Life / Polish equivalent of Maplins or Radio Shack in Łódź [12]

Same item. DHL for both. 10 Euro to UK, 20 Euro to Poland. Either they have a special volume discount on UK items or extra insurance needed for delivery to PL? Cholera wie.

Life / Polish equivalent of Maplins or Radio Shack in Łódź [12]

Oddly enough I have ordered some bits from Thomann. I noted that delivery charges from Germany to Poland are exactly double their rates to UK. That kind of sucks. I wonder what the reason is? (maybe smaller traffic volume?) It was mostly little bits I wanted, leads, connectors etc. I would have gone mail order but I wanted them quickly. I got most of what I needed, but it was hard to track down silly things like 1/4" to 1/8" headphone jack adaptor without buying headphones (eventually tracked one down in the French supermarket REAL of all places).

Life / Polish equivalent of Maplins or Radio Shack in Łódź [12]

Thanks all of you for your suggestions :)

Life / Polish equivalent of Maplins or Radio Shack in Łódź [12]


Good idea - thanks. I've not signed up at Allegro yet, but will have a look there. Ideally would be some kind of shop with a website, where I can look at the pictures to find out the Polish name for what I'm looking for. What I love about Maplins is you can shop online or in the store. (Their website will usually give you an idea of stock levels in the shops as well).

What I find difficult in Polish shops is that, apart from some of the more modern ones, stuff is often not on display and you have to ask for it - which gets hard unless you know what it's called. ;)


Thanks. MediaMarkt might have the stuff? I think there's a MediaMarkt in Galeria.

Life / Small change in shops in Poland!? [95]


That doesn't line up with my experience. I was signing receipts in Poland for at least 2 years after chip and pin came in in the UK.

Life / Small change in shops in Poland!? [95]

I've never worked in a large shop. How does it work with change? Is it normal that the change from today gets fed back into the tills tomorrow? Or does it get banked and more withdrawn from the bank? How does it work in the supermarkets in the UK?

Life / Small change in shops in Poland!? [95]

I think this aspect of Polish life is actually improving. You are still expected to provide change if you can, but more and more private shops are getting this right with a service mentality. Never had an issue with Tesco. Biedronka is a low-budget supermarket isn't it? Wouldn't expect much of a service ethic there.

Like all things, it takes a couple of generations to change. In the local shops near where we stay, if they don't have change they let you pay them later (for small stuff).

UK, Ireland / Oxford Polish bride 'heartbroken' over arrest - accusations of sham marriage [126]

I think the Oxford registry office story about the 19 year old is separate from the other story. But maybe they are linked in some way? Not that it matters much since the thread has already moved on. ;)

UK, Ireland / Oxford Polish bride 'heartbroken' over arrest - accusations of sham marriage [126]


That's one way of reducing the immigration levels. Bit radical though.

News / UK might have anti-Polish socialist Prime Minister [29]

It's Cameron

UK, Ireland / Immigration and Identity: how to keep Polish identity when living in UK. [30]

That was funny. Pity about the Russian accent at the end, but it was very good. ;)

Real Estate / Just by gauging the interest in this forum says all about property in PL [36]

So the company will fold
The bank will take the property and sell it for a low price to someone who doesn't need to borrow money to buy it.

People will lose their jobs while those who are already rich get richer.

That's crapitalism for you. Still better than socialism though.

Real Estate / Just by gauging the interest in this forum says all about property in PL [36]


Most people with decent houses built them themselves or bought a dzialka and built as and when they could afford to. Until recently you could offset the total cost of a build against tax. Very helpful to the wealthy.

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]

Good post Darek. Believe me, I don't think UK is "not guilty" of errors. It was always emphasised that a course of antibiotics HAS to be finished every time I've ever been given them in the UK. That doesn't mean it is everywhere though.

A (paraphrased) comment in that second article about "every Polish first aid box contains leftovers of courses of antibiotics" implies that this is normal and habitual. I can assure you that it is not common practice among the Brits I associate with. People finish their courses as it is drummed into them - and I can remember being told the reason why.

Still we are guilty of many other things, like having the world's busiest airports, so we are partly responsible for facilitating the spread of diseases.

I'm sure things have changed. I've been self-employed for 13 years so I don't "go to work" as I work from home. People are under a lot of pressure at work. So maybe they are going to work when ill? (In both countries) When I read articles in Polish newspapers about Poles coming back to Poland to get antibiotics because British doctors won't give them to them, I see that there is a problem.

We also have Polish friends who asked us to bring them antibiotics and other prescription only medication when we went to Poland. We won't do that.

Maybe these are isolated cases? Or maybe there is an antibiotic culture to deal with in Poland as the evidence shows.

This thread has been interesting because of the progression.

Poles overpresccribe anitbiotics
No they don't
Evidence provided
Brits do too
More evidence provided
Brits are worse

It's all interesting, but I still want to get to the bottom of how it happened.

Britain has its problems like any other nation, but you can't use that to deflect from the fact that Poland has too and this is a thread about Polish antibiotic prescribing habits and culture and illness frequency.

So far, just one Pole has admitted the issue. The rest of you flatly deny it and try to attack other countries to distract from the debate.

I admit there are problems in my country and it is not perfect. It may be even worse than Poland. But trying to focus the thread onto how crap UK is will not answer the question of how it happened in Poland.


Some do, some don't. Just the same as every other nation. Why do you guys have to make everything personal? Seanus is just having a giggle. Is it not possible to discuss a serious topic and intermix it with humour?

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]

Nope - sheer extrapolation. But isn't it obviously going to happen when people move around on this scale?

I don't mean that all 2 million are bringing stuff in. What I mean is that with the mass migration, some of the ailments from the immigrants' country will be brought across.

If there are resistant strains in country A and millions of people move from A to B, some of them will carry those strains with them and country B will be affected.

It's nothing personal.

Life / Do you think a smoking ban would be a good thing in Polish restaurants and Bars? [217]

Maybe you're right then?

I haven't frequented pubs for about 15 years, so I don't really mourn the loss. It seems a cultural pity though.

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]

Thanks for that Darek.

I accept it may well be happening in the UK now. (See, no attempts at diversion or denial). What I am more interested in though, is why it was happening in Poland 20+ years ago. What or who started it? After all we have a couple of million Poles in the UK now bringing in nasty antibiotic resistant strains which are a legacy from that past practice.

Also I think the UK government has a lot more common ground with the communists than we would really care to know.

Now for the jokey bit ;)

GPs in the UK are too busy trying to diagnose their ways out of paper bags. The system here has gone to pot with the attempted privatisation of the health service. Too many bean-counters, not enough good docs.

Life / Do you think a smoking ban would be a good thing in Polish restaurants and Bars? [217]

Coz there's an economic downturn and booze is much cheaper in shops?

Coz pubs are less popular than they once were?

Maybe the smoking ban was a contributory factor, but it's not the whole picture is it?

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]

Nope, it's dusznica bolesna.

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]

This from 2009 TYGODNIK "POLITYKA" [ec.europa.eu/health-eu/doc/jp_pl_art_en.pdfl]


I believe that paper I found has partly answered the question why Poles get ill more.

Part of it is due to inappropriate prescription of antibiotics and part of it may well be climate or culture related.

I'm slightly disturbed by a couple of translation errors in it though (without a look at the source text - but I am an experienced reviser of Pinglish). Angina has been translated as angina, which it isn't - it's tonsilitis. Efficiency of drugs is probably a translation of skuteczność, which in a pharmaceutical context should be efficacy - meaning - it works. Tut tut EU for using a non-native.

So all this begs the question. When did this irresponsible prescribing of antibiotics start to occur? Was it during communist times or was it later. I rather think it was during.

I don't really care if I'm right or wrong, I just want to know. I didn't think antibiotics were very profitable so I'm not sure if the evil big pharma argument is applicable. But it may be. Evidence please people. :)

From the same article...


Which textbooks? When did they study? Who was in charge of the curriculum? Who instilled these irresponsible ideas and when? That's the next stop on this exciting adventure. ;)

Life / You are Polish if... [433]

You are Polish if you deny all of what Seanus wrote whilst


while simultaneously taking antibiotics for a non-existent minor ailment. ;)

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]



By the way the date of that paper is 1996. So it's not a sudden new thing that happened since you came over to the UK.

I appreciate that docs want to help patients. It's kind of the reason for their existence innit? ;)

Did you notice the authors' names for authors #1 & #2?
A Windak, T Tomasik, HM Jacobs* and RA de Melker*

Sounds like Pole, Pole, Brit, Dutch.


They did say relatively minor, not just minor. Apparently 30% of cases are appropriate for antibiotics. I have had some pretty bad sore throats in my life, but don't remember a pus dripping experience. However I believe those are the ones for which antibiotics ARE indicated.

Like Seanus said. Potrzebna kopa w dupę i już. :)

The problem with giving unnecessary antibiotics is that they will breed resistant strains of bacteria.

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]

All that typing and still no closer to an answer. ;)

I think three times in two yeaars is a lot. The fact that you don't shows a cultural difference. Perhaps that's all it is?

But the facts speak for themselves. Polish GPs are much more free with antibiotics. I'd like to know what started it.

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]


Give me a doctor who can't diagnose his way out of a paper bag in preference to a cretin like that. ;)

Yes I believe there are more issues associated with keeping houses and flats overly warm. Eskimos don't have colds.

Many Poles think you can catch a cold by eating an ice cream in the sun or drinking a cold beer on a hot day. Oh dear. Pass the antibiotics.

Get well soon Sarah. BTW the link in post #14 was a study on the prescribing habits of Polish doctors for tonsilitis. You might find it interesting. I don't know whether antibiotics are indicated for what you have or not.

Certainly the attitude towards tonsilitis "angina" (which is a linguistic false friend because angina is a coronary artery disease in English, treatable with sub-lingual nitro glycerin) is very different in the UK and Poland. It's regarded as a big deal in PL.

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]


LOL. Well you know plastic bags are not as biodegradable as paper ones. So they will eventually get out when the bag rots down. :)

So OK you poo poo my ideas about why Polish doctors overprescribe antibiotics. In fact you seem to deny it when there are clearly research papers out there that show this to be the case and also the newspapers within Poland are publishing articles about it.

In fact you are going so far as to start slagging the UK doctors (perhaps with some justification - some of them are a bit crap - mind you all Polish GPs do is refer people to specialists - they don't seem to treat anything apart from coughs and colds or flu and they prescribe antibiotics willy-nilly for those ;) )

But what you are not doing is answering the question posed in the original post, which is why are they overprescribing antibiotics?

I'd still like to know why. By the way it happens in China and many other countries with Eastern Bloc influence as well. Still think it's not commie culture?

I'm fully aware that your experience may not match up with what I'm saying. Not everyone has a typical experience. I lived in Poland from 2006 to 2008 and during that time my son was prescribed antibiotics three times. I'm not just making this up. I have been there and done that. How long have you been living in the UK? Quite a while I think.


A hoof up the arse and a bottle of amoxycillin - the cure to all ailments. ;)

Life / You are Polish if... [433]

Seanus you well know that everyone in Poland will have downloaded most films before they are released. ;)

Life / What is it with the Polish love of antibiotics? And Why do Poles get ill more? [40]

Clearly there are exceptions in both countries. :)

Decent schools (in whichever country) are concerned with educating children and their welfare, not ticking boxes on pieces of paper.

For something like strep throat a decent doctor would prescribe antibiotics. Did you even go to a doctor? I'm not against antibiotics at all, but they should be used within their intended guidelines, not for colds and minor flu bugs which will go away by themselves.

You may not be a typical Pole. I am certainly not a typical Brit (I wear a thick coat and hat when it's cold). But that doesn't change the fact that even the Polish health service acknowledges that antibiotics are being overprescribed. That's a fact. I may have the reasons wrong because I've only seen how it works in one area of Poland.

As to the commie thing, I was under the impression that the day of lost production was worth more than the person's health and the commies used any chemical means available to keep people productive. Total and utter short-termism. I'm sure we were taught in science class that the communist countries were abusing antibiotics in this way. (maybe it wasn't truw, but maybe it was?) How else do you account for the different prescribing habits of doctors?

You've obviously been in the UK quite a while, your English is impeccable. I salute you. :)

fampra.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/13/5/445.pdf

Interesting link here to a research paper on prescribing habits. (I note it also talks about recommendations for bed rest for tonsilitis - so it doesn't fully support all my points. But it is 14 years old).

Life / You are Polish if... [433]

That's your pre-menstrual anxiety. (PMA)