You’ve no doubt been wondering what sort of food Brits throw away, as compared to (say) Poles. Here’s the subtle analysis from W-Wa Jeziorki: … we agreed as to why this should be. Polish bread – which is wonderfully tasty, nourishing and generally fabulous – has an ‘best by’ date […]
Last week I attended the UK premiere of a new Polish film, Battle of Warsaw 1920. It gives a lurid and (inevitably) hugely simplified account of one of Europe’s greatest battles. As I left the cinema I found myself wrestling with a grim and unwelcome question. Had it been the worst […]
One of the interesting things about the parts of Europe East of Berlin is the way ‘Western’ ideologies are there but still have only shallow roots. Sexism rears its ugly head! Male politicians on all parts of the political spectrum just can’t resist making remarks which (they think) show them […]
Last week in the Krynica Economic Forum in deep Poland, a highlight was the exchange between former German President (and former IMF Director) Horst Köhler and Polish Finance Minister Jan Vincent-Rostowski. In essence, Kohler argued that the time had come to stop throwing good money after bad in the Eurozone – […]
Here at Project Syndicate is Poland’s Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski: Ten years later, it is clear that the fanatics behind those attacks miscalculated in two central respects. They regarded Western democracies as weak – unwilling or unable to respond to their evil extremism. And they expected Muslim communities and countries […]
Andrzej Lepper, turbulent leader of Poland’s left-populist Self-Defence party, yesterday was found dead. Apparently by hanging himself in his party office in Warsaw Where to start? The English Wikipedia page gives the basics of his lively career, describing how he came from a modest rural family background and with little formal education […]
Remember the Smolensk air-crash which killed President Lech Kaczynski and so many other senior Poles? Disagreement has rumbled on about how far mistakes or misjudgements made by the Polish aircrew and/or Russian control tower were responsible, but a major Polish report has now accepted that a good slice of the […]
Nosemonkey praises the energetic start of the Polish Presidency, not least a feisty speech by Polish PM Donald Tusk. The text of this important speech is not (as far as I can see) on the Polish Prime Minister’s official website, even in Polish. So we have to do with some […]
Poland now assumes the six-month Polish Presidency for the first time. Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski sets the scene: “EU success story” gets some 600 Google News hits. “EU crisis” gets 14,000 hits. What has gone wrong? Some people have a blunt answer: “Too much Europe!” EU structures and policies are […]
As Poland starts its EU Presidency, the long-awaited announcement is made: HM Ambassador in Poland Ric Todd is moving on, to a significant and sunny new posting. All is not (yet) quite lost. Lots of scope for transplanting modern progressive European values to the conservative locals – and flying that flag. […]
