Life / Polish pride. PL stickers, flags and the white eagle! Where does our obsession come from? [79]

Although in (Holly) £odż there are lots of things about film stars and musicians. I suppose that's a start.

Life / Polish pride. PL stickers, flags and the white eagle! Where does our obsession come from? [79]


Except JPII and kaczynski

News / Weekend of carnage as 41 people lose their lives on Poland's roads [44]


Not seen many of those. The occasional mercedes, though.

Alternatively, the delapidated fiat maluch haring down the centre of the icy road.

Life / Polish pride. PL stickers, flags and the white eagle! Where does our obsession come from? [79]

What frustrates me is the obsession with the past. Example, Olsztyn showed yet another new monument to Grunwald (which looked pretty much like every other one; chains, eagles etc). I mean, it's not like England keeps putting up monuments to Agincourt (although they do keep on about 1966 world cup, I suppose)

Why are there so few monument to more positive achievements of recent decades?


Well, you do... except they are usually non-Irish. Then there are those stupid hats on march 17.

News / Weekend of carnage as 41 people lose their lives on Poland's roads [44]


yeah, it's those sober morons that scare me the most... I need half a bottle before i get the courage to drive.

Has anyone noticed if some pr1ck pulls a psychotic overtaking manouvere it is usually an Audi?

History / Should HMG compensate Poland and/or Polish veterans? [90]

i see. thanks

History / Should HMG compensate Poland and/or Polish veterans? [90]


Out of curiosity, how would it have landed the hardware? Considering Gdansk was the only port this might have been problematic, and Czechoslovakia was already under Nazi control.

News / Weekend of carnage as 41 people lose their lives on Poland's roads [44]


I might try that whilst holding a hammer.

Funny thing, saw a couple of town-straż today clamping and ticketting some cars which seemed to be parked fine. I asked the guy why and he said it was a no-stopping sign a few hundred metres away on the other side of the road.

History / Kosciuszko Squadron - why don't they bring it back? [45]


You might find two of them are the same under different titles. I think one's a US title and one's Europe, but I could be wrong. The book is mainly about the Poles serving with RAF during WW2 but it does have a couple of chapters on the Americans and Soviet-Polish war.

The American founder was the guy who made the original King Kong film.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merian_C._Cooper

There was a British TV programme recently The Untold Battle of Britain but it only dealt with the Polish guys in RAF.

News / Weekend of carnage as 41 people lose their lives on Poland's roads [44]


Agreed. I used to get frustrated when pedestrians either waited to cross when I had stopped or just waved me on. Then I saw how drivers just ignore the fact someone has stopped for a pedestrian and drive straight over the crossing without a care.

I also find the whole pedestrian lights annoying. A driver is watching the road, and the lights and then finds the pedestrian lights allow people to cross while he is turning. I realise this system exists across Europe but in UK a vehicle cannot cross a crossing when the light is in favour of pedestrians.

There is, in my opinion, a tendency to put crossing too close to junctions, roundabouts, meaning a car has to negotiate a number of things when turning, and pedestrians don't always bother about waiting for a car to pass.

Another problem is having a major cross-road junction with fast moving traffic and no left/right filter lights. Honestly, I think Olsztyn hires any old moron who doesn't live in the town to design it's roads. Personally I'd like to tie a few of them to a stake and plant them in the middle of some of these junctions to witness the accidents until they get the idea.

In my area, warmia-mazury, the standard of many roads is appalling but it isn't helped by cretins who insist on overtaking upto 4-5 other vehicles in one go in the face of oncoming traffic. Probably the same people who think the white lines in the centre of the road are supposed to be lined up with the middle of their car, and refuse to give any room on a narrow country road...

Then there's the general impatience of drivers....

Oh, and don't get me started on car-parks!

History / When will you Poles give back German land and the cities which you robbed? [557]


You can't really 'polonize' a language if it isn't slavonic. A culture, yes, but to polonize the language, if it isn't already slavonic, would not work.


I think that was the idea. There was a phrase about 'not wanting to have German meat covered by Polish gravy.'

History / When will you Poles give back German land and the cities which you robbed? [557]

Well as English and Scottish knights help the Teutonic Order make Prussia German, maybe there's a point there.

History / Should HMG compensate Poland and/or Polish veterans? [90]


According to the Blue book issued by HMG in 1939 the British ambassador specifically asked why Poland was not reacting to the obvious build up of Nazi forces in Gdansk. He was told that it was a ploy by Nazisd to intimidate Poland and they would not react. When asked if he didn't think it put Poland at a military disadvantage he agreed it might but it took "less than a few tourists" to win a war.

Life / How can Polish immigrants complain about other immigrants? [65]


lol I've not lived in Britain for a while now but before I left I was based in Glasgow. Lived in a house load of Afrikaaners. What I noticed was that at one point lots of Antipodeans worked in pubs and sandwich bars but slowly the accents changed to those of South Africa. Had i stayed longer I'd have doubtless heard even more Central European and Baltic accents confirming my refusal of mayonnaise.


Will British Sikhs and Asians also be able to do it, or how about those bloody commonwealth colonials who used to work in the sandwich bars?

I once had an Aussie pal tell me about his returning to UK on a study visa and being made to wait at the line in Heathrow by a Bangladeshi immigration officer who told him, "I do not have to let YOU into this country!"


Sounds kinky. I hope you washed your hands afterwards.

History / When will you Poles give back German land and the cities which you robbed? [557]

Oh, didn't know he outlawed under pain of death. I knew he had a problem with it.

Interesting site: scottishhistory.com/articles/highlands/gaelic/gaelic_page1.html

Funny bit in first italicized paragraph, apparently in Scotland they spoke "Scottish or Teutonic"

Bloody Germans get everywhere. No wonder Scots rode with Teutons in northern crusades.

History / When will you Poles give back German land and the cities which you robbed? [557]


Hmm, sorry to be picky but Welsh is Brythonic rather than Gaelic. I understand it was widely spoken across Scotland and England before Gaelic made inroads (hence the word 'Aber' in both Welsh and Scottish placenames).

Strathclyde, I believe was a large 'Welsh' speaking area and places like Dumbarton were strongholds of brythonic culture (Dumbarton = Fort of the Britons)


Interesting, which king and when?

was it the german one?

Life / How can Polish immigrants complain about other immigrants? [65]

Ah, I see. NOW that makes sense. In UK it is interesting to hear established members of long-term migrant communities, like Sikhs, Indians and, to some extent, post-war Poles complaining about new influxes of migrants getting benefits they never got.

UK, Ireland / Ive been in the UK for 6 days to relocate and im going back to Poland. [281]

I think it is due to the amount of pubs closing in the last few years. many pubs have had to change drastically to survive, becoming more meal and family orientated.

Life / How can Polish immigrants complain about other immigrants? [65]

Not contextualized in the post.

Maybe I'm a bit sensitive, but I read it as Poles allegedly complaining about non-European immigrants (maybe cos of the second post, which is rather objectionable).

History / The Untold Battle of Britain [205]

What got me about this programme was that it was billed as "the untold story" and yet NOTHING in it was new. I'd read it all (and more) in "For your freedom and ours".

History / Should HMG compensate Poland and/or Polish veterans? [90]


According to British correspondence at the time Poland ignored a substantial military build up in Gdansk (despite being asked about it by HMG) as it felt it was simply Adolf trying to intimidate them.

As I understand it, UK had been downscaling its military, air-force etc throughout the 1930's and wasn't actually in a position to do as much as it said it might.

But as we are discussing compensation, what specific things are we considering compensation for?

UK, Ireland / Ive been in the UK for 6 days to relocate and im going back to Poland. [281]

I was pleasantly surprised last trip to Shropshire. The pubs have improved a lot, meal sizes are bigger and beer is reasonably cheap, service is good.

Life / How can Polish immigrants complain about other immigrants? [65]

So does that mean they can complain about other white immigrants? I mean, think of all the australians and south africans who can't get jobs in sandwich bars now.

History / When will you Poles give back German land and the cities which you robbed? [557]

me too. off to watch a Swedish vampire film. goodnight.

History / When will you Poles give back German land and the cities which you robbed? [557]

cool. i have a couple of bottles of whisky here (to celebrate the Scottish contribution to Gdansk and Elblag)

History / When will you Poles give back German land and the cities which you robbed? [557]

You know what depresses me... in all the great cities we have mentioned on this thread, Gdansk, Wroclaw Lubeck etc, there are guys out on the town at this minute, with pretty girls and large glasses of beer, who don't give a damn about all the history... while we sad, lonely sods sit here on our computers...

Language / I teach English to some Polish people - how to explain them tenses? [33]


Or had you finished the action at the time?

I was drinking vodka when I fell over. I drank the vodka when i fell over. I had drunk the vodka when I fell over.

Genealogy / Mixed-Blood Poles in America (Do we count?) [118]


good thought.

History / When will you Poles give back German land and the cities which you robbed? [557]

never tried one, but I assume it'll be hot.

Genealogy / Mixed-Blood Poles in America (Do we count?) [118]


Oh, makes me think of a good example. In germany there are a number of communities of people who emigrated ('returned') to Germany under the open-door policy of the 1960's/70's when Germany allowed East-European 'ethnic' Germans to come to Germany. In particular, I think about the Russian-speakers who were historically German but had hardly any cultuaral connection with modern Germany and many spoke no (standard) German at all. In Russia, they were referred to as 'Germans', whilst in germany they are often thought of as 'Russian'.