Poland and the Poles

Re the Polish language: I was maybe a little harsh in "destroying" it. It isn't a very easy language for Anglophones to learn, though, even in comparison to other Slavic languages. For one thing, it has retained a lot of anachronisms, in terms of its grammar, its vocabulary and especially its spelling. That has to do with Polish history -- when Poland was partitioned by the Germans, the Russians, and the Austrians in the 1790s, all three (to some extent) tried to suppress Polish culture and language. To counter this, Polish linguists (many of whom were pretty nationalistic) tried to keep the language as "pure" and "Polish" as possible (i.e., by retaining anachronistic grammar rules, not changing the spelling scheme, trying to keep out German or Russian words, etc.) But the real reasons I don't like it the Polish language that much are: (1) to my ears, at least, it sounds very harsh (Russian is much nicer- and softer- sounding, as far as Slavic languages go) though not as much as Czech; (2) all those damn consonant clusters, which are tough to spell and tougher to pronounce properly; and (3) that my grandparents never really bothered to teach me or my father, so I was always wondering what the hell they were saying when they were speaking in Polish (and it would have been a nice skill to put on the resume had I learned it proficiently).

Enough of my rant :-)

I am one quarter polisha nd my surname is polish - though doesn't exceptionally look it (Baran - you get no ethnic marks unless you have the ski). I am inordinately proud of my Polish heritage which I know almost nothing about.

Q: What do you get if you do a contour integral round Western Europe?

A: Nothing. All the Poles are in the East.

How we LARFFED.

I like borscht though, and I like the way Poland contains a huge chunk of primordial forest with weird animals like buffalo and bears and dinosaurs that are extinct in the rest of Europe.

Check yer e-mail re my thoughts on Czeslaw Milosz.

I occasionally have odd fantasies that my Polish grandfather was actually Jewish based on very scant evidence which is nevertheless romantic. Still its all passed downt he mothers line anyhoo so Emma's the only vague Jew in our house.

Re the Polish language: I was maybe a little harsh in "destroying" it. It isn't a very easy language for Anglophones to learn, though

^^^this

(i mean self-teaching a language is maybe not the best idea in the first place but jesus)

Does anyone know if the Civic Platform party used Fleetwood Mac's 'Tusk' as their campaign song in the recent election?

my polish ex was soo hawt! she tought me some polish words, but she never stold cheese for me

...but she never stold cheese for me

she never WHAT?

HA!! should be stole

I'm sorry to say I've never been to Poland.
Then again, that nice girl from whom I bought a load of (Greece-pressed) Jethro Tull vinyl once-upon-a-long-ago in Moscow (looong story, don't ask:), was all Polish all right.
And jazz saxophonist Cz.Namyslowski was also a nice guy -- but kinda un-talkative, which meant that my interview attempt with him never transpired into anything much.
My son and her ex-girlfriend, though, had to hitch-hike through Poland a couple of times and their memories of going-coming across the Polish border were rather horrid, as I recall.
Anyway.
The Warzsaw uprising towards the end of WWII... do the school textbooks on history that are used in western Europe deal with that tragic and heroic event with sufficient depth? (Just wondering here...)

no they don't and it's a scandal

they probably give it a sentence or two. there are lots of things they don't cover.

my polish ex was soo hawt!

it was only really meeting actual Polish people that made me realise the nonsense the RATZIS used to come out with about the Slavs.

i would live in gdansk in a minute for real but yeah polish is damn hard - most english speakers, i have been told by more than one pole, just can't achieve real fluency. but y'know what, the basics are enough if all you want to do is hang out and maybe be an artist/writer/musician/layabout ex-pat anyway. yeah my dream summer house is there i think.

i'm considering a poland trip next summer and by most accounts i've read, poland-belarus-russia is a nightmare, border-crossing-wise

i would live in gdansk in a minute for real

hey, yes me too :-)

they even have awesome elevated train/subway!

this may be my new line
'fuck you all i'm moving to gdansk'

The Polish guy who worked in the coffee shop across the road was claiming that Gdansk was great, but then he is from there. I am intrigued by this Gdansk love, as I would have assumed that it was one of those flattened-in-war-rebuilt-as-slabs cities, but obviously not. now that I think of it.

er, something else was meant to follow.

Dear Vicar - darn, thou artn't half-bad at half-finished abstraction. Yet?

ALl the girls I know of Polish descent are very, very cute.

and they send the ugly ones out of the country.

To live in Peterborough.

What 'borough is that?

crazy polish commercial from 1980 selling cockroach strips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65oYMRaWxYQ

i have shown that video to so many people

there's lots of great soviet-era eastern european ads on youtube, in fact

that commercial is like something that luis bunuel would've thunk up if he was stuck in poland in 1980 and was relegated to making cheap TV commercials.

they were advertising Poland in World War 2 holidays here recently. I bet that would be fun!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Mariusz_Pudzianowski_5.JPG

http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/cms_images/player/artur-boruc-profile-news148-394632_478x359.jpg

Very detailed look at the protests against the crackdown on reproductive rights.

http://newsocialist.org.uk/transmissions/a-hell-for-women/

This is Piotr Patkowski, Poland’s deputy finance minister. He looks *extremely* like a 12-year-old playing dress up as a kid’s idea of a grown man. He’s 29. pic.twitter.com/KkCUsu3qMI

— Basia Cummings (@basialcummings) March 13, 2021

Unfortunate for him

cheeky young evil wee scamp of the Rees-Mogg variety imo

Minister in charge of Milky Bars.

That's a Polish look, tbh. So many members of the Polish side of my family look young young young young young and then they turn a certain age and look like they're 120.

even when they're like, 70

Great I'm looking forward to 25% of my genes pulling that number on me.

i got 50% here, no great shakes.

Exit pole (arf)

Law and Justice (PiS): 36.8%
Civic Coalition (KO): 31.6%
Third Way: 13%
The Left (Lewica): 8.6%
Konfederacja: 6.2%

Figured this was gonna pan out like Slovakia and could well do but seems to be more optimism for the oppo's coalition prospects.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/world/europe/poland-election-law-and-justice.html

Momentous Shift Looms for Poland as Governing Party Looks Set to Be Ousted
An expected liberal coalition would probably reverse deeply conservative policies at home and diminish Poland’s role abroad as a beacon for right-wing groups

Hope this optimistic take will work out

THANKSGIVING PRAYER (WITH A GRUDGE)

You didn’t make me blind
Thank you O Lord

You didn’t give me a hump
Thank you O Lord

You didn’t make my father an alkie
Thank you O Lord

You didn’t give me water on the brain
Thank you O Lord

You didn’t make me a stutterer a gimp a midget epileptic hermaphrodite a horse moss or something from the flora or fauna
Thank you O Lord

But why did you make me a Pole?

—Andrzej Bursa (translated by Wiesiek Powaga)