Life / Have many Poles had enough of one another? [198]

Afternoon folks,
Just thought I'd drop my coin down the well...
I've noticed quite an increase in tension in the Polish community here in Carlisle over the last few years.
Specifically between the honest, hard-working folk and the increasing number of benefit tourists who have moved from areas of high unemployment/poor prospects in Poland for an easier life on benefits here in the UK. These benefit tourists rarely speak any/much English and can often be seen with a can of Lech in hand at 9am.

Well, that should put the cat amongst the pigeons...

Life / Have many Poles had enough of one another? [198]


I'm perfectly aware of the qualifying periods of the UK benefits system and don't think I suggested that any of these individuals had only just arrived.

Are you suggesting that this doesn't happen?
What do you mean by "nice try"?


Sorry, I think you missed what I was trying to do there.
I was referring to my choice of subject matter for my first posting.
There's nothing quite like throwing yourself in at the deep end...

Life / Have many Poles had enough of one another? [198]

I presume that's aimed at me?
Well, certainly I can offer no photographic evidence but assure you this is not baseless.
Here in Carlisle, UK there's a sizeable Polish community (has been since WWII and it's grown massively in the last 10 years).
My wife is part of that community, as are most of her friends and colleagues (after all, somebody's got to do the work).
Just to give you an idea, our daughter (bilingual, obviously) will be starting school in september and in her class of 27 there will be 9 Polish kids.

The benefit tourists I'm talking about are not the parents of any of these kids (although I hope that those parents are claiming whatever working/family tax credits they are entitled to).

The scroungers are easily identified, I see them around pretty much every day, I have spoken to a fair few of them (so I can assure you that the ones I'm talking about ARE Polish), I could point them out to you if you were here but what I can't/won't do is take pictures of them and post them on the internet.

Perhaps you are labouring under the false impression that my earlier comments were fueled by racist motives but I can assure you that is not the case. I guess what gets my goat is lazy scrounging tw*ts taking the **** like this. Doesn't matter where they come from, it just so happens that my comment related to Polish nationals because that's what the thread is about.

I've talked to quite a number of my wife's friends and colleagues about this (and many other subjects) and what is apparent is that hard working people tend to find scroungers and lazy benefit seekers intolerable THE WHOLE WORLD OVER.

Language / How can i teach my child Polish language? (I'm Russian, my wife is Polish) [35]

Hi there,
I'm a Scot, my wife's Polish. We have a 4 1/2 yr old daughter who is quite happily multi lingual.
My wife speaks almost exclusively Polish to her, I speak almost exclusively English to her with a fair smattering of Scots.
My sister is teaching her French as well as working on the written side of language.
It's working, she can switch happily between languages and doesn't seem to get at all confused.
I don't buy the idea that more than one language is too much for a child, from experience I can say that's just nonsense.

A child's brain is like a sponge, mine is more like a brick ;)