UK, Ireland / Polish aversion to the truth about UK [10]


This forum is supposed to be in English, hateboy. Obey the rules or **** off.


Why American spelling, hater? I thought you were a pure Englishman.

Do you infest other websites with your bile? If so, you must be very very busy.

Life / Poland and every aspect..... Please help me learn and understand the realities? [108]

If you walk through a doorway in Poland and then hold the door open for someone else coming behind you, why don't they thank you? This used to p1ss me off but I know Polish people are generally very polite, so it must be something else. I know this may seem trivial when compared with elected kings, etc. but it intrigues me.

Life / Poland and every aspect..... Please help me learn and understand the realities? [108]

Thanks very much for your informative reply; much obliged.


Half: mother Irish, Dad a Londoner. In fact I've probably got a bit more than half, as they used to say in London, "Everyone has an Irish grandmother". Then again, my mother's grandfather was English. People in the British isles are well mixed up genetically, which no doubt strengthens the gene pool.

Life / Poland and every aspect..... Please help me learn and understand the realities? [108]

I think you need to be a bit more specific p3.
I'd personally like to know why name days are more important to some people than their birthdays.

Life / Do Poles drink before noon? [95]


Do you have to be drunk to understand this?


You could say the same about not actually living here.

Life / Do Poles drink before noon? [95]

Sounds like the usual romantic crap about ruddy-faced yeomen farmers wassailing. As we speak I have a can of Żywiec in front of me. The figures on the can look nothing like the guys I see outside the nightshop at six in the morning in Poland.

News / Who controls Gazeta Wyborcza?? [216]

Guys. Polonius is exempt from backing up his libel because he Just knows. He feels it. He gets a vibe. And he says he doesn't like hippies.

News / Exorcist monthly goes on sale in Poland [17]

It must be comforting to know that you are the possessor of the one truth. There are fundamentalists in Karachi, Kabul and Riyadh who feel just the same as you.

Real Estate / How much to build an extension in Poland 50m2,in the country side. [5]


That would do it, I reckon. And Polish widows are quite cheap to maintain, as long as you can stop them sending money to Radio Marya.

Real Estate / How much to build an extension in Poland 50m2,in the country side. [5]

Materials would cost pretty much the same. Labour is significantly cheaper.

Travel / How to get from Warsaw to Belarus (ex-Polish areas)? [5]

Train from Białystok to Grodno. 100 KM. Don't forget your passport and visa.

News / Exorcist monthly goes on sale in Poland [17]


I wonder what that would be.
Doesn't the RC Church understand that competition is good in the long run. It will mean a slimmer, slicker business. Look at the U.S., where entrepreneurial pastors have had to learn to be more persuasive and offer more for consumers' money. The superstition business is thriving; RC Church should get real or move into other markets.

News / Who controls Gazeta Wyborcza?? [216]


John, what does cash mean in this context? I've tried Urban Dictionary but it didn't help.

History / Memos show US hushed up Soviet crime against Poland [97]


Thomas Gerth's quote, of course, not peterweg's.
This is the worst kind of bureaucratic bs. American and British failure to challenge Stalin in 1943 is understandable, but by 1951 there was no good reason why this atrocity couldn't have been exposed. I wonder whether it was a case of "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive".

Travel / How quickly does the sun set in Poland? [12]


The nights drawing in means that the stars and planets are visible much earlier. This month Jupiter can be seen near Aldebaran (the eye of Taurus) in the late evening.

If you get up early, Venus rises four hours before the sun, and is very bright this month.
Two nights ago we had a perfectly clear sky where I live and it was great to sit out (still not too cold) and try to identify the constellations, with the majestic sweep of the Milky Way directly overhead.

Look on the bright side. No damn mosquitos or flies, no more grass to cut, and the universe to admire.

USA, Canada / Who is better informed, the expat or the Polonia crowd? [144]


Who are you talking about, speedy? Sounds like you are referring to 'African-Americans'. If so, would you like to change the bit about


Forgive me if I'm wrong. Please clarify.

Work / English qualifications to start Teaching English In Poland. Is degree of some sort needed? [123]


I paid 1,000 GBP in 1992!

USA, Canada / Who is better informed, the expat or the Polonia crowd? [144]

Of course I don't! I have a great deal of respect for the achievements of the US. Having said that the country also scares the sh1t out of me with its creationists and alien abductees, etc.

USA, Canada / Who is better informed, the expat or the Polonia crowd? [144]


So no unequivocal pledge of alleigance to the USA, the country of your birth. puk puk.

USA, Canada / Who is better informed, the expat or the Polonia crowd? [144]

...and the second question? Bear in mind that Homeland Security is no doubt monitoring you.

USA, Canada / Who is better informed, the expat or the Polonia crowd? [144]

Almost brings a tear to the eye. Er... you do realize that Polonia is not a real place, don't you?
One thing I want to know about starry-eyed Pol-ams. Purely hypothetical, crazily improbable situation. The USA goes to war with Europe. Poland joins her European allies against the Great Satan. Who's side are you on?

Work / English qualifications to start Teaching English In Poland. Is degree of some sort needed? [123]

Modern coursebooks and their teacher's books are of great help to new teachers. Follow the lesson plans to the letter and you shouldn't go far wrong. As for teaching English in English, that's what EFL courses teach you to do. Early on in my career I taught Russian ten-year-olds. I didn't know Russian but the methodology I'd picked up from my CELTA course helped a lot.

Work / English qualifications to start Teaching English In Poland. Is degree of some sort needed? [123]


A four-week CELTA course is not going to prepare candidates for intricate grammar questions from students. That takes years of study and experience. CELTA is valuable in that it trains people in methodology, and, of course, you need it to get any kind of respectable job.


That's the risk involved, and it's good that you recognize it. Oh, and you won't do it well at first! That also takes time.

USA, Canada / Who is better informed, the expat or the Polonia crowd? [144]


They weren't.

USA, Canada / Who is better informed, the expat or the Polonia crowd? [144]


Exactly. If you were here when the plane went down in Smolensk, you'd have felt the shock and confusion on a visceral level, whether you were Polish or not.


Unless he lives in Poland he definitely does not know more about Poland than me. You, maybe, but not me.

News / 1.3% birth rate = Poland's slow death [221]

I'm clearly too drunk too understand this level of English. Goodnight.

News / 1.3% birth rate = Poland's slow death [221]


True, which is why I avoid mirrors as much as possible. Perhaps K will post a photo of his beautiful self.

USA, Canada / Who is better informed, the expat or the Polonia crowd? [144]


That is not what the thread is about ffs. It's about who knows what's really going on in Poland, on the street, in the office, in the bar, even inside the church. Someone in America or someone in Poland?

News / 1.3% birth rate = Poland's slow death [221]


Thanks man. I guess I must be a leech. Just so I know, what have you done exactly?

USA, Canada / Who is better informed, the expat or the Polonia crowd? [144]

It's interesting that this thread has been up for four days and has only 12 posts, including this one. Not a single one has come from the usual Pol-Am crowd who think they know what they are talking about when they tell us what Poland should be like. Their contributions are often romantic rants about a Poland that never existed, filled with absurd ideas about, e.g. Poland leaving the EU.

Come on guys, answer the question. What do you know that I don't? I came here twelve years ago and have worked hard, contributed to Polish society in several ways, paid my taxes (all of them) and gained citizenship. When I hear the American or British grandsons of Poles pontificating, it really p1sses me off. Especially when I'm told that I have no right to contribute an opinion.

The most vociferous Pol-Ams on this forum know nothing about day-to-day life in Poland.
End of rant.