Language / The "end piece" of a loaf of bread in Polish [80]


God give me patience. What would I be trying to prove? I just said that I found it odd that cake, pastry and dough are covered by one word. I mean dough is hardly the same thing as cake now is it? If I offered you kawa and ciasto, how would you feel if I served you a lump of dough? But I would be quite within my linguistic rights and indeed, I may say, I would be sorely tempted to do so :)) it would serve you jollly well right.

Sorry if you felt I cast aspersions on your 'cake tradition'. I know you have cakes, many cakes, I just don't like most of them very much.



But the Irish cáca is pronounced 'caw-ka' like the caw of a crow.

Language / The "end piece" of a loaf of bread in Polish [80]


Well I only know French, German and Irish, each of which have separate words for cake, pastry and dough. For example in Irish dough is taos, pastry is taosrán you can see the connection there) and cake is cáca, biscuits are brioscai and so on.

Language / The "end piece" of a loaf of bread in Polish [80]


Yes I do understand that. I think pastry is not really a part of traditional Polish dishes is it? The 'pie' is a very British thing. Also the way in which meat is butchered so differently in Europe is something very hard to get the head round. I really miss being able to buy a nice joint of beef on the bone for roasting.


To me they're just two different varieties of cherry, one being slightly sweeter than the other. I think the sourer one is lighter in colour. I made jam in the summer using the darker one. It didn't set very well so I used it to sweeten rhubarb crumble. I had much better success with the raspberries and the plums gave the best set. All very yummy though!

Law / Major Issue with Poland's Residence Card! I have Polish wife, but no job, passport, I'm seeking for asylum. [9]

The OP should really be asking these questions of the office that organised his card or the government department that's handling his application for asylum. Also when he got his tymczasowy thing, he would or should have been given a booklet (available in several languages including English) which is issued to all refugees/asylum seekers and sets out amongst other things, conditions regarding work plus a list of contacts for organisations that provide support for applicants. I could understand his difficulties if he spoke neither English nor Polish, but if his wife is Polish, I don't see why she can't make a few phone calls or toddle along to the relevant government office and get the necessary information. The language is obviously not a problem for her.

Language / The "end piece" of a loaf of bread in Polish [80]

Thanks very much for the explanation Kpc. That makes more sense, ciasto as dough in that context ie French dough but then again, why is there no separate word for dough? Why is it interchangeable with cake?

Ciasto as a biccie I already understand although again it seemed odd to me at first, the same word for two very different things. Many biscuits are not at all cake-like. I know the difference between herbatniki and ciasteczki but it does seem to me that there are biscuits which are in neither category, not quite substantial enough to be ciasto but not quite small and crispy enough to be herbatniki, but they have to be ruthlessly forced into one or the other!

Language / The "end piece" of a loaf of bread in Polish [80]


What I find very odd is that there's no Polish word for pastry. Everything is ciasto 'cake' in my understanding. Thus puff pastry is 'ciasto Francuskie' which literally means French cake. It's not very specific is it and French pastry is often used for savoury dishes so it seems odd to refer to it as cake. Also what would you call shortcrust pastry? Ciasto Angielskie? Steak and kidney pie made with English cake!

UK, Ireland / P60 UK Upload - Brexit and Polish people's contribution to the British economy [48]


All of this is pure assumption on your part. People who acquired the right of permanent residence under EU law will not be required to leave after Brexit, nor will they be forced to obtain British citizenship. That would be illegal. In a democratic society such as Britain it is not acceptable to retrospectively revoke peoples' rights. Changes in residence laws will only affect those who come to live in the UK post-Brexit or who haven't been there long enough pre-Brexit to acquire permanent residence. Also your assumption does not take into account those from countries outside the EU who have ILR (indefinite leave to remain). Britian will not create a two tier system, discriminating against EU citizens with permanent residence rights in the UK, whilst allowing those of other nationalities to remain.

UK, Ireland / P60 UK Upload - Brexit and Polish people's contribution to the British economy [48]


They wouldn't be a special case. This applies to all EU citizens who might be affected by Brexit.



Yes but what you say, is merely your opinon. The law states otherwise. People who have the right to permanent residence have the choice of applying for citizenship but they don't have to and they are entitled to reside in the UK permanently without it.

UK, Ireland / P60 UK Upload - Brexit and Polish people's contribution to the British economy [48]

Realistically a lot of them don't have much to go back to. Many Poles in the UK come from economically depressed parts of Poland which have changed little during the years they've been away. Those who have jobs, businesses, homes, children born in the UK may not feel so inclined to give all that up. It's natural, if people feel unwanted, to get emotional about it and declare 'ok then we're off' but when they've cooled down a bit and considered the alternative, they may well change their minds.

UK, Ireland / P60 UK Upload - Brexit and Polish people's contribution to the British economy [48]

Tic Tac I don't think you've read the whole thread. EU citizens who've been five years in the UK have the right to permanent residency and cannot be kicked out. And that's not just EU law. It involves various international agreements to which the UK is a signatory and which are independent of the EU. Actually it's not just EU citizens either.

UK, Ireland / P60 UK Upload - Brexit and Polish people's contribution to the British economy [48]

I doubt very much that Britain will require Poles to leave. I'm pretty sure that at the very least those Polish nationals who have been living in the UK for 'x' number of years will be safe, also I think any families with children attending school or college will be ok. Theresa May is not Idi Amin.

Ok, just checked it out and according to senior civil servant Mark Sedwill, he was saying, as far back as July that any EU citizen who had lived in Britain for five years and has the right to permanent residence cannot legally be asked to leave:

"I think for people who have the five-year residence, we have in effect had a guarantee".

"It is not for me to do so (give a personal guarantee) but in the end Parliament does. It is set out in law. The current law it is clearly the case."

But for the rest, it's dependent on Brexit negotiations. However it's not clear whether he meant people who had five years residence at the date of the referendum, five years when the exit process is triggered or five years when the final exit takes place.

Work / Salary of Data Analyst or Certified Qlikview Developer in Poland Krakow (Cracow) [12]

Hi Nitish. You said 4,200 euros net (you do realise that net means after tax, it's your take home pay), I presume you mean per month. That's about 17,000 zł, which is a totally unrealistic salary expectation for Poland. It would you make you one of the highest earners in the country! That's not going to happen anywhere after four years work experience. Just to put it in perspective for you, you were asking for around 50,000 euros per year take home pay, after tax. Absolutely no software developer anywhere in Europe earns that with four years experience. You'd need nearer to ten years experience to be in that category. It's a salary for a senior developer and one with an impressive CV.

So, just to recap, your max is likely to be around 2,000 euros gross per month, that's around 8,000zł. They expect you to ask for a bit more and then they offer less, so you could ask for 9,000 zł.

Work / Salary of Data Analyst or Certified Qlikview Developer in Poland Krakow (Cracow) [12]

Nitish, salaries in IT are amongst the highest in Poland. A senior developer can earn 20,000 PLN gross. However, no matter where you are in the world there are certain factors that are the same.

The salaries are highest for senior developers and four years experience only puts you at mid-level at best.

The Qlikview thing alone doesn't make you that desirable unless there's a severe shortage of developers with that technology. I don't know what the story is in Poland regarding that. You need to have another programming language like Java or C++ which are always in high demand. I mean one that you've been using in the last two years, not one that you did in college. As you know from your career thus far, employers are constantly asking developers to switch projects and use different languages or tools.

Finally it depends on which city the job is in. Warsaw pays the highest salaries.

I would say you could do a bit better than 7,000 gross but not that much. 8,500 maybe.


How much did you ask for and how much experience did you have then?

Life / Electricity, water, gas charge in Warsaw, Poland. [17]

Well he might not be looking seriously. You know how sometimes people are just idly wondering about these things and the easiest, cheapest and quickest thing to do is ask a question on a forum even though it's usually a complete waste of time!

Life / Electricity, water, gas charge in Warsaw, Poland. [17]

Could the OP have meant electric central heating?? And heating of water by electricity as opposed to gas? You see his username is House To be Built and maybe he's looking at a plot of land in an area where it would be very expensive to run a gas line to the property.

Law / Ex-Girlfriend in Poland and Personal Debt [7]


Everything? Do you mean major items like rent and any other purchases like tv or computer? Or do you mean food etc. That sounds a bit much. I mean you wouldn't really expect somebody to pay you back half the grocery bills or money you'd given her to buy clothes, would you??

There are Polish lawyers who specialise in debt recovery but to be honest your chances of getting the money back are slim and of course you'd have to pay the lawyer for their services. She may agree she owes you money but she never signed any agreement with you or had an official loan from you. 15-30,000 zł is a huge amount of money for the average Polish person and if your girlfriend was having trouble just meeting basic living costs when you were living together.......well, need I say more. The best that you'll be able to do, even if it goes to court, is get her to agree a certain amount per month. It could conceivably take her years to pay you back.

Officially she doesn't really owe you anything Simon. She was your girlfriend, you had money, she didn't, you supported her financially. That's kind of a normal thing to do when you're a couple. It's also normal even just with ordinary friendships or with family, for people to say 'I"ll pay you back when I get on my feet' and they don't. That's just life. If you had remained together and maybe got married, would you still expect her to pay you back? I think you should just let it go and get on with your life. My own view on lending people money, is, don't. If someone needs help and you want to help them, give it as a gift and don't expect to be repaid.

Classifieds / Polish nurses and medical staff wanted for work in the UK [45]


Actually she did, after her initial post. Then she changed her mind and closed the account. But she's left a breadcrumb trail :) If she were still working for the NHS she would be in a bit of trouble with them, but if she's left the job it will probably do no more than affect any references she might receive. Actually it's odd that she supposedly left there a month ago and now doesn't appear to have what I'd call a 'real' job, faffing about with a pretty much non-existent recruitment agency. It's strange for a senior manager to leave a post such as the one she occupied without having something else substantial lined up to go to, unless of course she took early retirement or voluntary redundancy. Perhaps she'll return and fill us in on the details!

Just to add, I checked the acceptable use policy for NHS email addresses and she's in breach of the policy she agreed to which states that:

3.1.2. You must not use the NHSmail service for commercial gain. This includes, but is not limited to: unsolicited marketing, advertising and selling goods or services

So even if she was still working for the NHS she definitely shouldn't be using her NHS address for recruitment activities on the side, on behalf of an outside agency. As a senior manager she would know that quite well. Very naughty.


However, the 'agency' she's working with is not endorsed or approved by the NHS.

NHS Employers manages a list of recruitment agencies who follow a code of conduct for ethical international recruitment, which involves a commitment to not complete recruitment activities that could disadvantage the healthcare systems of developing countries.

Employers are urged to use an agency that is on one of the recognised frameworks above and complies with the international code of conduct, as these are seen as indicators that an agency is reputable.

But neither Manchester Recruitment International (which basically doesn't officially exist) nor Medics Recruitment International appear on that NHS list.

I'll conclude by saying 'well done Roz' for spotting the dodginess in the first place.

Classifieds / Polish nurses and medical staff wanted for work in the UK [45]

I don't think she could get away with claiming 'it wasn't me'. I'd say it would be fairly easy to establish whether it was really her or not.

I think the Linkedin profile for the person called Hazel Foster (which gave her present job as recruitment consultant) would be the giveaway as it had 75 connections - I have a good memory - so it's likely that it's been there for some time. If it's a fake profile, then

a) Where's the professional profile of the real Hazel Foster? She must have one and

b) Somebody (complete with photo) has been impersonating her for quite a while (long enough to get 75 professional connections), so something would have arisen before now.

I don't think identity theft would wash.

Classifieds / Polish nurses and medical staff wanted for work in the UK [45]

I think I've solved the mystery of Ms Foster, partly anyway.

On her Linkedin Profile she said that she worked for Manchester Recruitment International, which after a quick google doesn't seem to exist.

However the other organisation she mentioned Medics Recruitment International does exist in the form of a very recent Facebook page:
facebook.com/MedicsRecruitmentInternational/about/?entry_point=page_nav_about_item&tab=page_info

Other information available lists the company which was founded in 2011 as either dormant or no longer trading. The company now consists of just one director, the redoubtable Dr Quang and the other director has resigned. The one who resigned has been a director of - wait for it- a thousand, yes that's right, a thousand companies and has resigned from 998 of them!

Now I would be in agreement with Dominic that for a woman who's been in senior management in the NHS for several years, this kind of thing is really not on. She's used smoke and mirrors to misrepresent herself right, left and centre, to what purpose I can't imagine but it's fairly evident that anybody responding to her post would be unlikely to end up getting a job of any kind out of it in a hurry. It's more likely that Dr Quang started his company as a moonlighting thing on the side, has let it lapse and is now trying to get going again by creating a register of available doctors so that he can start approaching potential clients.

News / Adam Michnik awarded for integrity, professionalism and high standards. Poland's No. 1 fascist? [321]


Will people please stop mis-appropriating our lovely Hiberno-English. If you use feck as a verb as in 'he fecked it', it means to steal something or to throw something 'he fecked his rubbish over the wall into my garden' or 'he fecked it in the bin'. You cannot 'feck' a person unless you physically throw them somewhere. You should use 'fup'. Watch Fr Ted. Ted uses the word feck all the time because it's not an offensive word in Hiberno-English. But when they want to use 'f*ck' they substitute it with fup. It sounds much stronger and more effective because the sound is much nearer to the word you want 'bet he got butt-fupped', see? Sounds a lot better, say it aloud and enjoy!

Classifieds / Polish nurses and medical staff wanted for work in the UK [45]


But CMS darling (imagine a Zsa Zsa Gabor voice there) two thirds of the lynch mob in this case is female, as indeed is the offender. Handbags at dawn.

Classifieds / Polish nurses and medical staff wanted for work in the UK [45]


If you made a genuine mistake, you'll probably get a slap on the wrist but you're unlikely to lose your job. Unless you've been in trouble before for something else you should be ok.

However it's still very unclear who or what you are. You:

a) Work at a medical practice which needs GPs.
b) You work for the NHS
c) You are associated with a Dr Quang from Medics Recruitment International
and on your internet profile you:
d) Work as a recruitment consultant for Manchester Recruitment International
and you previously worked for a hospital, not a medical practice, in Manchester.

So it's a mass of confusion.

Classifieds / Polish nurses and medical staff wanted for work in the UK [45]

I wouldn't call it threatening. He's a doctor himself and he's talking about reporting you to the appropriate authorities for what he perceives as professional misconduct/unethical behaviour.

Your original post isn't clear as it suggests that you are recruiting on behalf of the NHS. If you're not recruiting directly for them but through an agency, you should have used your agency email address. Otherwise it's misleading to candidates.



Those two statements contradict each other.

Classifieds / Polish nurses and medical staff wanted for work in the UK [45]

Well I just checked Roz and there is a Hazel Foster who's a recruitment consultant with a medical recruitment agency. She previously worked for the NHS and she's only been in her present job for a month so she's probably still using her old email - if it's the same person.

Isn't it mildly unsettling the amount of information you can gather on a complete stranger in a few seconds??

Love / Should I bring gifts? - help with a Polish wedding [46]


Goodness me what an old misery you are. I don't consider anything you've written remotely controversial. In fact I suspect that however genuine the core sentiments are, your tongue is well and truly lodged in your cheek.

Now, you're a pathologist if I remember correctly. You should have been an orthopaedic surgeon or something of that kind - oh wait, time for the speech on which consultancies are the most lucrative and allow the greatest options for saving etc :)) But you see if you'd been a consultant of the more mundane variety, think of the possiblities for having the poor student nurses and interns cowering and quaking in anticipation of 'Prof Dom's round'. All would flee before your barbs - wasted on the dead. Although once again if memory serves me correctly you were more on the academic side rather than the hands on.

Love / Should I bring gifts? - help with a Polish wedding [46]

You're in great form at the moment Dominic whipping up a storm of controversy hither and thither. You'd be odds on favourite if you were running in the Grand National :))

UK, Ireland / Non EU parent of Polish child [12]


Of course, that's a very good point as she's not actually divorced.


That's true. She could simply have made a bad choice of husband and regretted it. I would say she probably didn't know the divorce law in Ireland when she married and it came as a huge shock to discover that it's not like Poland where you can be rid of your spouse in a few months. Five year waiting time in Ireland. Hence she'll have to go down the null and void route if she doesn't want to wait.

However if she does that and gets a decree of anullment on the basis of being defrauded into a marriage for residence purposes, the Gardai will then get involved as the ex-husband will be investigated with a view to prosecution. So she'd need to be careful. She's already made a big enough mess of her life.

One of the problems is that people today seem to be finding it increasingly hard to understand and accept that actions have consequences and that there isn't always a quick fix solution, especially for a major error of judgement.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2971]


You don't really know your history very well do you? Women had far greater freedom in the West a thousand years or fifteen hundred years ago than they had five hundred years ago. Christianity and its reinvention of the female ideal (and yay Christianity, I am soooo a Christian) robbed women of a good many freedoms they had previously enjoyed. For example Viking women had all the independence and freedoms enjoyed by twentieth century women, Irish women under the old Irish system had equal rights with men including the right to enter all professions open to men and served amongst other things a judges under the Brehon legal system.

Also Irony, Susan B Anthony et al are not 'early feminists'. They come very far down the line. The early feminists are women like Mary Wollstencraft. You could also say that some of the founders of the religious orders and the Abbesses of the great convents were also feminists. They managed to get out from under the patronage and control of men to a great extent and forge an independent existence at a time when Christian women were chattels of the men in their families. Also the later ones like Nano Nagle and Catherine McCauley went out into the world from their convents mixing hands on with the poorest and roughest people at a time when women of their class usually maintained a safe distance. Charity was ok as long as you sat at home and sewed garments for the poor or dropped a shilling in a begging bowl but women were not encouraged to involve themselves with the destitute. Those women who abandoned a comfortable middle class extistence to do so went against the social norms of the times as much as a woman who wanted to study science or smoke a cigarette in public.

UK, Ireland / Non EU parent of Polish child [12]


Yes, that is good advice! Or failing that use protection. However, the girl is as much to bIame in this situation. I have to say I have limited sympathy for, or patience with a woman who comes out of a fraudulent and possibly bigamous marriage (see the other thread) and within two years gets herself pregnant by a man who has no fixed abode or right to remain in either the country where they are living or in her own country. Foolish and irresponsible behaviour in the extreme.

Love / Should I bring gifts? - help with a Polish wedding [46]

Huge, vulgar weddings (which invariably feature a bride looking like a prize heifer dressed in human garb for a day) are an abomination, I agree. Actually that reminds me of what Billy Crystal said about his own family's general demeanour at a wedding 'like wildebeest in cheap clothing'. :))

However, wedding presents are the norm in our society, whatever form they take. It's like the old thing of not showing up at somebody's house empty-handed or indeed in Ireland, letting a guest leave empty-handed. It's hard to get out of an Irish household, in rural areas anyway without having some form of produce pressed upon you, be it a pot of jam, some eggs or even a head of rhubarb from the garden which means rhubarb tart for tea tomorrow whether you want it or not. I've even had things like knitting wool foisted upon me! 'Look, I've a bag of wool here that I never used, it might come in handy. Sure the colours are gorgeous, you could make a lovely tea cosy out of that'......

Now, what I really object to, and there was a thread about it a few months ago, is children collecting money for their First Communion and Confirmation, a practice that's gotten totally out of hand in recent years.