Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation - part 2 [816]


You're completely right. The quality of life in Madrid is far lower than in cities such as Valencia or Monte Carlo, but one needs to have been to Europe to know that, so the poor dumb one doesn't know it.
And one needs to know Polish to understand that Życie and Madrycie rhyme, so that also counts out the poor dumb one.

Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation - part 2 [816]


To be fair, some of it is his own work, given that there's no AI out there so stupid as to write "residence" when it means "residents".


A Polish friend once explained "Jutro, jutro" as meaning "It's like manana manana but without the sense of urgency."

Off-Topic / Stock Market Talk and Trading - part 2 [747]

How amusing: the Michigan Mystic has learned how to put questions into Chat GPT! Just look at that punctuation, LOL! What a pity that he's too ignorant of Poland to understand that a PPK is not the same as an IKZE. Although perhaps from his perspective they are both the same: they're things he'll never have, because both require investments of actual money rather than the fantasy dollars poor dumb jimmy uses to do things such as buying a $1.6 million position in Tesla. But because poor dumb jimmy is too dumb to know that total account value is assets less liabilities, and too dumb to know how much a quarter of 16 is, he tried to claim he'd made a profit of $456,000 when shares worth $1.6 million went up by 21.91%! Hoot !

Off-Topic / Pop A Cork - Wine [440]


I was in Fukier in the late '90s (3 January '98) and the only other table in there were to badly dressed gentlemen who spoke Russian to each other and English to the two ladies of negotiable affection who were with them (the ladies were speaking to each other in hilariously bad French) and to the waiter. At the end of the meal they asked the sommelier which is the most expensive bottle cognac he can offer. He replied that they had a couple of bottles of Louis XIII in the cellar and that's the best they have. "It is the most expensive?" "Yes, it is also the most expensive. It's $12,000." "We'll take it." So, out comes this glorious looking bottle, it's poured for one of them, he sniffs it, samples it, nods and says "Please pour for everybody. And bring us four bottles of Coke."

Off-Topic / PF Poster Polonius3 - Sad news [21]


No connection that I'm aware of.


Definitely two different people, and the living one is a good six decades younger than the other one.

Off-Topic / Pop A Cork - Wine [440]


Why spend 250zl and then mix with tonic when you can spend half that and get something that tastes almost identical? I'm sure that I can tell Harris gin from Gordon's ten times out of ten but I'd be struggling if they were mixed 50:250 with tonic. It'd be easier with something more distinctive, like Monkey 47, but even then the tonic would kill the flavours.

Off-Topic / Pop A Cork - Wine [440]


Speak for yourself! I put a drop of water into some whiskies, to open up the aromas, put literally one or two millilitres in a 50ml pour. As for gin, anything under naval strength I always drink neat, and naval strength I mix 3:1 with sparkling water. I simply don't understand people who apend 250zl on a bottle of gin and then drown it in tonic.

Off-Topic / Pop A Cork - Wine [440]


Not a gin fan either, that's a terrible gin. Bottled by a wine company using commercial spirit. Anyone selling a gin that's 37.5% is far more interested in money than gin.

Talking of gin, the Warsaw whiskey and gin festival is 10 and 11 October. Highly recommended.

Off-Topic / Pop A Cork - Wine [440]


I don't think those are even vaguely exotic these days. You'll find both in every Biedronka in Poland. As for why I like them, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Shiraz account for abput 90% of the wine I drink in Poland.

Off-Topic / Pop A Cork - Wine [440]


I was at the Jasło wine festival on Sunday. There were some pretty decent wines there but everything was at least double what similar quality wines from New Zealand and Australia cost.

Off-Topic / What is a woman? [847]

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News / Taxes, taxes everywhere [35]


You didn't ask what I gave, you asked what I paid. I gave exactly as much as I would paid if I had the choice. But I didn't have the choice: the government took it from me and gave it to the Polish Catholic church.


Tell me about it. Very easy to see why so many Poles cheat on their taxes. (Personally I prefer to be annoyingly honest with the tax bastards: they expect everybody to cheat and somebody being too honest makes them think that the person is getting away with murder somewhere but they can't see where.)

News / Taxes, taxes everywhere [35]


Too much. Last I saw the state gave about PLN 9 billion a year to religious organisations, with 95% of that going to the Polish Catholic church. With Poland's total government expenditure being around PLN 1,067 billion, that would suggest that 0.84% of what I paid in total taxes (PIT, ZUS and VAT, plus excise and other taxes) went to religious organisations. I'd far rather have that amount in cash.


Actually it's less. Mostly because the lack of specialists able to diagnose kids who don't speak fluent Polish means that few of them get intensive (i.e. expensive) assistance provided to kids that speak fluent Polish. Also, and here I'm sharing the opinion of a Polish-Ukrainian child psychologist, Ukrainian parents are more likely than Polish parents to think their kids need a smack than professional assistance.


No. Some people are already taxed quite enough. Today I saw a payslip with a gross amount of slightly over PLN 19,000 and a net amount of slightly under 9,000. Of course when that nine is spent, 23% of it will go as VAT, meaning the person gets goods with a value of 7,300 ish. And the 19k actually cost the employer about 23,200, as we need to add to that the employer's ZUS contributions. So, in exchange for work valued by an employer at 23,180zl that person gets goods valued at 31.5% of that amount and the government gets 68.5% of the dosh to do with as it wishes.

History / What do Poles owe to Romanians? [16]


That's not exactly true. Jaruzelski was elected president by the parliament of Poland, not by the people of Poland.

News / Taxes, taxes everywhere [35]

But the good news is that a church tax is being considered. If that comes in only people who want to fund a church will have taxes taken from them to fund any church.

News / Poles drinking more than ever, as incomes rise. [32]


Unfortunately not any longer: I just checked the Dar Wina website and they don't have any.

But Lidl's online store (click and collect at any Lidl) has some excellent gins. I just ordered a bottle of Edinburgh Seaside and a bottle of Tanqueray No. 10. PLN 280 for the pair. The Tanqueray No. 10 is a revelation if you've ever tried the regular Tanqueray.

Off-Topic / The agreement in Alaska between the US and Russia. [43]


To be fair, I've never seen Just Dance Vance trying to discuss anything with Rich, which is most certainly the right thing to do.

Off-Topic / The agreement in Alaska between the US and Russia. [43]


Has Just Dance Vance ever been right about anything?

Travel / Holidays in Poland, is it still worth coming here? [22]


There are airports on most of the islands, including one which doesn't have a runway, instead the planes land on the beach when the tide is out.

Travel / Holidays in Poland, is it still worth coming here? [22]


They're the best I've seen anywhere. The only problem is getting there: I usually fly to Glasgow, hire a car, stop somewhere overnight, then get a ferry the next day. You could also fly, but the non-subsidised seats are pricey and so's car hire on the islands. Also, as there are no direct flights from here to Glasgow, you need to go via Amsterdam or London (or Paris) and that extra time means you usually miss the flight from Glasgow to whichever island airport, so add in a night at a Glasgow airport hotel.

Travel / Holidays in Poland, is it still worth coming here? [22]


Just make sure you expect mosquitoes.

History / 81st Anniversary of Warsaw Uprising [72]


So, not going to go into detail about what the supposed price was?

History / 81st Anniversary of Warsaw Uprising [72]


I've always wondered what the supposed price was. If Poland was something which the US and the UK sold to the USSR (which they clearly did not), what was the supposed price that Stalin agreed to pay?

Genealogy / Meaning of the Surname Scobel [17]

Wasn't there a Scrobel chap who used to post here a few years back?

Off-Topic / Stock Market Talk and Trading - part 2 [747]

On the topic of investing in stocks, does anybody happen to know how one can invest funds in a PPK into ETFs? Ideally not WSE-listed ETFs but even WSE-listed would be than nothing.

Also, am I correct in thinking that the smart thing to do is set one's PPK contributions to 4% and then forget about them? And it's better to max out one's IKZE before funding the IKE?

Travel / Holidays in Poland, is it still worth coming here? [22]


Yes, very much so. We always do a couple of one-week holidays inside Poland each year and a couple of long-weekend city breaks too. Last summer we spent a week in a cottage near Dukla at the beginning of September and liked it so much we're going back to that area next month. We also did a week near Augustow last spring and the spring before that, at this cottage alohacamp.com/en/property/laspole-924


If you want superb empty beaches, head up to the Outer Hebrides in early June. Berneray's West Beach matches anything you'll find in the Caribbean but it's empty. Last June we spent four hours walking along it and saw five other people.

Off-Topic / Feed Back on the Moderating - Part 2 [207]


How many of those 20,000 know the identity of the person who served five years on a forgery charge out of Emmet County and the five other felony counts that were dropped in 2004 in exchange for a guilty plea? And about the convictions for check fraud in Washtenaw County, fourth-degree grand larceny in New York and grand auto theft in Florida?

Off-Topic / Stock Market Talk and Trading - part 2 [747]

Poor dumb jimmy seems to have lost his mind: he believes that anybody is going to do anything other than laugh at a geriatric hockey scammer! Hoot! That's nearly as funny as poor dumb jimmy claiming to have a photograph that proves 21% of $1.6 million is $456,000 when in reality all it proves is that poor dumb jimmy is too dumb to understand what "total account value" means! LOL!

As if anybody was ever going to believe that poor dumb jimmy has assets worth $1.6 million when poor dumb jimmy can't even divide 16 by 4!

Off-Topic / Stock Market Talk and Trading - part 2 [747]


If poor dumb jimmy donates to PF even 1% of the $456,000* he claims to be 21% of $1.6 million and what he made in a single day on Tesla shares, I'll agree that there are however many genders you say there are.

In poor dumb jimmy maths 1% of the $456,000 is $9,680, and he's got a photo to prove it!

Off-Topic / Stock Market Talk and Trading - part 2 [747]


Are you saying that you don't accept that poor dumb jimmy has a photo which proves that 21.91% of $1.6 million is $456,000?