Off-Topic / Music Thread - part 2 [970]

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Polonia / Polish bus crash in Croatia. Is there a fate? [229]


There's one of those in Scotland. Dogs jump off and nobody knows why.

Polonia / Which country is better SPAIN or POLAND [118]


I've not been to those islands however people do recommend Gran Canaria.

Gibraltar always sounds interesting too, especially as it's an outlier with a complex history.

Polonia / Which country is better SPAIN or POLAND [118]


I've only been in spring (last year actually). There's a reason why traditional houses in Spain often have tiny windows and they sleep in the day and go out after dark. Much like where I am now.


Alicante is underrated. Not the mile after mile of housing estates along the coast, where everyone is Dutch, German or British (usually cockney or Essex) but the city itself. Valencia's on the bucket list, as is Murcia which is apparently lovely.

Polonia / Which country is better SPAIN or POLAND [118]


Even hardly ever, and in Spain, almost never. There's a lot of nearly empty apartment complexes, usually build by r*SSian mafia as a money laundering thing.

I'd like an apartment in Malaga by the town beach, Plaza Malagueta, however they're bought by rich Spanish people as holiday homes. They tend to hold on to them for years, if not generations, and prices are crazy.

The cheaper places round there, Torremolinos and the resorts, are often a bit depressing in parts.

Off-Topic / Arts and crafts [149]

This is by a Belgian artist called Mohssin Amghar. It was on social media. I think he's an amateur artist. It's ink on paper and called "waves". I'd happily have that on the wall too.

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Polonia / Which country is better SPAIN or POLAND [118]


So many Poles (including people I know) have bought flats in Malaga over the past few years. Apparently Poles are rising up the statistics of buyers. I suspect that in Malaga means near Malaga since the city itself is very expensive near the town beach, and the resorts like Torremolinos just the other side of the airport are much cheaper.

It's a nice city, lovely gardens, historic buildings and great restaurants. The resorts have English pound shops and full breakfast cafes though.

Off-Topic / Arts and crafts [149]

We had a copy of this on the wall which is probably still in a cupboard. It's Robin Hood's Bay by Albert Wainwright, an intriguing character. He was an occasional illustrator who lived a very quiet life as a 'confirmed bachelor' in a small terraced house in provincial England. His main job though was as curator of his city's art collection from the 1920s to the 1960s. He had a good budget and a knack of buying works by unknown artists (especially Bloomsbury group ones and also Lowry) before they became famous and the prices rocketed. The city in question sold a very small part of the collection he made and built a big shopping centre and art gallery with the money.

We also had some copies of Barbara Hepworth's line drawings of surgeons at work that I bought in England but my OH disliked them because of the subject matter. And we've some original oil and acrylic paintings, abstract non-representative by a well known Polish artist but they aren't on display because he was my friend and I'm still sad that he died early and don't want reminding.

We've also got some big posters of Hilma af Klint paintings which were on the walls but weren't framed properly and got a bit tatty. . Amazing stuff and not only the first female abstract artist but pretty well the first abstract artist. Her story is an amazing one; her paintings were boxed up in Sweden for nearly a century before they were rediscovered. There was a big touring exhibition of her stuff. I don't know if it was in Warsaw; I saw it in Berlin at the Hamburger Bahnhof.

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Off-Topic / Arts and crafts [149]


You'd like our flat. Big white walls, high ceilings, a big living room and no pictures at all since it was last painted and we didn't get round to rehanging them. Just big mirrors. I wanted to paint it black with a white ceiling and details. My OH took a bit of convincing but I showed some nice pics on Google. Then events intervened and I couldn't get it done. The whole place needs properly painting (not just a couple of coats of white emulsion) though since we both smoke on and off and have lived there for 12 years. I may get round to doing it or choose a different colour. It's bad enough that we have a black sofa and if my glasses aren't on and the lights are low, I have to be careful not to accidentally squash our black cat.


Sounds like northern England where sometimes everything in a room, carpets, wallpaper, curtains, sofa, tablecloths, cushions are all in different (usually dark) flowery patterns. We were always a bit different, bright orange wallpaper etc. Maybe that's why I like plain decor.


A few things, some of the nicer stuff at my mum's house. Nice ceramics from Sudan, especially. The longest stints were in Iraq and Mauritania, neither of which are great for crafts (though in Mauritania they have nice hammered metal decorations, set in black wood).

Lots of shiny Arab tat in our home (I like shiny things) calligraphic Quran verses, incense burners, copper bowls, incense jars, coffee making stuff, though it's probably mostly made in China. The place I've been longest is of course Poland and my folks came to visit a few times and always bought pottery, glassware and linen things.

Do you know Jan Kallwejt's work? I think he's Polish but lives in Spain. Mostly signed prints and a very distinct style.

UK, Ireland / Getting a UK state pension in Poland [37]


No. The amount you receive doesn't depend on the class of contributions for very obvious reasons.

There used to be an optional extra payment available to higher earners however that supplementary contribution ended donkeys' years ago.

The contribution class you pay depends on your individual circumstances, however in the interest of fairness, the amount of pension is unaffected.


All info, including calculators is on the Government Gateway website. There are also a few others online, findable on Google.

Off-Topic / Arts and crafts [149]

This would look nice on a living room wall. It's artistically related to northern English "grim art" (this is a thing, and a thing I personally like) but is much more positive and visually appealing than a lot of pictures of northern factories.

Warwick Mill, Middleton, Rochdale, 2015, by Cathy Read

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Life / Live-in maids in Poland? [12]


I suppose it depends on the demographics where people are. I'd say that the thing you've noticed in the U.K. (and I've seen it too) is more about disposable income among the proletariat. Spend it all and don't save.

Certainly, the Warsaw bourgeoisie are shockingly materialistic nowadays, and accumulating wealth isn't seen as shameful.

A few decades ago I remember a billboard in the U.K. and a billboard in PL that wouldn't work in the other country. The one in the U.K. was for IKEA and said "Sont be so British". If on in PL said "Don't be so Polish" it would have been a scandal. The one in Poland said "Buy our plastic roofing material because one day you will have grandchildren". In the U.K. people would say "what has my house got to do with my grandchildren; they can work hard and buy their own bloody houses".

Life / Live-in maids in Poland? [12]


That's my feeling too.

I used to know a lady who worked at a European country's embassy and her teenage son had been to school in half a dozen countries in his life. He said that the kids at school (a well known 'international' school' in south east Warsaw) were the most materialistic he'd ever seen, so much talk about what their parents own or are buying or can afford.

The change is fast, and I'm sometimes shocked at what friends spend in their kids and grandkids. Some of them are 'new rich' but all of them cultured. I don't mean spending on education (a friend's grand daughter just got a first from somewhere well-known in London which must have cost a small fortune in total) since there's justification for that, but on housing, cars, etc. All those bars in 'Chinatown' run by 20-somethings and a few of the more hipstery businesses in Stara Praga etc were all paid for by people's parents. Plus the culture of inheriting flats from granny.

It's a generation/demographic that are probably going to get a very big shock indeed during the next major economic downturn.

Life / Live-in maids in Poland? [12]


I've come across this a few times, however in Warsaw, most people don't have the space in apartments. Though there are new build apartments that have staff accommodation and some of the newer houses in the suburb where I live have dedicated staff accommodation and sometimes security lodges.

Some of the Warsaw elite decamp to Sopot for the whole summer, often renting a separate flat for the nanny and the kids.


Most of those are over 50.


I think so too. It's storing up problems for the future. After capitalism started to intrude into Poland, a whole generation of kids grew up who are exceptionally materialistic and transactional. There needs to be far more group activities, far more activities where there's no profit involvement.

We've even had people on PF pushing for-profit summer camps when many decent voluntary ones exist.

Off-Topic / Arts and crafts [149]


Some of them are a bit "dancing butler", aren't they.

That one (plus a load of other Vettriano copies) are on the wall of my local MaccyD's in Warsaw.

Travel / About cars, electric and combustion in Poland. [162]


They're rubbish.

I used to have a company car called a Crown Victoria which felt like driving a cathedral.

Off-Topic / Music Thread - part 2 [970]

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Off-Topic / Music Thread - part 2 [970]

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Off-Topic / Arts and crafts [149]


Back in the 1950s, you could buy huge canvases by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (post pre-raphaelite, a forerunner of photorealism) for less than the price of a used family car. Now they cost tens of millions and one of his (the second picture with the petals or a version of it) I think holds the record for art prices.

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Off-Topic / Music Thread - part 2 [970]

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Travel / About cars, electric and combustion in Poland. [162]


I wonder why.

They're nice cars, or certainly used to be.

Off-Topic / Arts and crafts [149]


Much the same.


Until Protestantism came along, they were often the only people outside a tiny tiny elite who could read or write and who had any sort of critical thinking skills. It was the monks who preserved knowledge and art. It was very much art rather than craft though. Craft was the art of the people and Gombrich wrote much about the perception that it's somehow inferior to fine art.


It took me a while on google but I found it. It's called Iris Folding. I might have a go.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_folding

Off-Topic / 75 Years of Israel and the War - part 3 [553]


Same for us.

Profiteer 'investors' weren't sucking the life out of society by making as much as they can out of it and keeping it.

Off-Topic / Arts and crafts [149]


It does, but I'm just back from work and am having a senior moment so can't remember.

The Women's Institute in the U.K. used to do it as a group activity. Usually people work from a pattern. Part of the charm is that it looks a complete mess with no clue about the end result until it's finished.

I'll google something later; right now it's the time for your photorealist artist. She's good.

News / European News and Poland Thread - part 4 [1057]


I'd guess that right now they check all of them very well.

It would be sensible to seal the border between occupied Królewiec and both Lithuania and Poland. The orcs can hardly complain since they sealed off West Berlin and also currently block traffic between Crimea and the rest of Ukraine.

Off-Topic / Arts and crafts [149]

Beautiful.

I'm not especially a fan of photorealism however the skill that must go into that is incredible.

There's a craft with folded paper (not origami) which seems interesting and which I've thought of doing. Very English and apparently getting popular again after a long time out of fashion. Maybe some posts about it later, but not just yet.

News / Future of Polish-Ukrainian relations [669]


He's only 54. A kid. There are pubes stuck in the plughole of my shower older than that.

Off-Topic / Still alive and well [359]


I'd rather meet them than genocidal shady Serbian bigots.


So you say...

Off-Topic / Music Thread - part 2 [970]

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Life / Polish Music. [303]


Two versions of that posted last night in the other music thread.

If you like that, you'll probably like Nick Drake. Alive (sadly for all too short a time) and writing msic at the same time as L'amour est bleu. I'll post something there.