News / European News and Poland Thread - part 4 [934]


Looks like Jim doesn't realise that this is a handful of small petrol stations in a semi-zrural area that has plenty of other petrol stations belonging to other chains.

There's no petrol shortage at all.


Really?

Look like he missed the bit two lines before:

He probably thinks it's closed down rather than had a week of chaos that's now been sorted.

News / How will Trump's trade tariffs affect Poland? [74]

Chickenfeed and (if any customer agrees to buy it at all) will probably end up as dog food and prison meals since most supermarkets and restaurants won't sell hormone-treated beef which has to be labelled as such, whether sold as beef or as a component of a frozen ready meal.

There's also a non-binding promise to buy a small amount of biofuel, something which was going to be imported anyway under worse terms!

The MAGATs are in complete denial at how destructive this is for their county.

News / How will Trump's trade tariffs affect Poland? [74]


The few here seem to be in denial about how disastrous this is for them.

In a couple of weeks, I guarantee that the usual suspects will be saying how wonderful it is for bank profits there, without actually realising that the banks' profits are temporary ones due to major customers frantically trying to adjust their investment portfolios to mitigate the damage.


They can't suddenly produce their own cars in large volume again from scratch and don't hold the patents for most life-saving or otherwise important medicines so they have a binary choice of either crapping out of their silly tariff demands or doing without those products.

For the world's main pharmaceutical manufacturers, there's no shortage of markets for their products worldwide and the same goes for car manufacturers.

The Yanks can't pick and choose what they want to put tariffs on. If they want the medicine, they can't get away with tariffs on other products from those countries.

Even the tiny handful of deals that have been signed are with countries that they need things badly from, and those deals ar advantageous for the other party, not them.

News / How will Trump's trade tariffs affect Poland? [74]


They've made zero progress with his silly tariff thing.

Meanwhile, other countries are look8ng at more reliable export markets and sources for materials.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


Most Jewish people very much do not.


Some, though by no means most, Eastern European Roma have a system where they memorise phone numbers.


Something that pretty well all affluent people do if they're decent. Flaunting wealth is not good.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


More about self-interest.

It's common across the whole subcontinent and in any society where resources are at a premium and chances in life are scarce.

Fear/mistrust of outsiders is generally a bad thing though; it's the insiders you need to worry about more.


They should have learned really that it's better to help a group than try to force them into a model that isn't theirs.


Yes. This happens. Have you seen any of the gypsy palaces in Poland? They're impressive in a delightfully garish way. Often the best houses in the town and a contrast to the nasty-ass houses that the locals build.

In the U.K. planning laws are crazy strict, so the Angloromani tend to express their taste inside rather than outside. A lot of gold leaf on the ceilings and porcelain ornaments everywhere. Some of their caravans are beautiful both inside and out too; the modern ones, ot the older ones which gypsies tend to restore as hobbies and only use on special occasions like the Appleby Fairl

Law / Gun control in Poland: should Polish people be allowed to own guns? [1070]


Most Europeans don't share that opinion (or yours), and there are of course many millions of Yanks who strongly favour gun control

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [1071]

People disagreeing g with policies isn't a reason to declare martial law. If that regime tried to do so, it would rebound on them.

They're discovering already through the tariff debacle that the rest of the world doesn't actually need to trade with them as much as they'd thought. Add the international reaction to martial law, travel bans, sanctions, dumping currency reserves, asset seizures etc, and it would basically be a big step in their current terminal decline and a big step in China's rise to being the sole superpower.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


That's more about keeping property and land in the family.

Among Romany, it's more about a limited choice of suitors.

Not that inbreeding is inherently a bad thing unless there are inherited illnesses present. Something that affects the settled population too, in parts of Wales and parts of the southern USA there are rural communities who have this problem.


Where I'm from, gypsies do not do this, however there is a long history in parts of Europe of Romany adopting abandoned and unwanted children and raising them as their own.

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [1071]


Much the same.

I woke up as usual at 5.30, started getting ready for work, then realised it's Saturday. Not only that, I forgot which of the three countries I work in that I'm in right now and in fact do t have to get up early in this one. I'll be in two more countries this coming week and in a third early in the week after. And can't remember which work shirts and smart trousers are currently in which laundry in which country. Welcome to my world.

To declare martial law, there would have to be very serious grounds. In the history of your country (post civil war) there have never been such grounds.

Law / Gun control in Poland: should Polish people be allowed to own guns? [1070]


You hate America.


As a Polish closet queen, he presumably trusts other Polish closet queens like Jaro, Rubik etc.

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [1071]


Who's he?

Does he work at Marshall and Snelgrove?

Did you mean martial law?

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


That's basically a community.

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [1071]


Their last one was 82, this one is 79. It's a gerontocracy.


They don't have third terms there.

Off-Topic / What is a woman? [617]


You mean a woman is like an electric lift (winda in your language).

Press the button and the door opens.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


Many do still travel in vans so the hygiene rule are still practical.


The men never cut their nails. They only use nail files. Seems to work for them.


Like capitalist 'investors'. Others work, they profit. Like monks and nuns. They pray, others feed them.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


Gadgers round my way. The word (like charver/chavs and a few others) have come into English now. Irish Travellers tend to use the term "country people".

Yes, you're right about Romania perception of non-gypsies. Romany (at least the Angloromani ones I'm used to) have retained some religious purity rules that derive from H8mduism and possibly with influence from Judaism. As mentioned before, gypsies 300 years ago were probably far cleaner than most of either your or my ancestors. The same with Jewish people; the fact that they were ore likely to survive fever epidemics was another of the things that made peasants suspicious of them.


They generally have good cause to be wary of it. Some do well at school though.


No bad thing in some ways, however the ones near me tend to be very well behaved as far as I can see.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


Fairground people are a subset of Romany (at least in the U.K.) with some Romany traditions and some of their own. I went out with one briefly years ago, born in a caravan.


Did you know that Charlie Chaplin had Romany roots?

Rita Hayworth and Elvis Presley too, which is well enough known, and also according to Google, Yul Brynner.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]

Another long one.

I'll not read it; life's too short and too full of joy to argue with strangers who want to bicker online.

We're talking about Romany and other Traveller groups, not your neuroses.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


Why the hell would I? I spent 3 months there around 15 years ago and wasn't much bothered for the place. There's plenty of people more interested in the internal affairs of KSA.


Every bit as bad. It really is better not to use terms that diminish people with disabilities.


So people can't criticise something without criticising everything else?

It looks like you're just trying to pick an argument.

Go out and get some fresh air and exercise. You're spoiling an interesting discussion with your overly long and deliberately argumentative posts full of quotes.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


They still do round my way, however there's a big presence in that town.

In the Leeds suburbs, if you've something metal like an old cooker that you want to get rid of but don't want to take to the tip, you just leave it at the end of your drive in the morning and they collect it for the scrap during the day.

Off-Topic / Stock Market Talk and Trading - part 2 [737]


Basically people who try to make a fast buck and have very few morals or ethics.


You can either invest or trade. If you do both, it's important to a. be very rich and able to afford losing money and b. be aware that they are very different animals.

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [1071]


For us it's driving with one (unless it's hands free and integrated with the vehicle). If there is a serious accident and one party is using a mobile phone, they are automatically guilty and are always jailed. It is taken very seriously. After accidents, both/all parties' mobile phones are checked to see if there was any activity immediately before the accident.

The law is strict and that is better than the situation in countries where using mo ileś while driving is entirely normal.

A few times in PL, I've been in Ubers where the driver has a video screen attached to the dashboard and is watching films/TV shows while they drive. Most recently one was watching an Uzbek soap opera. This should really be addressed since sooner or later someone will die in a crash due to this.

Classifieds / Used computers/electronics market in Tri-City, Poland. [12]


Amazon Prime exists in Poland however they don't do that in the same way; the market is different. Reconditioned MacBooks are usually a better buy, providing they don't come from China and haven't been used by a gamer.

Off-Topic / Stock Market Talk and Trading - part 2 [737]


The same. So-called 'cryptocurrency' is largely a scam. Rather like a Ponzi scheme.


Most of them have of course lost money on it.


Same here. I bought some around the time I first started posting here, pre-2010. Only a bit, though it rocketed and I still have some. Most other people who buy it don't make much and for 'cryptocurrencies' other than bitcoin, almost everybody who buys it loses their money.


That's shameless really and a scandal. In developed countries, a politician would be expected to resign if they were caught pushing fake currencies to make money on.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


They always appear, and long may they do so.


Every society has that, without exception. No country has no police, courts or prosecutors.

Off-Topic / MH17 10 years later - Russia Found Guilty [8]


Do you think it was an accident? They keep finding more and more bits of the plane, some thousands of miles away, carried by ocean currents.

So many theories, some conspiracy theories.

It's worth mentioning though that there were 200kg of Lithium-ion Batteries in the cargo h9ld.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


An incorrect one.

That statement says more about you than me. I do see what you're saying though and would add that the more developed and affluent the society, the less slack the6 can be cut. Something bad enough in a remote and hungry Amazon tribe is ten times worse if it's practised by privileged groups.


The Gypsies where I come from are very much both.


Why use that nasty word? What have people with learning disabilities ever done to hurt you. Words have power; it's best to leave the toilet talk to people lie, Novichok who can't help themselves.

As for Romany traditions, they've ensure survival against all odds and against the worst sort of persecution for centuries. Their ancestors three centuries ago were cleaner than yours and mine.


Just camps and/or winter quarters. The ones I've seen up close in Poland (specifically in Poldlasie) have characteristics of both but are closer to winter quarters.


That's what people have pushed them into. Successful subcultures are the ones able to protect themselves.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


The question is, who decides?

One thing about Romany, is that they don't often discuss all of the traditions that make up "gypsiness". Some are almost a thousand years old and rarely discussed with outsiders.

Some are known about, like gypsy men filing rather than cutting their nails, some of the traditions regarding hygiene (until settled people gotta indoor plumbing, Romany were generally far cleaner), some of the food rules, the th8 g about phone numbers and a couple of other things. Others aren't ever discussed with outsiders.

If you've ever been given bank notes by Angloromani, you'd have noticde something special.


When writing or speaking English, it's better to say camp rather than tabor. There's an identical word in English with a different meaning and in English, gypsy camps are t called tabors.


We don't have that. Romany almost never ever claim unemployment benefit. Perhaps they have a more settled and established role in society. From the way I've seen some people in this thread talk about them, no wonder some of them don't want to engage in society.


All part of the hostility against them. A vicious circle.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


That word is best avoided.

Snatch was a film. Fiction.


Visit and come to my town. You'll meet some. That is better than a depiction.


The soldiers that did that certainly went far too far. I've not heard about such things ever happening among the Angloromai and from what I know, they'd self-regulate very efficiently.