UK, Ireland / Ed Miliband, new Labour leader, talking about Polish immigrants yesterday [62]

I'm not racist against anybody. But I do hate the treachery and support for mindless Stalinist thuggery that surfaced time and again in the Miliband family in the past.

Anyway - they turned their back on the Polish language, so presumably on Poland too.

Love / Unmarried couples in Poland = pathology [310]

Not at all - simple statistics borne out time and again.

Statistically, married couples have a better chance of staying together. Statistically, children from married parents have better chances of positive outcomes on various levels.

Naturally, statistics are not individual cases - ask any cancer sufferer.

UK, Ireland / Ed Miliband, new Labour leader, talking about Polish immigrants yesterday [62]

Poles needn't be used as a scapegoat for the UK's self-imposed problems.

Polish immigrants have been better value for money than, say, Bangladeshi or Somali immigrants, and have a history of fitting in, unlike, say Pakistani immigrants - but it's the Poles who are the only ones mentioned by Ed Miliband as being trouble to society at large and a policy mistake.

No other groups got mentioned at all.

UK, Ireland / Ed Miliband, new Labour leader, talking about Polish immigrants yesterday [62]

Good one Barney.
"Buttery butter" as they say in Polish.

Classifieds / Warsaw Speed Dating Event [34]

My, the pressure!

Are there any build-up events? I mean, sweaty armpits time or what? Job interviews are bad enough, but this ...

Classifieds / English cuisine week in Lidl shops in Poland [203]

Who needs British week anyway?

Yesterday my wife made me crumpets (yes, you can actually make them!) for breakfast, shepherd's pie for lunch, then a pizza from scratch, you know, flour etc

OK, admittedly, pizza isn't particularly English (!!) but my point is that so many of these things you miss can actually be made at home.

Mint jelly is better made at home (we add some white currants for extra pectin and body), as is every single sort of jam and marmalade. Bread for toasting comes straight out of the breadmaker - better than that sliced stuff they sell in plastic bags here. Apple pie, not apple charlotte! Crumble and custard (OK, we buy Bird's).

We could never get pickle to taste like Branston, though. I mean, how do they do that?

allrecipes - the best cooking website. For the best of British food, there's nothing like American expertise!!

Classifieds / English cuisine week in Lidl shops in Poland [203]

But when are Poles going to produce some nice sausages to cook at home?

Yeah, yeah, you can buy some truly awful sausages in England if you want to buy cheap, but you can't buy good sausages in Poland for any money ... except if you buy from the bloke who produces them for the Irish embassy.

History / Warsaw Uprising - The Forgotten Soldiers [117]

Pęcice - last skirmishes in the Warsaw Uprising

My daughter walked a long way through the rain yesterday to attend a commemoration of the fighters who fell at Pęcice, to the west of Warsaw.

Several schools in the gmina attend every year. The usual sort of affair, plus steaming tea and grochówka.

Strangely, I sold my house in England to one of the fighters (who then ended up in Auschwitz as a prisoner of war).

Life / Calendar for a coffin producer in Poland. Boxes for stiffs. [9]

I sort of like the fact that in Poland they put you in a little mausoleum sort of thing, so they can get you out 50 years down the line and dispose of you quietly.

A burial in the ground is so in your face, final, brutal. But perhaps a Zoroastrian Tower of the Dead, where you get eaten by vultures and eagles isn't so brilliant. I mean, they drag your mortal remains all over the place.

Life / Poles - what other nationality would you say you are most like? [125]

I think Poles are far, far friendlier than the Irish!

Life / Calendar for a coffin producer in Poland. Boxes for stiffs. [9]

Thanks for the belly laugh!

News / Poles DO return to the UK [39]

Brown had no grasp of economics - to understand this all you have to do is to look at the Public Finance Initiative (private enterprise builds something and makes the public purse pay 10 times over, during 30 years - brilliant!).

He gave family doctors pay rises of 100% by accident!! And they're still unhappy.

He bankrupted the country - economic madness.

True, his decision not to join the euro showed commonsense. There again, he never was one for teams, was he?

Thankfully, he trained up Edward Miliband at the Treasury! Can't wait for when the UK elects him in 2015.

Cameron - why is it that aristocrats are so hard to like? Still, less of an aristo than his wife, Sam, or cousin - Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

... and I am increasingly interviewing Poles returning to Poland with decent English.

Work / Moving to Poland (from the UK) to take a teaching position. Tips? [34]

At least residency is no longer a pain in the butt.

Warsaw - Marks and Spencers food section :) and Kuchnia Świata (cuisines of the world)

No problem with those foods you don't want to do without.

Poles are generally very friendly - much better than Brits!

News / Tusk cracks down on designer drugs ("dopalacze") in Poland [171]

Isn't it true that they have to outlaw new drugs by primary legislation instead of delegated? i.e. there's a big time delay

Not sure on this.

Life / Jehova's witnesses in Poland - how to deal with them? [110]

JWs are the only group I can honestly say I am prejudiced against, except the extended Miliband family of course.

It is part of their belief system to irritate the hell out of everyone so they can suffer for their faith. Psychical sado-masochism.

I went to JW wedding in small town Poland. The non-JWs (in the minority only those people the 'happy couple' absolutely couldn't avoid inviting) were segregated off on a separate table and a Gauleiter was assigned to ensure that we didn't drink alcohol or sing before midnight.

The music was all JW pop music - YES, they have their own Polish pop music that no-one else knows.

Awful bunch of jerks. I'm always willing to give people a chance (Milibands excepted) but not the JWs.

Life / POLISH MYTHS - let's debunk or prove them! [140]

But a draft CAN cause rhinitis ... oh, go look it up!

Sorry for the pedantry.

Old Polish people have this deeply engrained folk memory of TB, which killed millions and is making a comeback thanks to immigrants from the East and liberal healthcare policies (the authorities don't lock up TB-carrying drunks and the Church stupidly encourages drunks to gather in groups at a soup kitchen outside the Palace of Culture).

Life / POLISH MYTHS - let's debunk or prove them! [140]

Polish women have frown lines going vertical on the forehead, just above the nose. Polish men have mimic lines going horizontal across the forehead.

This is because women scoldingly accuse and men feign ignorance and innocence.

Law / UK driving license mess in Poland [72]

Hey - it's all bleedin' simple.

You go down to gmina (now this bit took me 10 years!) and you say "I would like to swap my UK driving licence for a Polish licence" - you hand over your application form (my wife kindly downloaded one for me) and your licence. They issue you with a new one in about a week and it costs peanuts (which incidentally sounds very funny when said by a Spanish girl, but that's another matter).

So, where is the problem?

Oh I get it - you're still paralysed by fear of not doing absolutely everything by the book. How charmingly English.

I used to behave like that. I proudly told a Polish consular official in London years ago, when applying for a visa just prior to emigrating, that I had sold my house in London and was going to live in Poland. Totally the wrong thing to do!! By selling my house I then had no "address" and was essentially stateless - Did I want to apply for political asylum? That way lies madness!

Law / UK driving license mess in Poland [72]

Sorry - I hadn't bothered to read the first posts.

I didn't know your UK licence could expire. Have you still got the card? One way ahead would be to go to the UK consulate/embassy/fortress (Ever been there? It's scary) and sign a declaration (equivalent to a notarial deed in Polish admin eyes) saying that you would be entitled to a UK licence if you lived there. Then give no more explanation whatsoever. That would sway any doubting Polish admin girl who doubts your licence.

But - does it say on the card that it has expired? If it hasn't, then there's absolutely no problem.

Life / POLISH MYTHS - let's debunk or prove them! [140]

I come from Yorkshire and have spent a lifetime with people who have chips on their shoulder. Then I met Irish people, then Poles ... chips with everything!

Law / UK driving license mess in Poland [72]

For what it's worth, I replaced my UK paper licence with a Polish photocard licence. My wife did too.

News / Polish in vitro treatment fully refundable - bonkers! [62]

But folks, you see what I meant many posts ago?

The govt doesn't help anyone by this move, but it brings out the usual mob with their usual divisive politics. Pavlov par excellence.

So utterly predictable, utterly pathetic, utterly Communist! This is why both Platforma and PiS should be kicked out of Polish politics.

News / Why is Poland developing so slowly or in the wrong direction? Who is responsible ? [317]

Re pensions in the public sector. A very difficult area to generalise on. For example, the Secret Service, on which I know more than a few things:

Some staff are 'mere' secretaries - a useful job, as I well know but not worth early retirement.

Some staff are field agents, waiting up nervously all night for a reported illegal arms shipment to arrive on the eastern border. Obviously armed and dangerous gun-runners make for sweaty palms ... and perhaps the right to an early retirement.

Then there are the work-shy agents, who pretend to work.

Who deserves early retirement? Or do they deserve a pay rise? Answer: they will get neither.

News / 30 to 40 thousand abortions by Polish girls in foreign countries [142]

Abortion is a necessary evil which should be kept to a minimum. Unfortunately, most countries ignore that and seem to view adoption as an avoidable evil which must be kept to a minimum.

End result: loads of deaths and loads of unhappiness.