Food / What's your favorite Polish beer? [870]


Back on the beer this weekend for my good friend the Doctor's graduation ceremony. Will try that Zywe stuff and hunt out the above in the delis of Katowice........

Chocs away!

Work / Moving to Poland from the USA. Question concerning CELTA certificate.I need help [32]


The Celta - I would say to the original poster, It gives some self-confidence, and a passport. Some will live without it - horses for courses, it takes the heat off a little as another poster just said. Still, what does it really prove? Not sure if I ever expect to be hired, or would hire a teach, on that 700 quid piece of parchment alone.

Some can, some can't......... and before I criticise others I always look to myself - hope the trainers do too!

Work / Moving to Poland from the USA. Question concerning CELTA certificate.I need help [32]


Just learn to be a brown-noser and you'll be fine. The RSA was originally created by that chap who created International House, to earn himself a few bob, and to act to teaching like a driving licence does to driving.

Just because one holds the modern equivalent doesn't mean one can teach, just as a driving licence doesn't prove much either.
The difference is that there isin't any arse licking to be done when training for one of the above.

News / Flood situation worsens in southern Poland [119]

People in Malapolska are complaining as usual - that the mountain rivers are not regulated by channels and dams.
Sorry but I the tax payer am certainly not going to pay for them to erect their houses in a rural idyll near a river.

The solution is simple - build a house on higher ground - or be properly insured. You'll get **** all of my taxes if I have any choice in the matter. :((

Love / Polish girls attitudes towards sex. [568]


In the UK apparently not - more women than men have affairs...... Or maybe the men don't admit to it even in a sex survey - short of an Orwellian police state with hidden screening everywhere, or honest sampling, there really is no way of knowing.

Life / Driving test, English speaking driving school in Warsaw? [95]

Right - thnx. Thank God for that! My daughter is Polish and I thought I was going to get fleeced :(

Life / Driving test, English speaking driving school in Warsaw? [95]


Outrageous! To take a test in Britain costs what? 40 quid? It's up to you how you prepare. If you aren't ready to step up, the examiner will stop the test, and drive the test car back to the Driving test centre. Game over!

None of this 500 quid to learn to drive nonsense; it's a state sponsored rip off.
Get the kids out on some Sunday open space for practice, a few lessons with the old instructor, a few with their da, and they're away.

1500 zl max is what it's worth IMO

News / ANTI-POLONISM IN EUROPE [39]

No - just a desperate insult when they've lost an argument or have no real reason. Whenever I have a debate with anyone in England and am critical of something, they often say, "well, **** off back to Poland then if it's so great" ( suggesting of course, that compared to magic Britain, it isin't!)

Life / Driving test, English speaking driving school in Warsaw? [95]


Not anyone in their right mind. There was Millers, and then there was Miller Lite. Words fail.....

There's England v USA in just 4 weeks. I'll probably be back on the beer for the first time since New Year and on the Budweiser.

The real one, not the American gnats pizz :)

Amazing that Mel Gibson was over the alchohol limit, American beer doesn't have any alcohol does it? Presumably that's why - to "allow" them to drinkl and drive?

Though Poland's nasty sugar beer with high liver rotting alcholic content didn't a top 2000 people getting nicked for drink driving over Easter. Do they have to redo the test?

more work for the driving schools then!

Life / Driving test, English speaking driving school in Warsaw? [95]


Not true.

The editor of Gazeta Wyborzca used to dine out on this story. He went into a liquor store outside his hotel in Illinois and asked for a bottle of gin (why gin and not vodka he didn't elaborate - presumably he likes gin )

When asked for an Illinois drivers licence as proof of age.he proffered his Polish passport (he was 24 at the time.

Whereby he got the retort "I didn't ask for your godamn passport - the law requires I ask to see your state driving licence".

Friend answered that he didn't possess one ( being a tourist on a write-up for said paper)

"Well - I can't sell you any liquor without an Illinois licence sir..."

This is gospel for crying out loud. Lol.

On the way back to his hotel, thirsty and disgruntled, he got cited by the traffic cops for walking on the turnpike (there was no walkway, or pavement in B Eng, because the whole population used the petrol driven horse and nobody walked anywhere)

Life / Driving test, English speaking driving school in Warsaw? [95]


Exactly Zuczek - people wax lyrical about the "system," when my students' stories illustrate perfectly clearly that the process is rather too subjective, or worse. Getting better, but still some way to go.

And what about this protectionist bollocks that you MUST pay for a certified driving instructor? I swear to God I could teach better driving techniques than most of them - if they learnt themselves from someone who was perpetuating the old myths of "never give way" and "don't leave a gap in front of you to the next car - to prevent someone cutting you up from the inside" LOL

To be fair, most young drivers seem to be doing it right - so maybe there is some method in the Driving centre madness after all. It's the business types and the old ditherers who are downright dangerous drivers at times, and who deserve a year off the roads to be taught a sharp shock, in the case of the first group of offenders

But learning to drive in Poland is not a cheap option.
And I too will not be changing my UK licence for a polish one while this is still a grey area.

Life / Driving test, English speaking driving school in Warsaw? [95]


I was talking about the system of quotas, whereas for what appear to the layman to be reasons of financial expediency,only a certain number of learners are passed from a given centre on a particular day allegedly.



I don't get that one, sorry. What's wrong with the UK hill start and the reverse around a T junction? In reality that's what you have to be able to do, and the reverse Reginald Mulhausen parking manoevre lol - remember that TV public information film on British television in the 70s?

The Polish driving test is very hard to defend in functional terms in my opinion. And it was potentially designed to ensure that cock ups on the cone reverse are quite likely, even where the learner in question can drive perfectly well. Not a viable test of driving ability and spatial skill. Again IMO

News / Jarosław Kaczyński sharing his words with Russians! [57]

We've already had this discussion Seanus. You and me obviously share the opinion that Poland is a nice place to live - especially if you love the outdoor life. But obviously we differ as to the cause of this accident.

The only real character defect in the hard working and sociable Pole is that he likes to take risks; that's all it was, along the same lines of what very likely happened to Sikorsky.

But everything has to be conspiracy theory, to give some amusement and sell copy, just like a vision of the Madonna appearing on some bleak hillside, and I'm amazed and tickled pink that you would choose to go along with it. :)

News / Jarosław Kaczyński sharing his words with Russians! [57]


So why did the British apologise then, if there was nothing to apologise for? (in your view)


Because I criticise your backward looking self pity you mean? I already stated that Katyn was a war crime - one of the worst.

Some Poles would never be satisfied until it was given number one status on the all time horror list, so much do they enjoy a car smash type scenario. Fair enough; I've made my opinion clear that you do yourselves no favours if you bring up the same subject at every conceivable diplomatic opportunity.

News / Jarosław Kaczyński sharing his words with Russians! [57]

I'll summarise - I was accused of bad taste for comparing the fire-bombing of Dresden with Katyn, two tragedies of war.
I was saying that the Germans have moved on and accepted the official British government apology for that war crime.
The Russians apologised to Poland too. Some of you haven't accepted it, and the population seem to enjoy mass grief via billboards as if it all happened yesterday.

I wouldn't care less but I have to put up with half the family sitting glued to the TV, brainwashed by the latest TVN24 offerings on the war and Katyn, when there are more pressing subjects, such as death and taxes.

News / Jarosław Kaczyński sharing his words with Russians! [57]


Mixing the gene pool, employer, rescued a street cat - need I go on :)

News / Jarosław Kaczyński sharing his words with Russians! [57]


Fair enough - by the way,any Pole that lives in Britain and doesn't vote, or doesn't contribute, doesn't have a view and is living with other Poles and not actually living amongst the British, is of no use to that society.

Same goes the other way - happy to help on some of the things you cant see for yourselves Socrates.

News / Jarosław Kaczyński sharing his words with Russians! [57]


Just illustrating that I am being fair - but that old rust bucket aka the Battleship General Belgrano was heading away from the 200 mile exclusion zone at the time and was about as dangerous as a lone Derby supporter on a wet Sunday in Nottingham.

It was populism for Maggie - stopped her having to do anything about the unemployed and spending cuts - there's a connection somewhere........

Oh yes, I remember :)) - it suits some Poles to bang on about the past - it is definitely a lot easier than putting money into rebuilding the slum inner cities.

News / Jarosław Kaczyński sharing his words with Russians! [57]


Tax payer mate - and sympathy for your obsession, not a lecture :)

News / Jarosław Kaczyński sharing his words with Russians! [57]


What? I fail to see the poor taste.

The world at large has known since the eighties about Katyn and Dresden. They are both on a par as to war crimes of horrific magnitude - Germany has anniversaries for their dead too, but after an official apology from the British over Dresden, we are reconciled. But, yet again, the Polish disaster has to be the greater in your eyes, and a Russian apology, wherever and however it might be, will never satisfy.

Why are the two poor comparison? Are you insinuating that it is because Katyn was face to face murder? And murder from the skies on an innocent civilian population isin't as horrific?

Please do tell why my comparison of two of the larger war crimes of the 20th century is facile, or in bad taste? Maybe in bad taste for Germans then? Or are you saying they are the scum of the earth and their plight doesn't equal the Poles because of war which their grandfathers waged? The women and children of Dresden had nothing to say in the matter - I'mnot going to comment on Katyn because that's you Poles to argue - except to say if it had happened to us British we would have got over it, and definitely not had it rammed down our throats all over city billboards.

That is your poor taste. IMO

I am British, and prepared to have ill will against my own (war time) government for ridicule, as to Dresden, or for sinking the General Belgrano in the Falklands conflict, so it's not as if I'm biased as to which act was the most horrific. We now know what happened at Katyn - What do you and the Poles who cant move on want? Photographs?

News / Jarosław Kaczyński sharing his words with Russians! [57]

Mmmm - not convinced. The only bit I saw, as I can't stand Kaczor's hypocritical habit of being filmed in front of the family heirlooms ( no tasteless "villa" for him! ), talked down to the Russians, which their president clearly did not do when he spoke to the Poles.

Not that I am pro Russian in any way, but if I were - I would point out that Katyn occured 70 years ago - and was a another form of mass murder along the lines of the firebombing of Dresden - both war crimes were perpetuated in the name of "expedience."

I was teaching in Dresden for a while - other than curiosty as to the reasons why, I never ever met hostility. The Germans let sleeping dogs lie in general terms, an admirable quality that some Poles would do well to copy.

RE: Katyn: As the musical genius Mr James Marshall Hendrix used to admonish his fans who were crying out for "Hey Joe" - You're living in the past!

Life / Driving test, English speaking driving school in Warsaw? [95]

Sorry to compalain again boys, but here goes. Everyone knows the Test Centres in Poland are dodgy. Anyway, the Polish test doesn't make sense. When was the last time anyone out driving had to reverse through a set of traffic cones?

My daughter is taking driving lessons next year. I will personally vet the instructor - as Poles cant drive. period.
Sorry to offend you guys, you can build fantastic structures, you are great engineers, artists, sportsmen, and so on and so on , but behind the wheel of a car on a public road you have no spatial concept of what is safe and what is not. Ask any foreigner, including the UK Foreign office website.

I would never personally volunteer to take a test in Poland for love or money.

UK, Ireland / UK Ip address while living in Poland [14]

Ahem (Clears throat) I thought everybody knew.

UKTV

Travel / Visiting Sopot for a week in late May/start of June looking for restaurants/pubs [17]


I spent 6 weeks in hell - er, I mean Sopot - last summer Andy at the wifee's cousins' gaffe.
A stuck up lot - the Sopotians - as it's the most valuble real estate in the whole of Poland.
Can't see why - a pre-war rotting dump. IMO

Also watch out for potential rucks.

Life / Saw a girl in black openly smoking a spliff on a Katowice street today [49]


Frd - we've all rolled our own.......tabacco, that is (smile)

At the old Uni we used to roll the Old Holborn quite generously - but not a Hokie :) No point, no gain - just mighty expensive and not logical.

Life / Saw a girl in black openly smoking a spliff on a Katowice street today [49]


This is worth a new thread, or has been done to death already.But here goes.

All this nonsense about allowing a non-smoking room and a smoking room in bars and restaurants is absolute cock.

Decade old research proved that the partition co -efficient set up between the smoke in one room and the clean air in the adjacent room raises carcinogenic levels by a factor of X - yet this is what the Polish Sejm seems set to propose.

Again, and stop me if I've got my facts all wrong, the Polish parliament shows an amazing arrogance in the face of axiomatic truth.

A scandal, and a killer.

Life / Saw a girl in black openly smoking a spliff on a Katowice street today [49]


Nah - it was the real thing. I recognised the look of contentment - very akin to David Crosby 1970s :))

Also she had the rebellious air about her, like she was all tooled up :)

News / 2010 Polish Presidential Election [39]


Because Kaczynski was shown as a clown when he was prem? Hated even more than his brother? The fact that enough Poles are hopefully fed up of the (supposedly non-existent) presidential veto? Time to actually pass some legislation through parliament instead of just talking the talk?

Having said that... nowt surprises. My best mate is PIS through and through, luckily he's never sober so never bores me on the subject:)

News / 2010 Polish Presidential Election [39]


Not a chance of the Dwarf MK2 winning. If he does I'm giving up after 17 years and returning to Blighty. On my bike.