News / Years of Poland in the EU - assessment of pros and cons [1199]


Yes indeed he is. And he's in jail not for his views but for contempt of court ie. defying a court order to stay away from the school. He could go home any time if he purged his contempt which he refuses to do. The law is the law and a court order has to be complied with. The judge in the most recent hearing generously offered to allow him out of jail during the upcoming school holidays, as the school would obviously be closed, so that he could spend Christmas at home with his family and Burke refused. So his 'suffering' is self-imposed.

News / Corruption scanadal in the European Parliament [30]


Poland isn't perceived as having very low corruption. It has a similar ranking to Italy. As to why Poland has problems getting financing .................. well now. The Polish government has broken rules, laws, agreements and treaties which it signed up to. The Polish government is contemptuous and confrontational, has no clue about diplomacy. They're kind of like an arrogant teenager with no social skills who can't understand why he's been suspended from school yet again and sits in his room alternating between self-pity, sulking and throwing tantrums.

News / Corruption scanadal in the European Parliament [30]


Who do you mean by 'these people'? She's one individual (and incidentally she hails from a country that many would say should never have been admitted to the EU precisely because of this kind of history) and she's been suspended from duty. Bulgaria and Greece are perceived as the most corrupt countries within the EU while, not surprisingly, the most honest and transparent are Denmark and the other Scandinavian nations.

Life / I'm from China and I would like to ask about the real experience of life in Poland [44]


Not smog , but coal fired power does cause air pollution.


A breakdown of NOx pollution highlights Poland and Germany from the EU. Bełchatów is on the top of the list, accompanied by four German plants in the top ten. These are what they call 'dirty' power plants.


I didn't. And actually smog in small villages is just as bad as in cities because of having to heat your home with stoves. People on low incomes having to burn coal and rubbish to stay warm is not their fault. It's the fault of successive governments who fail people in myriad ways. While Poland was still a Communist country (supposedly an 'equal' society), some people were lucky enough to live in a block with subsidised heating but others had to live in a freezing house and warm themselves somehow. Even coal was often too expensive. My husband's family knew one old man who literally went to bed for the winter because he couldn't keep himself warm any other way. He could not afford the tons of coal that would have been needed to warm the house for several months. That was the year that the snow came in October and didn't thaw till April.

Life / I'm from China and I would like to ask about the real experience of life in Poland [44]

The air pollution is not caused by poor people. It's caused by an over-reliance on coal as a power source. Burning rubbish etc is a contributory factor but not the main cause by any means - and there is a culture of burning everything that is not confined to the poor.

Life / I'm from China and I would like to ask about the real experience of life in Poland [44]

Looks that way :)

Life / I'm from China and I would like to ask about the real experience of life in Poland [44]

It's still pretty bad though. Still one of the worst in the world.

notesfrompoland.com/2022/11/21/polish-city-tops-global-air-pollution-ranking-as-winter-smog-sets-in/

On 20 November this year the level of PM2.5 was 800% above the maximum safe level and in Warsaw it was 400% above it,

History / Recommended Poland's history books [257]


There were others.

"Father enjoyed explaining, especially to the boys, the life of the forest, they way is should be governed and loved. It was the same with animals. Only weak or sick ones were shot. Father was familiar with each of the best deer individually, and he would only kill the first of them when he was sure that enough were living in the woods to sustain a reasonable level. "

Thus Jadwiga Stadnicka writing of her father Adam Zbigniew Stadnicki. He established one of the first forest reserves in Poland and look at what Poland's politicians get up today, decimating the forests. Not just in Bialowieza but all over Poland, acres of mature trees are felled every year for commercial gain in areas of supposedly protected forest.

Today in Warsaw, I heard a deafening roar of machinery and looked out to see some eejit sitting on a huge contraption, sucking the leaves up off the grass. Instead of allowing the leaves to decompose and rot back into the ground, they're clearing them up, destroying the eco-system and adding to the existing air pollution with their petrol driven machinery and adding to the already considerable noise pollution.

History / Recommended Poland's history books [257]


You mustn't throw out the baby with the bath water though. The Zamoyski family were one of the grandest and most powerful families but have a history of service to Poland. One of them took part in the November uprising. He was exiled as were other members of the family at different times. Have you read about the Zamoyski Code in the 18th century? It was one of the attempts at reform which laid the grounds for the May Constitution. The Zamoyskis were political and social reformers, good businessmen and patrons of the arts. Pity you didn't have more like them.

History / Recommended Poland's history books [257]


I don't mean in relationships. I mean in the broader definition of romantic. I mean in the other sense, as defined by our old friend the Oxford dictionary:

"having an attitude to life where imagination and the emotions are especially important; not looking at situations in a realistic way"

I think Poles are very down to earth.


Perhaps not what you would consider 'Polish' but listen to him speak and you will see that he is a deeply thoughtful and reflective person who has more than a superficial idea of what it means to be Polish. And when you think of the people with whom his parents were on pretty intimate terms, he knew Anders etc. I don't think you can dismiss that and say he's an outsider. If anything he's more of an insider :)

History / Recommended Poland's history books [257]


He's still Polish. Have you ever actually listened to him speak? Very interesting. Listening to Zamoyski speak, you see what Poland lost.


He's nothing like you, I can assure you. Speaks much better Polish for one thing.


I understand quite well how communism, being a form of social engineering, affects a society. I know that removing your old nobility like Adam Zamoyski's family affects society, removing your officer class and intelligentsia etc. You have a very limited knowledge of pre-communist Poles yourself, restricted to your own small circle as a child in London. In fact Zamoyski's circle is much wider and he's older than you so he would certainly have known many more pre-communist Poles. And in the years since the fall of communism he has lived and worked in Poland, which you haven't.

So, be a true Pole and respect your betters. Bend the knee to the old Polish nobility ;)

History / Recommended Poland's history books [257]

Well now, he is Polish so .......... his understanding of Polish character is as valid as that of any Pole. I would say he has a very objective view of Polish history. He's quite right in my view when he says that Poles are neither romantic nor passionate, rather I would say that they're pragmatic and resourceful and far from being romantic, they're much more inclined to be cynical.

History / Recommended Poland's history books [257]


What assumptions would those be? I enjoyed his book.


Why are you skipping everything in between? You can't really understand the history of a country if you skip a big chunk like that. It's better to get a broad outline of the whole history and then go back and study each part in detail. Each series of events in a country's history prepares the ground for the next.

Love / What happens when you marry into a Polish family... [19]

She probably took after her Roma father rather than her Polish mother. Anyway, one swallow doesn't make a summer.

USA, Canada / I am looking for a lawyer in recovering my inheritance after grandfather died in Toronto. I'm Polish. [5]

Inheritance law in Canada is different to Poland so there is no automatic entitlement to an inheritance.

If he left a will, his estate would be settled according to his wishes and the people named in the will. If he decided to leave everything to his wife, your grandmother would have to go to court and challenge the will within two years of discovering that he was dead.

If he didn't leave a will, the law in the state of Ontario would settle the estate. For somebody who died before March 2021, if the estate was valued at less than 200,000 dollars then it all goes to the spouse. If it was worth more than that, the spouse gets the first 200,000 and the rest would be split between the spouse and your grandmother.

If you know what part of Toronto he was living in when he died you can check the local court to see if he left a will.

archives.gov.on.ca/en/microfilm/c_courts.aspx

Study / Upper age limit masters in Poland? [6]

Lots of Polish universities now offer studies through the English language at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Many students who can't afford to study in other EU countries can afford the tuition fees and living costs in Poland.

Off-Topic / Best posters [886]


Not by any stretch of the imagination.

The LPI ranking (look it up if you don't know what that is) for the top ten world health care systems for 2022 is as follows:

1. South Korea
2. Taiwan
3. Denmark
4. Austria
5. Japan
6. Australia
7. France
8. Spain
9. Belgium
10. United Kingdom

USA comes in at number 18.

I bet you've never even heard of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in London, yet it's one of the best in the world.

While you're still alive, why don't you take the opportunity to educate yourself? You're literate. No excuse for a literate person so show such ignorance. Wouldn't you prefer to be a genuinely knowledgeable person or do you enjoy being ignorant? Or is it that you're just not interested in learning? That would indicate that you're not very intelligent. What's the story?

Don't have time to address all the other rubbish uttered by yourself and Novi (who is even worse than you are in terms of pig ignorance and questionable intelligence) in this thread but no doubt I will at some point.

Off-Topic / Best posters [886]


That was a one-off evening event during Covid. It's not a regular thing.


No, you have a parade of peanut farmers or bent businessmen and their ilk living in luxury in the White House, and no national health service for their 'subjects' ........

Off-Topic / Best posters [886]


You've never been there.


I'm worn out from saying that my family on both my mother's and father's side have a long history of service in the British armed forces. My uncle was a captain in the RAF, my grandfather a colour sergeant in the Royal Irish Regiment etc. Christmas telly was Papal Blessing in the morning, Queen's speech in the afternoon. It's very common for Irish families to have British military connections.

Off-Topic / Best posters [886]


The monarchy is one of the reasons why Britain has managed to preserve so much of its magnificent natural beauty and architectural heritage. London wouldn't be the city it is without them. The Crown Estate has ensured that the most beautiful and historic parts of London have been preserved in all their glory. Just take Regent's Park as an example. There is nothing to compare with walking through The Regent's Park at this time of year, a glorious autumn morning, as the mists are lifting. I remember once as I was walking through on my way to work in Devonshire Place, an army officer on horseback loomed up out of the mist. He was wearing the old WW1 style uniform. I'm still not sure whether he was a soldier from the Regent's barracks or a visitor from past times :) Such a beautiful atmosphere in so many places in the UK wholly because of the continuing presence of the Royal Family.

Off-Topic / Best posters [886]


As they themselves say "Over the last 10 years we have generated more than £3 billion for the public purse." At least three quarters of the profits of the Crown Estate go to the nation, not the Royal Family and are spent on improving amenities, the environment etc. All their accounts are available for public inspection. You should take a look to get a better understanding of what they do.

thecrownestate.co.uk/annual-report-2022/

thecrownestate.co.uk/en-gb/resources/faqs/

Off-Topic / Best posters [886]


Actually that's not true. Basically, the 'organization' is the Crown Estate. The Crown Estate is not owned by any member of The Royal Family. The Crown Estate generates money and the money is collected by the Treasury and then a percentage (currently 15%) of it is given to the Royal Family to support themselves.

They also pay tax on their private income which is not part of the Crown Estate and they pay Capital Gains Tax. The Queen has paid tax for decades. So did Prince Charles and will continue to do so now that he's King.

They also give quite a lot with things like the Prince's Trust and the Royal patronages of charities raises the profiles of those charities and makes a huge difference to fund raising.

Off-Topic / Best posters [886]


Very commendable. I hope you found somebody to instill basic manners into him as you would clearly be incapable of doing it.


Being an EU/Schengen citizen makes no difference when buying land in Poland. You're still subject to certain restrictions - but as the spouse of a Polish citizen they tend to blur the boundaries as you should know. In Poland everything is a lottery. It's always fifty-fifty as to how things turn out when you're dealing with officials. Would you disagree with that?


"Vulgar language - always the first and last refuge of the man with nothing to say"


No, but I've come close to being knocked down by a woman more than once :))

Off-Topic / Best posters [886]


As a rule, ignorant people should avoid me as I'm quite merciless once I decide to engage :)) I have absolutely boundless energy for squashing such people with an absolute fount of knowledge to draw on while I'm doing it :) In real life, I'm mostly very kind in a patronizing and condescending way to the ignorant, unless they combine it with rudeness and arrogance. Then I go for the jugular :)

News / Should we think about joining part of Ukraine to Poland? [35]


Who's 'we'?

Off-Topic / Best posters [886]


OMG! I've just realised you don't actually know what a nanny is! I'm sorry to break it to you Cargo but the people you hired were not nannies. Btw how is it that your children needed a childminder until they were in their twenties?? Maybe if you'd hired a nanny they would have made better progress.

Law / Old Polish money banknotes - what's their value today? [415]

You could try putting them for sale on Ebay. You don't have to be a business/shop to sell there.

ebay.com/b/Polish-Paper-Money/58513/bn_16565444

Off-Topic / Best posters [886]


I know, but I think Calcutta sounds better for comic purposes - a bit of poetic licence, you know? :) I like 'bitter little brown faced man' - has a nice cadence to it. Maybe I could work it into a poem or song? I'm thinking of re-working Little Brown Jug, much as Elton John reworked Candle in the Wind for Princess Diana. Of course - Little Brown Mug !! Mug, as in face. Perfect!

Ha, ha, ha, hee, hee, hee!
Little brown mug
From Noo JoyZEE

(has to be sung with the stress on the last syllable).

All together now!

And 'bitter little brown faced man' could be sung to the tune of Pretty Little Angel Eyes :) Pity we can't add an audio file here.

Mods, can we add audio??

Off-Topic / Best posters [886]


That would be 'an'.


How recently did you buy land? I bought land with my husband in April of this year. Was never asked to show a resident's permit probably because he's Polish. But then I'm a fair skinned, blue eyed European, not a bitter little brown faced man from Calcutta with the manners of a sewer rat, who can speak neither English nor Polish properly :)

Language / Helping Non Polish Student studying in Public School [32]

@ Phils 79, as an elementary school teacher (but in ireland) I'll give you some advice.

The issue here is really language support. Your kids need extra tuition in Polish, that's the bottom line and that's the only thing that will make a real difference. In theory, every foreign child has the right to additional Polish lessons as a foreign language (2 hours a week), as well as to compensatory classes in subjects with which they have difficulties because the curriculum from the previous school differs significantly from that of the school the child attends ( 1 hour a week). Now, in reality, getting that language support may not be so straightforward. You should already have been offered it. This is the thing with Poland. Everything looks great on paper but try accessing your rights etc and you'll often meet a blank face from officials. You have to be quite pushy in Poland so don't take no for an answer. The school has an obligation to help you with this.

As Lenka says, the first thing you need to do is talk to the teacher. If her English is not fluent enough, you need to bring somebody with you who speaks Polish. It sounds as if the school is inexperienced at dealing with international students and doesn't have any system in place but something will have to be done to facilitate your children. It would be better if you could arrange to meet the teacher and the school principal together. I would press to have your kids released from the tests for the time being if that's possible.

You could also consider accepting Gumishu's kind offer of help.

@Gumishu, you can just use Skype Online via your Microsoft account. Or you could create a new Skype account. They now have a facility where you can record your conversation so that would be great as the kids could look back over what they covered with you.