Off-Topic / Random Sports News [855]

That just goes to show that the gender binary isn't straightforward and that people like Joanne Rowling are wrong.

The IOC have done the normal medical tests and there's no suggestion that she has male chromosomes or an elevated testosterone level. She's just a somewhat (she only weighs 66kg) sporty looking and flat-chested woman but in fact isn't that masculine at all compared to some you can pass in the street every day.

She can't do right for doing wrong, They didn't want her to box in Algeria because she's female and lowlife like Rowling say she shouldn't box in the Olympics because she doesn't look female enough. Not all women are girly looking.

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Off-Topic / Random Sports News [855]


As Alien says, it's fake news.

r*SSia is behind the whole gender controversy about the female boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting. The false suggestion that they weren't female originated with a now discredited r*SSian sponsored organisation bankrolled by Gazprom which is now expelled from the Olympic family.

It originated a year or so ago because they'd both beaten heavily-seeded r*SSian boxers that various r*SSian gangsters and oligarchs had gambled millions on and the dodgy organisation in question voided their results so the orcs got their cash payouts. They first suggested that they'd failed sex tests done by WADA (who don't do sex tests) and have since admitted that no tests had been run.

And of course r*SSia like to sow discontent and controversy in the free world and are bitter that they can't compete in major sporting events so try to rubbish them.

Life / Warsaw - what's there to love? Semi-livable city? [42]


Didn't the PiSflappers put a fig leaf on that statue in Gdańsk? The one near Dwór Artusa.

History / Should Poland organize March of the Living in Volhynia and Eastern Lesser Poland? [65]


I doubt most orc trolls are that organised; most are just office monkeys with a budget thrown at their bosses, a list of websites/newspaper subscriptions and a daily position to push.

The ones who write the long turgid essays on Quora are among the funniest. In the newspaper I read, it must be pretty miserable for them since they always get spotted plus it's the newspaper of choice for serving and former army officers who really do know their stuff. That and their generally well educated readership some of whom (like me) write and mark language exams for a living and have studied textual analysis to an extent where it's usually possible to know if someone's male or female, sometimes old or young and sometimes (but only rarely) even tall/short/fat/thin.

And there's also a presence of paid and officially "counter trolls" who run rings round them.

When you make comments to them like "don't let your supervisor see those howling mistakes or you'll be unemployed and back selling your body to old Chechens in hotel bars by Monday", you can sometimes almost see Svetlana's or Natasha's tears dripping onto the keyboard. And they have to go through 6 or 7 hours of this at a time before they go home. The A2/B1 level female orcettes never last long.

And of course a lot of it isn't intended to propagate a view; it's often for the home market ("look what Belgians are saying, they all know we'll win and are scared").

History / Should Poland organize March of the Living in Volhynia and Eastern Lesser Poland? [65]


His English is far better than most of them.

I take a delight in going through the comments in a particular newspaper's comments field made by people with names like John Smith and pointing out the obvious transference errors from a Slavonic language and giving a CEFR level to their writing. Most are B2 however I've seen as low as A2.

One guy (I'd guess a low C1 but certainly over 65) started arguing about a grammar transference error and hilariously quoted from an old grammar book that was only ever used in the Soviet Union!

On some of the higher traffic sites, all the orcs appear together at about 5 past the hour, take their coffee/vodka breaks at the same time and clock off shift at the same time. It's great fun baiting them and even better when they end up quietly admitting that they're orc paid trolls.

The ones who are outsourced staff in India are pretty easy to spot too.

History / Should Poland organize March of the Living in Volhynia and Eastern Lesser Poland? [65]


You'd get more per hour doing it on The Times or Gazeta Wyborcza and frankly you'd up the quality of the orc stuff on both.

Off-Topic / Random Sports News [855]

Why would it be?

They're quite religious there. Why would they ask God to save someone who died two years ago?

Off-Topic / Nobel Prize and Oscars = Propaganda? [61]


What are those factors though?


Rape and harassment of women are far from being solely modern.

Off-Topic / Nobel Prize and Oscars = Propaganda? [61]


The cause is solely men who are so weak they can't control their behaviour.

Travel / Poles as tourists in foreign countries [93]

That depends very much on the person and their outlook on life.

Off-Topic / Nobel Prize and Oscars = Propaganda? [61]


What isn't?

If some people can't control their urges if they see a bit of skin, the fault is theirs alone.

Travel / Poles as tourists in foreign countries [93]


That's the r*SSians.


That's massage parlours in Birmingham.

Joking apart, they were relatively normal compared to the r*SSian tourists there. A bit solemn though.

Travel / Poles as tourists in foreign countries [93]


When I was in Venice a while ago there were plenty of Poles (mostly women) there and they (apart from looking a bit serious and earnest) were fine. Much more cultured and civilised than the r*SSians and Chinese who were there.

Off-Topic / Nobel Prize and Oscars = Propaganda? [61]


It's people who harass etc that are "going the wrong path".


What does that mean?

Off-Topic / Nobel Prize and Oscars = Propaganda? [61]


You don't say what is too much according to you.

Showing a bit of skin doesn't "bring harassment or worse". Harassers "or worse" do that of their own volition.

Food / Bigos Recipe [183]


Similar taste, very different consistency.


Plus, 999 times out of 1000 that someone eats it, they're not a hunter or even rural.


The same for us, however there's a dish called Scouse that's cabbage, potatoes, cheap meat all done in layers in a pan.

Stewed cabbage is a good name, however I just call it bigos. It doesn't need translating and food translations (particularly in PL) can be a mess, like calling schabowy "a chop" or translating smalec as lard rather than dripping.

Food / Bigos Recipe [183]


Yes, though as you say, it may be a family tradition, perhaps as an alternative to prunes.

It was sorrt of black blobs, perhaps made out of raisins. It was actually very nice. Since then, I've once seen a picture of bigos that looked like it had them in, however from the photo it was hard to tell if it was that or prunes.

Food / Bigos Recipe [183]


Hot hot hot. Not so much a personal thing, more cultural to do with coming from a very rainy place.


I've had it with steam coming off, though it's generally not as hot as I'm used to. I've sent back food in restaurants in Warsaw before (though not bigos)because it's not quite piping hot.

Have you had bigos with the grape paste in? I'm not sure what it's called however the lady who did it that way said it was traditional.


:-)

Food / Bigos Recipe [183]


Less of the 'north' since it's in the tropics and no, I don't 'dwell' there, just visit for professional reasons.

And btw, they tend to serve food warm rather than hot in most of Africa too. At home in Poland, it's very common (not that you'd know that); food often seems tepid to me and in southern Germany there are dishes that are left about a foot away from the fire for hours before serving, sometimes to the point that it causes food poisoning.


Depends on the fat/oil content and a couple of other things. Bigos isn't actually that high in this respect.


I guarantee that you'd find some of the stuff I cook to be too hot. Poles generally do so I tone it down a bit and am less likely to serve things on red hot plates.

Food / Bigos Recipe [183]


If you'd actually spent time in PL or nearby countries, especially Germany and Austria, you'd know that stews and soups in Central Europe are often served more warm than hot.

And after spending time in those places, you'd probably be happier and have better manners.

Food / Bigos Recipe [183]


I've had three over the decades that I liked. One was in Podlasie and had blobs of a sort of paste made from grapes in it, another was just good and I'm not sure why and the last one was made by a Polish lady who'd lived for many years in Paris and had a lot of red wine in.

Food / Bigos Recipe [183]

Yes. They're related though not the same thing. Bigos is bigos and choucroute garnie (which I slightly prefer to bigos, though that's not a high bar since I don't like bigos) is different.

Some people say that Napoleon's Grande Armée (or specifically their Polish wives) brought bigos back with them to France and choucroute was developed. I'd say that's a bit of a stretch and it's more to do with using available ingredients..

Genealogy / Is "Lubrant" a Polish last name? [7]


It may well be a variant of the Swiss name Lybrand or the Dutch name Leibbrandt.

There's also an old and now archaic first name in Northern Italy, Liutprand which Lubrant, Lybrand and Leibbrandt may well derive from.

Food / Bigos Recipe [183]


Arguing is the national sport in Poland, and elsewhere arguing about food is surprisingly common . I've seen Sicilians getting really worked up about whether arancino or arancina are more authentic and almost come to blows over the correct type of pasta to use in pasta al forno.

With bigos, the gulf between a good one and a bad one is huge, however some people prefer the kind I'd call a bad one. It's what someone's used to, what individual tastes are and of course nostalgic memories.

I dislike the name Hunters' Stew for similar reasons to the thing you mention; "hunters'" implies chasseur to me which bigos isn't. A better name is simply bigos, since soupe au pistou is soupe au pistou and not paste soup, ossobuco is ossobucco and not bone hole and haggis is haggis everywhere rather than a description of what it is.

Off-Topic / Nobel Prize and Oscars = Propaganda? [61]


I like that one. A good translation might be: "stupidity we don't sow". That's one I'll save for later.

Off-Topic / Nobel Prize and Oscars = Propaganda? [61]


Why?


Google is replete with websites that discuss the issue, many from a first hand point of view.

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Life / Cost of burials in Poland [17]

@pawian
He'll be scattered or buried under a tree or whatever when I finally do it so no need. An urn might be used by someone If ashes are kept on display (a guy I knew who was a Bishop kept his mother's ashes in an urn on an altar) however an undertaker wouldn't supply one other tha; a very basic jar unless asked. I suspect there's a box of some sort inside the bag but I've not looked and don't much like seeing the bag on the windowsill when the door to that room is left open.

Life / Cost of burials in Poland [17]


We haven't buried mine yet. His ashes are in a bag in the spare room. He requested no funeral and in any case, the family were grieving and had no appetite for one.

Cremation is the norm in the UK and someone would only be buried if they specifically request it or have a family plot in a centuries old village churchyard.

Scattering is popular. The 'Garden of Remembrance' that most cities' crematoria have in the U.K. have one where you can scatter ashes and remember the person. Some people's are just stored by the city for a few years then disposed of unless the family don't want that (though this is increasingly rare) and some people scatter ashes in a favourite place like a park, a beauty spot in the countryside, a nice beach or so times a sports ground if the deceased was a sports fan.

Off-Topic / Nobel Prize and Oscars = Propaganda? [61]


That doesn't explain why you think Iran being in the bottom few percent world wide isn't a problem for a significant number of women there, when clearly it is.


And existing laws cover that. Very few (if any) countries in Europe allow people to walk through a city centre nude, and it's hard to see why you think special rules should apply to women.

Life / Cost of burials in Poland [17]


Still a small number, however it's a positive thing.

Most funerals I've been to in PL over the past decade were interments of ashes. What I haven't seen in PL yet is "pure cremations", where there's not a funeral of any sort. They're getting more and more popular in the UK since nobody except the morbid actually like attending funerals and it's better to make a donation to a charity or take a nice holiday rather than pay a clergyman or clergywoman that happens to be on crem duty that day and who never met the deceased to talk for 15 minutes.