History / Janusz Korczak Year in Poland - a genuine Polish hero versus the namiotists [20]

2012 is Janusz Korczak Year. There have been visits to the palace at Mezenin, exhibitions of photos and there's currently a little about him in the Masonic section of the Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw.

A true Polish hero. Those crazies with megaphones in the tent are just an embarrassment and typical of nothing.

Food / OKOCIM PORTER BETTER THAN GUINNESS STOUT? [43]

In any supermarket or large sklep spozywczy. It isn't anything special, there are better beers here.

Life / Poland needs more immigrants and their children - which nationalities are the best? [518]


Wrong on all counts. You should be used to that by now. We have a pretty good idea how people will look in the future based on how other, older species have evolved. And differences in skin colour will vanish, as they're getting less now. There is only one race: the human race.

Travel / Bored foreigner in Warsaw, any advice? [13]

The queues at the Copernicus Centre are quite bad and it isn't actually anything special once you're finally in there. A huge anti-climax and crawling with groups of kids.. If you're in that part of town you might prefer the roof garden on top of the university library.

Food / Sauekraut and Peas served at Wigilia [15]

Kapusta z grochem is often made with fresh cabbage. It isnt by the way a suitable wigilia dish unless you used preserved peas - fresh ones (and it works better with fresh ones) a not in season then. It is often served in the early summertime.

Work / Need to migrate to Poland from an Arab Gulf country (logistics) [16]

Which can only be good news. There is also at least one Arab bank here

News / Who controls Gazeta Wyborcza?? [216]

You'd be surprised. Some of us have assimilated rather successfully and hear all that stuff whether we want to or not. A few people recently have said they'd forgotten I was foreigMy partner, by the way, who you'd probably describe as Polonia, doesn't quite receive the same acceptance due to accent and cultural differences.

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

I think you'll find that dodgy types like those you mention are great more likely too be connected with PiS. We know that here. Just a shame that 'polonia' is so misinformed.

News / 2000 tonnes of asbestos in Wrocław? [12]

You'd be surprised how many people, especially older people have things at home made with asbestos. But yes, the danger is in the removal since the asbestos has usually gone to powder by then.

News / 2000 tonnes of asbestos in Wrocław? [12]

I used to live very near the infamous Asbestos Triangle in Leeds - the factory is still there, too dangerous to demolish. Those people who died and whose estates are suing the company grew up there and as kids made sandcastles out of the asbestos dust that used to accumulate in piles in the streets. Normal contact (i.e. having an asbestos bit on your ironing board, or a pan stand etc) isn't a problem. Unless you're grinding it up and snorting it of course. There are also different types of asbestos, with varying degrees of risk attached to each. My grandfather died aged around 60 of asbestosis after working for years in an iron foundry where it was heavily used.

News / 2000 tonnes of asbestos in Wrocław? [12]

To get ill you have to spend a lot of time around it, so you're almost certainly OK. 2000 tonnes is perhaps a conservative estimate - in Warsaw there's probably several times that.

Travel / What is the cheapest way to get from Modlin airport to Warsaw? [106]

I'm travelling at the moment from Modlin to Warsaw (via the 'shuttle' and train). I would get a taxi if I use this place again.Very worth booking in advance, some of the taxi drivers hustling outside the airport doors look dodgy to say the least and were hassling passengers even to the extent of following one poor couple onto the shuttle bus.

Also the 'shuttle' timetable doesn't relate to flights or trains, nor do they bother to keep a float of change. A funny (and entirely Polish) moment was when the girl selling tickets told a slightly irate lady that there was no change for her 10zl note but she should have gone to the bank machine in the airport. Anyone who lives here knows that the girl didn't really think that bank machines give coins but just plucked the statement out of her head to a. avoid apologising and b. make it look like it was the lady's fault.

Off-Topic / Loading a photo of Poland from your mobile/cell phone takes 30 seconds, come on! [86]


It's in Podlasie but it isn't a church. Something similar but used rather more often....

Btw, I think a photo of bookshelves are 'the real Poland' though the Empik kindle is fast catching up.

Love / How would Polish people react to a forginer in Poland? [36]


Staring isn't considered as rude there as it is in the UK. Also people aren't as used to hearing foreign languages than people in a British city and are often genuinely curious.


Not always and definitely not in my case, but then again, you are usually wrong and this is no exception.

Travel / A week in Gdansk - recommendations? [14]

I've got 2 tickets for the Artloop festival in Sopot, to see Nouvelle Vague (a competition prize) but it looks like I have to be in Warsaw at that time (6/7.9). If anyone wants them, PM me.

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

Sally1, I think you've quoted between threads.

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

Again no. For most of human history the whole world has been poor. It's only relatively recently that parts of it haven't been. And those parts increased wealth in a certain order - nothing to do with 'race' and everything to do with human geography. In particular ease of exploiting assets, colonialism and access to markets. Crippling foreign debt and a brain drain also play their part. Nevertheless, Africa is catching up fast.

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


and better than any you've squeezed out tonight. You might pay attention to the sentence that follows it.


ah. I see you have. But still you miss the poit because it doesn't fit your distorted world view. Have you wondered ever about suppy and demand. Why a greater demand in one region forces prices up and incomes down in another...

Rhodesia, by the way, is a particularly bad example, unless you're going to pretend that everyone there had a decent standard of living and equall access to resources.

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


Coal is far less cost effective to extract, far less efficient and far dirtier. And insufficient for the domestic and industrial markets. Nuclear energy is a whole different ball game. Much more complicated and risky.

Remember oil just doesn't provide energy. It provides fertiliser and plastic, but hey, if you want much more expensive food and everything around you made of plastic to disappear, that's your fantasy not mine.


No, no, no. You may have noticed a certain inequality in the availability of food. The average Biedronka in a mid-sized Polish town is better than the biggest food shop in some countries. The richer parts of the world consume and waste a shocking amount of unnecessary food and commodities like people always follow the money.

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


it's hard enough to get out some of the oil from conventional fields. Getting it from the ocean floor is nigh impossible and fraught with danger. Otherwise the high price of oil would mean we were seriously trying.

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


That's a bit of an exaggeration. Most of the big fields have been injecting water to keep the pressure up for years and geologists are more and more looking at ways to maximise extraction of the remainder. Hence the current boom in Iraq where fields have been underused for decades and there is still a vast amount. Even though we're water injecting there as well. Plastic Pole is right though to imply that the less oil there is left the more worthwhile it will be to get it out. And people will follow the money. Right now it is in places where people (lazy people at that) have as many kids as they can squeeze out knowing the oil rich state will support them.

By the way, food production isn't that high. All food production isn't the same. Countries who consume a lot of meat are the villains here. It takes a lot of land for one cow or sheep.

News / Who controls Gazeta Wyborcza?? [216]

I think you'll find all these topics have been discussed before here. By adults.

Incidentally, if you're a Catholic and you like religious radio in Polish. Try Radio Józef, the official, Church approved station.

Off-Topic / Loading a photo of Poland from your mobile/cell phone takes 30 seconds, come on! [86]

Here goes. Do you recognise this place?

News / Who controls Gazeta Wyborcza?? [216]

Pedał, yes. Pedzio, rarely. To use pederast like that seems very archaic now. I've certainly never heard it.

Not sure what any of this has to do with newspaper ownership though.

History / Was PRL Poland? [37]

Same here. It can never just be another foreign country - it's been home for almost half my life and probably most of the rest.

Discussion of the PRL can produce some quite striking opinions. It seems to me that a lot of people acknowledge its faults but don't decry everything about it. There were certainly bad things but there were also certainly good things. A lot of older people miss it. One gentleman said to me that it's fine you can buy two brands of shaving soap rather than just one but a lot of good things - especially the community involvement have vanished now in favour of a more self-centred way of life.

News / Who controls Gazeta Wyborcza?? [216]

No. I've never hear it used that way though I've heard all the other terms frequently. Paederast is a synonym for Pedophile, not a homosexual person. And although there are certainly paedophiles in Poland there are no known paedophiles in the Polish Sejm. Or on the board of Gazeta Wyborcza.

News / Who controls Gazeta Wyborcza?? [216]


You do realise that paederasty is illegal in Poland and there are none as far as I know in parliament (though plenty in the church as newspaper crime reports show). Same with mutants. Though Macierewicz could pass as one quite easily.

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


That's of course cultural monitoring - part of the multiculturalism that you say you dislike - nothing to do with DNA and as far as I know it's about how you identify culturally. They don't measure your head or compare your nose to ones on a chart.

Race is just a construct really. It's who you are inside that matters. We are shaped by what's around us, not by our DNA.


My bad - an iPad does that sometimes. Some of the mistakes can be quite funny.

History / Was PRL Poland? [37]

I'm actually quite impressed! I must say that my first reaction was scepticism, but if you say so, so be it. Out of intest (really), why did you dirst leave and then not return after the regime changed. Were you born in Poland or elsewhere?

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


You're confusing geography with biology. Not everyone who needs a transplant can find a donor (most can't) regardless of skin colour.

Though it's investing that someone could equate bone marrow donations with the declining birth rate in Poland. Not a racist by any chance?