming a cause for paranoia

Life / Can foreigners really understand Poles? [136]


Well said Sean. I was told the other day by a Glaswegian that since I'd left the UK I could f-off and never come back there's too many of your kind here. Well, I am half Polish so I can only assume from his response of stereotyping that there's a stereotype hatred of Yorkshire in his part of Glasgow (warning for those with no sense of irony, I am making a joke here though what was said is true and that particular guy was a moron).

Agree actually Dariusz :)

Travel / Fish and Chips in Warsaw [53]

Mushy peas?

Life / Can foreigners really understand Poles? [136]

I had no real problem when I came here, but was brought up by a very traditional Polish dad in the UK. Most of the problems of identifying and understanding stem from me not being very typically either UK or Polish :)

The word usually used about me is "sympatyczne" so I am not going to worry about it too much :)

Law / Staying in Schengen - are American exempt from the 90-days-in/90-days-out rule? [23]

Be careful where you go - if you go to the UK you might have the same fate as my American colleague aka "We don't think you have valid entry requirements" and sent back without clearing immigration.

Apparently he went to somewhere just over the Ukranian border but maybe this is a good time to see the delights of a non-Schengen country for a day or two? Failing that, see if you can get someone to send you a letter asking you to attend a meeting in London for the day etc.

Language / I need some encouragement from Polish language speakers! [30]

Couldn't agree more. I'm struggling as I am the first to admit but that's because I am expecting to progress far faster than I am - it comes in fits and starts and "aha!" moments.

Love / I`m Polish bloke lookin`for an English girl. Is it gonna work out? [51]


OMG!!!

Such maligning of Yorkshire women!

(Yeah move away from Yorkshire!!!! When I came back to see my mum before Xmas she asked me if it felt like being back home in Leeds and I had to say no ... cos it didn't! Plus the weather there is as bad as it is in Poland at the moment :) ).

Lots of English women with Polish men. My mum and my dad for example!

History / WWII - who really was the first to help Poland? [900]

Point is this maybe, what did Poles do?

What about the Uprisings? Polish Paras at Arnhem? etc.

Life / Why do people think that I'm Polish ? [92]


Yep. Tho personally I see my mother's side of the family in a lot of that description (nominally Yorkashire, and my Polish dad was a total shortarse!).

UK, Ireland / Polish people in the UK using the English version of their name? [56]


Beautiful :)

I know various Agas, not anyone who would call themselves Agnus, there was an Aggy in the UK which is so ugly - Agnieszka is a pretty name (just as well considering how many of them are around).

I tell my students that unless they desperately want to be called an English name for personal reasons I'm going to call them by their actual name that most people would use (Kasia is a million times nicer than Kate, which is just as well considering how many of them are around!).

To the OP: please don't judge a nation by one person. There's lots of lovely Polish people, I am sure there are also plenty of ******** who are Polish as well as ones who are Irish: the attitude of your recent girlfriend is the way of the world these days not reason to dump someone (was the husband a decent guy? how can one know a whole story). Just saying this to point out that high expectations are the fastest way to disappointment...

Law / Polish Citizenship for a foreigner whose parents was born in Poland [174]


Well technically it is the other way around, on paper at least I am British but I am as much Polish as British and I've never felt "British" ... you can have an ID card anyway as far as I know without actually renouncing your passport, but I guess more than anything I should do this so then I can make sense of feeling like I "belong" here, which I definitely do feel :)

Life / Lack of Spacial Acuity in Poland [69]

People actively home in on me, never mind don't understand that people are objects which can impact.

My pet peeve, though, is people who keep walking forward while looking BEHIND themselves then scowl at you when they manage to take some strange trajectory right into you. Eyes are on the front of the head for a reason you know!!!

Law / Polish Citizenship for a foreigner whose parents was born in Poland [174]

What actual benefits are there to, say, a UK born person who definitely has eligibility? I know for sure that I have, as I've got my Dad's documents with me, he did not renounce his Polish nationality.

I can see the benefit for non EU people, is there anything I would gain from going through the process?

Travel / What should I wear in winter in Poland? [29]

Wear everything!!!!!!!!!

Classifieds / English cuisine week in Lidl shops in Poland [203]

Bless Gumishu - about the bootees I was just joking, my granny used to wear them.

Classifieds / English cuisine week in Lidl shops in Poland [203]

Never mind that! Can someone explain some of the items on this page:
lidl.pl/pl/home.nsf/pages/c.o.20091022.index

Particularly what is going on with the picture top right?

I might have to get some of those bootees though ... they are well sexy!

Classifieds / English cuisine week in Lidl shops in Poland [203]

Actually Seanus yes I can :) Eww!

(And it's a prejudice hangover from the UK and the Lidl in Bletchley which was manky as hell)

Classifieds / English cuisine week in Lidl shops in Poland [203]

ShawnH, if you go to the Carrefore in Arkadia they usually stock Wyke Farms Cheddar which is the real deal and is a brand I often was pleased to see in the UK - GOBSMACKED to see it here. Kuchnia Swiat often have it too.

As to anything else ... I can't bring myself to want to go to Lidl (though some of their GERMAN stuff can be very good).

OK OK I can see a reason now maybe, Millionaire Shortbread (the caramel cakes) and MAYBE the roast spuds cos they are very handy for making bubble and squeak (which is basically potatoes, cabbage and onion fried until they form a "cake" in the pan - MUCH nicer than it sounds).