Life / Before 1980 family in Poland was friendly towards immigrants; now they are not [11]

In the 1980s, all of my family in Poland - countless cousins, aunts etc etc, were very friendly towards us from the UK. After the fall of Communism, relationships changed with the new system. In those days, we always brought a carload of bananas, pineapples and other goodies to Poland for them every year; they begged for 'zaproszenie' to work unofficially in the UK, even jostling & pushing each other to be first. These days, a few are still friendly, most distant but casually friendly, and two or three positively hate my guts simply because I don't go to church anymore! This was highlighted last week at my cousin's funeral, where most were pleasant, but those hateful few sat as far away as possible at the 'stypa' and ignored us completely. If I still had something to offer them, such as in the way of easy money, things would definitely change once again. These days, some of them (who now have small businesses thanks to our zaproszenie) wouldn't PiiS on me if I was on fire on Christmas Day!! What's your family like? Better I hope.

Life / Tricks & Dodges (The Poles are nothing if not inventive) [26]

The Poles are nothing if not inventive.

When satellite TV first came on the scene about twenty years ago, it was someone in Poland who was the first to get satellite TV for free by using a metal dustbin lid. This was a couple of years before the channels were coded. This was mentioned in "The Daily Telegraph" at that time, but I don't have the details to hand.

Other tricks they use (and not used in other countries as far as I know), are:

- blocking your chimney with a hat, slit into a cross shape at the top. You then get a blocked chimney with the resulting smoke in the house. When the chimney sweep shoves his brush up, the hat opens up and all seems well to him. When he pulls his brush down, the hat closes again.

- using a large bicycle wheel (tyre removed) as a TV antenna, linking it up to your TV. You'll get a brilliant reception, but your neighbours' TVs will have an unwatchably poor one.

- putting a cracked egg in a wall when doing, say, tiling or plastering. After a couple of weeks your room will pong to high heaven for ages, and you won't know how to get rid of it.

Anybody got any more bright ideas?

History / Where Are Milicjanci (Polish Police during Communism) Now? [7]

Now Poland has a free market economy and a member of the EU, NATO and so-called democracy etc., the majority of the Polish population no longer walk in fear of being beaten up by the police.

In the 70s and 80s, the milicja gave me and my family heavy looks and followed me around, presumably because I used to have VERY long hair and looked alternative. More than once I nearly got my head kicked in by these protectors of the workers paradise. My reaction then was to keep walking (fast but not too fast) and keep smiling!

Being so confrontational was truly uncalled for!!
WHERE ARE THESE SCUM NOW? Many of them must still be alive breathing our air; they must have names and addresses, email addresses, mobile phone numbers...

Are they forgiven and forgotten? Not as far as I'm concerned.

Real Estate / If you own a property in Warsaw, you don't own the ground it stands on! [9]

Every country has its strange laws which have never been, but should be, repealed. One is that in a certain American town, it is still illegal to drink milk on a Thursday.

Poland is no exception! If you own property in Warsaw, the actual property is legally yours, but the ground it stands on is council property. In theory the local government can demand you shift your house elsewhere on pain of demolition. As far as I know this stems from the PRL period where property ownership was frowned upon (unless you were related to one of the bankers, if you catch my drift). Another strange Polish law today is that in the countryside, farm owners each owns bits of an access road leading to other properties running through them. So if your property is further down the road and you want to improve the state of the track so your new car doesn't fall to bits, all the farmers whose 'land' you have to traverse all have to agree; and that all at the same time! And if any one of them at any time changes his mind, you're stuck. Some farmers also have close family in local council offices, who can pull (or block) strings in his favour.

Polish law has to tackle these seemingly small local issues if it is to make life easier for the smallholder. These laws have no place in modern Polish society and hold Poland back. The time is grossly overdue for the government to nationalise all country roads/tracks.

"The law is an ass" - in Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens).

Travel / Share Your Travel Experiences in Poland [16]

My experiences of Polish train travel can be charitably described as varied. Mostly uneventful, though once, some dangerous-looking character tried to get some old lady to part with her purse (so I stood between him and her and looked at him severely - he got the subtle hint). Some stations can be rather dodgy! Katowice station has a number of bums bumming around, even in the daytime (wouldn't like to be there too late at night). Warszawa Zachodnia isn't that safe it seems, but what really gets my goat is Wrocław Główny. The station itself isn't at all bad, but travelling on the 'Ślązak' train which plies between Zielona Góra and Rzeszów, someone at Wrocław gets on every single time I've been on it, asking for money, claiming they've just been mugged or lost their money/ticket/other valuables they can't survive without. It seems quite a few people leave their brains behind before entering Wrocław station, and are careless with their property.