General Władysław Sikorski 's Exhumation

To be honest I was a little surprised when I heard about the exhumation of Sikorski. As you may recall, he was the leader of the Polish Government-in-exile during WW2 and died in a plane crash off Gibralta in 1943. There have always been theories and counter-theories about his death. Some point to Stalin, while others point to Britain. What they all agree on however, is the fact that the plane carrying the Polish Prime Minister crashed in the Med.

Therefore I am unsure as to what is expected. If the plane was sabotaged, or had a bomb on it, then the body will unlikley show signs of this. I stand to be corrected, but feel this will turn out to be an expensive waste of time.

The PM has resently said that Poland should be ready to meet all the criteria for accepting the Euro by 2011. I must admit that i was a little surprised by this as iexpected it a little latter. However, i am pleased as it will help Poland to further integrate with the rest of the EU. I just wish that the UK would do the same!!!

I am pro-EU and yet patriotic. This dicotomy often leaves me with a confused headache, yet if push came to shove, then i would always favioutr closer integration of the EU.

I'm still wondering

I have been a way from the world of blogs for a long time. My summer has as usual been eventfull and i am now settled back at work ready to begin the madness that is a year as an English teacher in Poland. In terms of scandal and stories I don't really have much to offer you at present as i have also kept my nose out of Lodz and Poland's business. That said i will endevour to dig something up for you in the not to distant future.

Wacky Races

As I mentioned in a previous post, Lodz has done what no other city (I know of) has dared to do. The BBC reports today that legal street races have begun along Lodz's ring-roads. The idea has sprung from the need to combat illegal races that often occur along the cities streets. Now anyone with a road legal car and a licence can compete in the night races where it is claimed that up to 10,000 people turn up to watch.

As I said previously, this is a bold and innovative step and I highly commend Lodz's city council and police authorities for what is inevitably a controversial initiative. - Good effort :)

Rydzyk and PiS - the twilight years!

To many used to recent Polish politics, the close connection between church and party will not come as a surprise. However, recent developments have seriously questioned the understanding of Jesus’s teachings. It has become public knowledge that Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, the self styled leader of Radio Marya has laid out an ultimatum to PiS with regards to the currently debated Lisbon Treaty. F. Rydzyk has proclaimed that if PiS do not stop the treaty from being ratified by the Polish parliament, then he will withdraw his support from the party. This means in effect all the listeners to Radio Marya who amount to the majority of votes PiS hold. This would in effect cripple PiS in any future elections.

The boundries between church and politics clearly seem to have been croosed by this recent move. While I grant that such matters as abortion law have an ethical and therefore religious aspect, the Treaty of Lisbon has a purely political dimension and as such is not part of the Church’s remit. This interfering by F. Rydzyk seems to contradict one of Jesus’s teachings where Jesus states: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.”

This statement by Jesus has become the cornerstone of European secularism and the separation of Church and State. F. Rydzyk seems to show either a profound ignorance of the bible (which would be strange coming form a monk) or perhaps a more sinister ability to pick and choose the bible’s teachings to fit his personal plans. Either way Poland needs to resist the ever present grip of F. Rydzyk and his ilk.

Serbia decides!!!

We are now staring to see the real fallout form Kosovo’s declaration of independence last month. After failing to agree on a common front the Serbian Parliament has been dissolved and elections called for the 11th May by Serbian President Boris Tadic.

The main problem lies in their (Serbia’s) relationship with the EU, where most member states recognized the independence of Kosovo. Some political groups want to break off relations with the EU where as others see this as too drastic.

The new elections could mean that pro-EU groups gain power and we could see a new and refreshed Serbia. However, the opposite could of course happen and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica may receive an endorsement of his stance regarding the issue.

Making money - Part 2

I am just updating any readers on the events concering my speeding fine as i wrote about in Febuary. Well i did get a letter form the court, but the bizzare thing was that it did not inform me as to where i should actually pay my 100zł fine.

Convinced that a second letter containing the actuall bill and payment details would come i sat tight. After two weeks i had received nowt! Therefore being the honest citizen i am i went to the local police station. The guy on duty was as bafflled as me and said he didin't have a clue and that we should either wait orring a telephone number on the letter.

He actually spent more time complaining that the new spped cameras were causing him a lot of hassle as he had to chasse people up after they had broken the speed limit by a couple of k. This was seriously eating into his peoper police duties and staring to get on his wick!!

The story just gets more and more bizzare!!!

Wackey races

I was surprised to see the following article on Top Gear's Website:

Lodz of fun
Crudely informed stereotype it may be, but we'd never have
flagged the Polish police force as a progressive bunch.
However, news
reaches us that police in Lodz, Poland's second city, plan to cordon off
sections of the town at night to allow street racers to compete without speed
limits.
It's all part of a bid to keep youths from organising illegal night
races, and police believe the measures will help to cut down accidents in the
city.
"We've come to an understanding with the organisers of the illegal
races," said Lech Ryszewski, head of the Lodz motoring club, which has been
working with the police force to get the night races up and running.
"The
motoring club has created a Street Legal section, which will organise the races
in closed-off streets, under the supervision of licensed organisers and judges.
In return, participants are obliged to make sure no one organises similar races
on city streets."
Understandably, some sections of the Polish media have
likened the measures to organising a piss-up in a brewery and not expecting
people to get drunk outside. But just imagine all those pimped-up Ladas and
Trabbies...

I think the idea is both great and terrible. Generally finding alternative ways for young men (mainly)to get excitement is great. But surley the streets have houses and the likes next to them. Can't a race track be found?

If anyone knows if this is going ahead then please let me know. Perhaps TG has got the wrong end of the stickshift.

That said, perhaps TG should update their info on Poland as Ladas and Trabbies are not too common these days!!

To be or not to be!

To be what you may ask! To be a citizen of Poland.

I, as you can probably guess, am a British Citizen (one of the three possible types, which on a recent internet search I was intrigued to discover existed).


I have lived here (Poland) for three and a half years in that time I have resided legally thanks to my EU resident’s card.

Well generally this state of affairs is fine as I can exist quite happily like this. However, it restricts my voting (I think, but actually haven't checked thoroughly) and it has some odd little side effects..

Last weekend my wife and i were in MediaMarkt in Łódź and we wanted to but a new hoover. It was only 500zł, but we wanted to establish a credit history with Lukas (the partner bank of MM). Therefore we said we'd pay 150zł in cash and the rest in 5 installments. In five months time we would then get letters offering huge amounts of credit (at least that was the plan).

The problem was that Lucas doesn't like foreigners (my suspicion is that its French roots detected my Englishness and bulked at the idea). When I say doesn’t like, maybe I’m stretching the story, but the result is the same, they don't give credit to foreigners full stop.

In the end we had to buy it outright, which means no credit history. The funniest thing is that I have a 2 ½ year old car which was bought in Poland primarily on credit (that was an Italian bank though :) ).

Holylodz

The city of LOdz, already a central part of the Polish film industry with the Film School, is set to increase its share os showbiz with the construction of a new film studio. David Lynch, as previously mentioned on this blog has somewhat fallen in love with Lodz and as well as gathering money for a cultral centre in the city is also planing to build a small film studio which should open in 2009.

This all comes at an important time for tthe Polish film industry as Katyn is up for an Oscar at the end of the month.

As mentioned in previous entries, I do not live in Lodz, but work there and commute daily. This meand that i actualy spend more of my time there than in the village where i live. Lodz, has a bad reputation with in POland, yet is increaseinly transorming it self. I can not wait to see the final result in around twenty years time.

Easy come easy go - making money the hard way!!

It seems that winter has returned to Łódź with a renewed vigor. After a few weeks of relatively warm and dare I say it spring-time weather, we now have snow. ... But stop, before I kill off any potential readers of this recently sporadically updated blog, let me tell you a story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin!



Last summer I was driving around happily minding my own business, enjoying the warm rays of the summer sum. Little did I know, that Satan in all his inventive and unquestionably evil genius had plotted to entrap me in a demonic plot. Yes, you guessed it, I went straight through a speed camera. This was not one of those large grey boxes clearly marked for all to see by a procession of flashing headlights from the oncoming traffic. No this was far more ingenious. It was one of the evil goblins cunningly disguised as a little grey bog on a tri-pod, connected by some umbilical cord like cable to a chariot of hell, otherwise known as an unmarked car.

Don’t get me wrong I am not against speed cameras or for that matter covert ones. In fact they are a very good idea and I think far more effective at reducing drivers’ speeds, than overt methods. I just would rather it wasn’t me that it happened too :-)

The problem with this occasion is that the covertness was so effective that I had absolutely no idea I had been caught. I then proceeded to go up north for the summer and it was not until early September that my local policeman cam a knocking (that is something that, after 3 & 1/2 years I still haven’t got used to ... the personal service that Polish police provide). The problem was that he had come round several times while i was away and that now over two months had passed. This means that under Polish law the case must go to court and can not just be settled by the fuzz, I mean local constabulary.

Ok, I thought fair enough. The police man wrote a very nice report, recommended me for the minimal fine, and said that I wouldn’t need to attend in person. The problem is it is now rapidly approaching the end of February and I still haven’t revived my fine. Bureaucracy is one thing, but I have had to go to the police station to get booked, the police man has had to come to my house twice, while I was there, and god knows how many times when I wasn’t, and all for the amazing sum of 100zł.

Now I am no economist, but even I can see that by the end of this all the Polish state is going to be in deficit.

So far it has been 8 months, and still no result.......