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Posts by ifor bach  

Joined: 20 Feb 2012 / Male ♂
Last Post: 12 Mar 2013
Threads: Total: 11 / In This Archive: 8
Posts: Total: 152 / In This Archive: 124

Displayed posts: 132 / page 1 of 5
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ifor bach   
16 Jun 2013
Off-Topic / Modern parenting = bad parenting? [20]

Similar with bringing very young or badly behaved kids into restaurants

It's easy enough to suggest those with young children should be treated as pariahs if you don't have children yourself.
ifor bach   
8 Jun 2013
UK, Ireland / Scots better than Poles? [41]

I don't really regard Gaelic as being the 'Scottish' language, any more than either Scots or Brythoneg.
ifor bach   
8 Jun 2013
UK, Ireland / Scots better than Poles? [41]

Are turnips better than cabbages? I've oftrn pondered this question.
ifor bach   
3 Jun 2013
Life / Are Polish people brave or scared? [32]

The Turks and the Greeks know how to riot thats for sure, we should all be a little in awe of them.

You're in awe of people who trash their own cities. Figures.
ifor bach   
3 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

I didnt actually ifor, i was just amused at your use of the language - very pretentious.

The use of the language was ironic. Sorry if this goes over your head, TB.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

As I keep saying, junk contracts. It doesn't matter how you phrase it - the fact remains that there are people doing work for you who are employed on junk contracts that you can terminate at any time. They might not be "employed" in the strict sense of the word, but that only makes it worse.

To the best of my knowledge, she doesn't have any 'contracts' with anyone. Perhaps she secretly does and you know about it but I don't. From where have you mysteriously acquired such in depth knowledge of the spouse of an anonymous internet poster. I am genuinely intrigued.

As for what it has to do with me - it's very curious that a foreigner, who has so much to say about the lives of Poles, would choose to contribute to the problem rather than fixing it.

By doing what exactly? Wasting his time arguing with loonies on internet sites?
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

So your wife runs the company, not you. No real difference.

She doesn't employ anyone either other than a (part-time) accountant and secretary.

Please explain what any of this has to do with yourself.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

Honestly, I'm more surprised that you've got the nerve to come on here and tell everyone how poor Poland is and how big your flat is

As I don't actually employ anyone at all I don't know what you are talking about.

I'd love to know what you're taking to achieve that alternative state of consciousness that leads you to make quite bizarre, random accusations about people you know literally nothing about and have never met.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

Just about the only people working on such contracts (if you are talking about language schools) are naive natives in their first jobs who are happy to work for peanuts.

People such as yourself, perhaps?
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

I see you're still avoiding the question as to whether you actually pay Polish people a living wage with a proper contract.

Because (a) it's none of your business and (b) has nothing to do with what we are discussing.

We don't actually 'employ' anyone anyway because this makes no practical sense.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

Ditto I think that is the case in a delph case.

That's quite a remarkable feat for the man to get the two of us to agree on anything.

I seem to have developed a delph obsession.

He appears to live in some sort of bizarre alternative-reality Poland. I'm fascinated to know what kind of psychedelic drugs would be required to achieve the desired effect. Whatever he's on it would have to be really powerful stuff with some pretty groovy side-effects.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

Spent much time in Polish villages then?

Well, believe whatever it is you want to believe then.

I have a mental image of your visiting a Polish farm, (an Ali G sketch when he asks a farmer where eggs come from, the farmer tells him from hen's vaginas, then comments that: "you haven't lived, have you").

I strongly suspect your knowledge of Poland to be something akin to that of Ali G.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

Are you trying to claim that all migrants are leaving for economic reasons?

Of course not all of them are. But if people were migrating for 'personal development' then you would see a roughly equal flow in both directions.

Migration is generally from poorer to richer nations and rarely the other way round.

Sorry, but city centre communal flats aren't representative of Poland as a whole. It's not exactly a big secret that city centres (especially in places such as Szczecin) are filled with "pathology" - which was very much a deliberate destructive policy of the Communists to put such people there. It's getting even worse now that these places are often being reclaimed by the old owners that want such people out.

Spent much time in Polish villages then?
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

I've always thought for some people, the UK was an escape from the Polish way of being rather than for purely economic purposes.

Well, you thought wrong, didn't you.

They would be outraged because they wouldn't want to admit it - they would probably tell me that I'm a "Stupid foreigner" and that life is incredibly hard for them blah blah. Heard it many times, yet rarely seen any real evidence of poverty.

Either you haven't been to Poland, haven't looked or are incredibly unobservant. Where I live I see it all around.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

Delph next time I'm in Poznan, maybe you would like to meet some of the people I know. They would be outraged to hear you talk like this.

If I was Polish and on a moderate income I would most probably commit physical violence on some patronising student-w*nker-type Westerner informing me how well-off I was.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

I don't know which comments exactly you have in mind.

Just for example, here:

Anyway, I have to go and watch Pogoń. Thanks for the conversation.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

?
I've quoted delph, I thought it was clear that my comment was addressed to him.

The comment concerned what I had written earlier in the thread. Were you referring to your own attitudes or those of Polish people generally? When I wrote 'you' did you take this to mean, yourself, yourself and others on this thread, or Polish people generally?

This wasn't any kind of personal attack on you (meaning Paulina) as my friend Tosser Boy presumably took it for.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

I guess you haven't heard the famous expression "magister na zmywaku"? ;)

+10,000 (And for your other contributions)

Perhaps we sometimes misunderstand each other.

You have to be careful with the word 'you' in English, it can mean:

1. You (singular)
2. You (plural)
3. The impersonal people in general

English can be an imprecise language, and this little word can be the source of much confusion and misunderstanding.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

It has everything to do with things. It's the crux of the issue. No doubt you'd survive the experience, but presumably you wouldn't be happy about it.

Perhaps you'd decide to move to pastures new.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

The results are not 'pretty similar'. They leave Polish people far worse off. The cost of food, petrol, and many other things are pretty similar for both countries.

Furthermore, in Poland you have higher social insurance costs and no child allowance.

Poland, by Western European standards, is not an easy place for 'ordinary' people to live.

It is harder. The fact that you imagine otherwise shows you have little real conception of how ordinary people live in Poland.

I'm looking at it realistically - Poland is not anywhere near as bad as you paint it to be.

I don't know your personal circumstances, but try living on a third of your normal income for a year and then you can look at it 'realistically' yourself.

People tend to get reported because of personal grudges, not because of do-gooders. This is the big difference.

People can and do get reported for breaking the rules in Poland - why this happens isn't really important.

The black economy is huge in Poland because of excessive regulation and taxation, which makes it difficult to run a business honestly and legally.

Don't imagine that those who work in the black economy are 'rich' - often they will get paid less than minimum wage.

People can and do break the rules, (because 'the system' penalises honesty). People can and do get caught. And when this happens the consequences can be horrendous.

Where I live most of the housing stock is still owned by the city. I've written extensively about this.

Furthermore, when it is renovated it often gets sold to the rich rather than the original tenants.

(I'm talking about kamienicy in the city centre here).

My own flat has 140 metres. It previously housed three families. Some (corrupt) rich guy managed to get the whole property for himself, which he then sold to us.

I'll try to find the exact figures for ownership which I don't have to hand.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

ifor bach

And presumably your Polish is good enough for you to understand well what the non-English speakers tell you?

I think you're yet another one that makes the mistake of taking Polish people at face value. Trying to make out that they're all "incredibly poor" is quite, quite wildly off the mark.

I don't listen to what people say, but rather observe what people do. A lot of Polish people emigrate abroad for mundane and commonsensical reasons. (It's very difficult to have enough money to raise a family here). Of course, not all people are 'incredibly poor'. In fact, most of the people I know personally are well off. But I don't take these people to be the 'norm'.

No-one is saying that they're wealthy, but they certainly aren't poor by world standards.

No, Polish people aren't poor by world standards. They are by Western European standards. Very poor. This is not putting people down but stating a simple and obvious truth. The minimum wage in the UK is about five times that in Poland. Deductions for social insurance are far higher in Poland then the UK. There is no child allowance in Poland.

Poland, by Western European standards, is not an easy place for 'ordinary' people to live.

If you don't know that, then I'm afraid you don't know Poland.

Of course, I know what 'kombinować' means. Do you?

Tell you what though, do a test. Do an exercise with their students, and ask them about a variety of scenarios in which someone is doing something bad that doesn't affect them directly.

I suspect that my knowledge of such issues is deeper than yours. It does not come from reading students essays, but rather from real-life experience. All countries have a 'black economy' to a greater or lesser extent, including the UK.

I know about illegal and semi-legal ways of employing people here. I also know people who have lost their businesses for doing so, and I personally know of people reported to the authorities for doing this.

Rules and regulations are tougher in Poland than in the UK, and are enforced in a far more arbitrary manner.

See, you're yet again displaying complete arrogance towards Polish people. They aren't incredibly poor compared to Western European standards, because for a start, many working class people actually own the properties they live in. Get your head out of your arse and stop being so bloody condescending towards them.

I'm just stating facts. You are being arrogant for writing about a country you appear to know practically nothing about. Your comment about working-class people owning the properties they live in is absurd. Where I live (Szczecin) 90% of the housing is owned by the city. The owner-occupier rate for the UK is around 70%.

Now, please remove take your own advice about removing your head from your posterior.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

Perhaps not in all faculties, but in general, a top university education is available to all in Poland.

And not guesswork? Presumably, as an 'expat', you hang out with those who speak English and can afford to go to the kind of places foreigners go to. And you are making your foolish pronouncements on your superficial acquaintanceship with such people.

The fact that people will be quick to jump on the phone to report a tax dodger in the UK, but in Poland, doing business that way is considered normal?

You don't think anyone ever does this in Poland then? Based on what, exactly?

They are incredibly cheap by European standards, and many free courses exist - funded by the EU.

Yes, they are incredibly cheap by Western European standards. This is hardly surprising given that Polish people are incredibly poor by Western European standards.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

But Poland has far more social mobility than the UK

Does it? How do you know this? I suspect you know little of Polish society.

and many activities such as working on the side attract absolutely no scrutiny unlike in the UK.

I have no idea why you imagine this, Ignorance, perhaps.

Swings and roundabouts - a working class person here can work full time, go to university part time (I know several people that did this) to better themselves and leave with no debt, whereas a working class person in the UK would be highly unlikely to be able to do this.

Part-time studies in Poland are not free. You don't know what you are talking about.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

Have you actually been in Poland recently, Ironside?

I live in Poland. Life is hard for working-class people. Very hard compared to the UK.

If you don't know this then you don't really know Poland.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

Do you want to say something or you are just your usual plonker self?

Yes. Simply making statements without supporting evidence makes you a poor debater. Calling someone a 'plonker' is not a trump card. Hope this helps.
ifor bach   
2 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

I fail to see how claiming that Poles have a hard life when evidence suggests otherwise makes you "right".

It is because Ironside says it is.

That's the limit of his debating powers, I'm afraid.
ifor bach   
1 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

So for those of you who know what people really think please tell some of us how that should be interpreted.

I like your responses, Foreigner4, and see them as being generally true.

I used to live in Greece.

In Poland you are ALWAYS asked, "why did you come here?"

The tone of the question is: "you are mad, you did something wrong, you can't find a job etc".

In Greece, the question wouldn't be necessary - "everything about us is the best, you would have to be stupid/mad NOT to come here if given the opportunity to do so".
ifor bach   
1 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

People on internet forums are rarely representative of 'most people' imho.

I remember Polish people who had come to the UK before 2004 and were convinced that everyone was looking down on them. Imho, (of course), they weren't, and it was all in their heads.
ifor bach   
1 Jun 2013
Life / Poland's expats' colonial mentality? [176]

Because I don't think people from Western countries 'look down' on Poles to the extent she imagines.

Until recently, few people in the UK had any opinion (good or bad) about Poles. They were not people we came much into contact with.

Imho, Poland is obsessed with comparing itself with 'the west', whereas 'the west' is indifferent rather than hostile to 'the east'.