Work / English teachers in Poland - why are they so unhappy? [89]


Are you registered here? Why bother with such a silly post if you're too lazy to register.

A lot of English teachers have a few strings to their bow. Ever heard of ESP?
And actually, not meaning to do a "Wulkan", but a few times in the semester I do a 6 hour batch of work on a Saturday night which nets a 4 figure sum, net, so my voice and technical English give me a decent living on their own.

What ****** us English teachers off? Maybe most of us are British, and we call it as we see it? Dunno.........

News / Should Poland exit the EU immediately? [377]


Plenty of non-whites here. They stick out because they are smiling and jolly. At least my Nigerian friends were. They are not miserable and unhappy, like half of the population seems to be.

News / Should Poland exit the EU immediately? [377]


Are you sure about that?

And without EU funding, the institutions wouldn't be interested in the risk - what Polish money are you talking about? The Polish treasury couldn't afford a ****** in a brewery, and it weren't for the EU, people would still be dying here from silly little diseases, and the same old crap would rule, as well as outdated and amoral practices - because Poland wouldn't know any better.

Only those of a low IQ would want Poland to leave the EU, and really the rest of us shouldn't be lowering ourselves to enter into debate on this non-question.


I'm with Sikorsky on this one. The US will give you **** all. They despise you. It will be akin to a sexually transmitted disease. They even make you beg like dogs for a holiday visa :)

Europe together. Though you are the ingrates.

News / Should Poland exit the EU immediately? [377]


Do you live in Poland Ironside? I am here to tell you that Poles under 50 are totally obsessed by only one thing. Quite understandable when you realise the crap that a totalitarian system visited on them - but it ain't pretty nontheless, and relationships suffer because of it.

To deny it means you are blinkered. People judge others on their "wealth" as we in Britain did in the 1930s. I wouldn't use the word "status" because it's subjective, and a sizeable portion of the new upwardly mobile have no books in their homes, so I consider myself to have a higher status:)

Food / Smalec in a Jar - how to make it better? [19]

I eat it on spread cold on rye-bread with vodka in low-down Katowice bars...
You can dip your bread in it while cooking bacon (sliced wedzone bocek)

Either will shorten your life unless you are in your 20s/30s - then it can give you energy of course....

Language / Information on Polish textbook Hurra Po Polsku [33]

But there are a lot of threads on this site, and excellent they are too.

Books I use:

Polska po polsku/Wrobel/Interpress 1986
Mowimy po polsku/Bisko/Karolak/Poliglota 1966
Colloquial Polish/Mazur/Routledge 1983
Lets Learn Polish/Bastgen/Wiedza Powszechna 1978
Przygoda z gramatyka/Pyzik/Universitas 2000
A Handbook of Polish pronunciation/Puppel et al/Panstowe Wydawnictwo 1977
Porozmawiajmy po polsku/Awolski/Wydawnictwo Polonia 1989
Polish in 4 weeks/ Kowalska/Wydawnictwo Rea/2008
Teach yourself Polish/Corbridge-Patkaniowska/Hodder and Stoughton 1988Contemport polsi hrammar/ Oscar Swan/Slawica/ 2002
Hurrah po polsku Malolepsza/Prolog 2006
Polski, krok po kroku/Stempek et al/Glossa

Again I have lessons with Pani Iza and she's extremely long suffering and resigned to having my zlotys contributing to her university years.

Now I must learn some vocabulary to be able to talk about the refugee crises and to dismiss her fears about Islam taking over the world (more verbiage required!)

So note to the OP from way back........learn the rubric/instructions, and Hurra Po Polsku is one of the most learner friendly books I have come across - at least far easier than the older ( more traditional approach) textbooks that I have given as a mini bibliography.

News / Poland's PiS = suspicion & fear? [70]


It never will Smurf. You know full well it is the major "employer" in some towns. All you can do is vote with your feet, as I did.

News / British schoolboys very sensibly dealt with by the Poland's authorities after theft in Auschwitz [45]


Er.... no is the answer to that. Protected by international law. Poland has to maintain the site. An element of visiting jewry clearly are as odd and nationalistic as their Polish conservative counterparts and really shouldn't be heard, unless they have something sensible to contribute.

News / Nazi gold train 'found in Poland' [90]

Anyway, one poxy train isn't going to pay for all the miners and policeman sitting on their arses at the age of 40 while the rest of us pay for the lazy scum.

News / Surprising ranking of Polish supermarkets (Biedronka expensive?) Living expenses in Poland. [35]


+1. A shop for snobs. And there's nowt as amusing as the lesser known species of The Polish Snob :)

News / Nuclear Power in Poland? Yes, please! Absolutely nobody disagrees! [73]

Because Polish politicians are populist and determined to perpetually subsidise the mining "industry"? And a vote for PiS is only going to slow the nuclear program.

Life / Top 5 things I like about Poland [77]

I agree with your top 5 Steveramsfan.

I am not very keen on your name though, as I am Dougpolforestfan!

My top 5

1. Poles are dog lovers and that's an ice-breaker
2. Weather. Positively tropical at the moment ....
3. Varied landscape and open country, and no farmer pointing a shotgun in your face.
4. Fewer chavs than in the UK
5. Cheap service sector, and quick too. None of this "Get your laptop back in 3 weeks from the repair center" malarkey.

Your number 5 will alter with a new PiS government sadly. I am seriously thinking of closing Dougpol Mansions for the duration.

Polonia / Let's talk about Sweden and other Scandinavian countries [236]

True, but the Narvik iron-ore was the real key. Sweden let it be transported through Sweden if I recall, so the Nazis let you be. In today's world that would be collaboration. Please correct me if those are not the facts ( regarding the iron ore)

Polonia / Let's talk about Sweden and other Scandinavian countries [236]


Very troubling post. A lot of peeps here in Poland today would have been a damn sight more wealthy if there hadn't been war visited on them, then 45 years of communism.

And you people did precisely nothing, because as you so state, it was self-preservation - and you are talking about material facts?
Disgusting.

Polonia / Let's talk about Sweden and other Scandinavian countries [236]

moved from another thread

Mmm - let's get this straight Player. Did I hear you say that you are Swedish? If so, your statement has a degree of temerity in it that I find staggering. In that the Swedes did precisely nothing to negate that cruelty offer than accepting refugees, which by convention they, as a "non-combatant" nation, were morally required to do.

I put those words in parenthesis because....

Sorry Player - your grandparents' friends were cowards. Everybody knew what was going to happen. Swedes everywhere should still hold their heads in shame, and there was no excuse to be pacifist, for the SECOND time in one century - those are the facts as some see them, if we have to talk at all about what happened 70 years ago.

"We are all in the Common Market now, and everything should be forgotten. Let's all be friends. " The words of the immortal forementioned Basil Fawlty (a John Cleese creation)

I will put it another way Player. Would you fight to protect your country? I am 57, but if there were no nukes, and Britain were threatened, I would walk there - today - to help preserve my people's way of life.

What did you Swedes preserve? You lost your integrity, your being. Better to die.

Life / Why do Silesians hate Poland? [41]


I refer you to my earlier post frd.

There WERE no "profits" - and Silesia today does have its' local budgets. So autonomy today is a concept in name only and the huge majority would vote against it.

Life / Why do Silesians hate Poland? [41]


What do you do for a living NotPolish? Just asking, because I sometimes tell other Americans to F off on this forum after a few sherberts.

Have you been drinking in this heat? :)

I have and am, but am still quite pleasant. That may change if you don't behave:)

Life / Why do Silesians hate Poland? [41]


Actually, the OP did have a historical point.

Katowice people hated the communist regime for their centralised government. It was felt that Silesians did all the work in the mines and foundries, while Poles elsewhere buggered about in the fields or in white-collar jobs, and that Warsaw robbed and redistributed the wealth.

All utter nonsense of course. There never was any wealth.

Hard coal earned vital foreign currency while it lasted, but lack of mining machinery, gross miss-management, and huge economy of scale in utterly useless heavy industrial product meant money was wasted on an epic scale. If it weren't for the IMF's 30 billion dollars in loans, there wouldn't have been a "modern" industrial infrastructure to be restructured.

Of course older Silesians who don't understand the market economy hanker back to the politics of the certain level of autonomy that Katowice and the area enjoyed in the inter-war period, a state that was to be restored to the region, because today it has it's local spending budgets and economic power base anyway, separate of state control.

Life / What is Poland's view on obesity? How healthy, fit are Poles? [166]


Really Delph? Scientifiic data to back that up? I go swimming in the sea most days, and while I generally keep my mouth shut, except when taking in air, it tastes OK...... certainly a lot better than swimming pools!

I don't suppose the fish would enjoy the latter either. The flatfish does taste disgusting, but I like Baltic cod :)
On the subject of obesity, some Poles should try the cabbage diet - al dente - not their slime version. A (large) friend went three weeks on this diet (cabbage and water) and lost 8 kilos :)

Cheap too!

Law / Buying a USED CAR in Poland, my personal experiences and TRAPS to avoid !! [133]

Sorry but I don't buy that.

After 23 years living here I am still a guest myself, but if anybody, in the UK, or Poland, I don't give a ****, tries to rip me off, like this guy, he isn't going to be big enough. I have never cared about the consequences, and neither should you.

Otherwise these slimeballs will think they can get away with it. Front them up and back it up with the promise of violence. That is the only language they understand.

Normal people don't steal, and you are allowed to change your mind on a purchase.

Law / Buying a USED CAR in Poland, my personal experiences and TRAPS to avoid !! [133]

There are A LOT of threads here istannbullu. Never, EVER buy a used car here for under 30,000 - meaning - roads are poor - cars are damaged - it's a sellers' market - which is a joke. Poles are absolutely not to be trusted on this subject, as their post-communist economy was built on buy cheap, sell for inflated prices (buying from them is their worst character, maybe their really only one).

Buy used cars in Germany/Holland/Belgium.

Over and out.

PS Go back mob-handed and offer him out on the street and get your money. Do not involve the police or lawyer. If you try to be decent you will lose your money. Threaten him badly and he will pay up on the spot, little ******.

History / Future of Kaliningrad Oblast - is it possible to annex by Poland or will it become an independent country? [137]


This one : Dokumentation zur früheren deutschen Provinz Ostpreussen

Others will have to brush up on their schoolboy/girl German though :)

History / Future of Kaliningrad Oblast - is it possible to annex by Poland or will it become an independent country? [137]

Anyway.....

Kaliningrad is a tragic story. And now Russia would protect their "gift in war reparations" with nuclear weapons. They really don't need to as nobody would want to take it from them. From being the most beautiful city on the Baltic, the area is now a concrete living hell for those Russians who have the great misfortune to live there. They have subsidies and cheap flights to Russia, but it is a militarised zone and I would have thought everybody who could, must have married a Pole et al years ago to get out.

History / Future of Kaliningrad Oblast - is it possible to annex by Poland or will it become an independent country? [137]


Stop feeding the racist, Jon. I think he came here for an argument. This is not the argument clinic, is it? And anyway, he's had his 5 minutes :)

News / Poland's indecent junk capitalism? [53]


Talking sense as usual I see Delph - but the government couldn't possibly countenance cutting back on the state bureaucracy.
Half their families are employed as nepotistic ZUS governing bodies and management.

News / Poland's indecent junk capitalism? [53]


Yes, of course. But the number of people it affects are so small in the scheme of things they just put up and pay up - thinking they are helpless.

In the UK there would be mass disobedience and rightly so.

News / Poland's indecent junk capitalism? [53]


AS before Harry - I do not, and will not, EVER pay another SINGLE zloty to the "company" known as "ZUS". I am covered RE: the health service by being employed by my wife, and others can work legally for an "organisation" for a 400 zloty monthly fee. I humbly suggest the rest of the country's self employed follow my lead, if they care about ******* up the system and forcing change.


Ah.....

Let immigrants in?


(ZUS for self employed...) 1,300.............. at the last count, when I said goodbye to the jokers.


Cimoszewicz said the same in a BBC "HardTalk programme" interview in 1999...promising that the SLD government recognised the problem, and that ZUS payments were excessive and that "restructurisation", cliched as the word was, was a priority. And words they were.......

It baffles me why the self employed continue to pay and don't revolt.

News / Poland's indecent junk capitalism? [53]


Yep - I was shocked when one of my students flagged that this is her aim in the nearest future. She works for an institution and apparently will get 100% of her salary paid in full for that time.

Can that be true?

News / Poland's indecent junk capitalism? [53]


If I don't get the offer and promised remuneration that I think I am worth, I stay at home and walk the dog. Unfortunately, there are some who think it worthy to work for scum wages. Funny, innit?

News / There is no Poland without the Church! [178]

Thanks Delph! A mine of information as usual. I was threatened twice by the Krakow cops like that when I went to visit daughter at uni, and they sounded very believable. Lying little scum. Krakow cops see a Katowice number plate and say "Let's have some fun." Words can't describe, but then...... I can think of two.