The book

Running the blog is not my first instance of dabbling in writing. I’ve been sharing my thoughts with the visitors of this site for over three and a half years, but long before setting up the blog, once I committed a longer piece of writing.

It was the summer of 2004, I was sixteen at that time and I can’t affirm these were the happiest months in my life. For sure I needed a katharsis and writing a 134-pages long book, which I’ve never given a title, helped me take some of the toxic thoughts off my chest and break free from some memories. My work covered over two years of my adolescent life, spanning from 21 May 2002 to 31 August 2004. The end of the book coincided with the last day of writing it (I’d started works on 19 July 2004). The script, consisting of 12 chapters (actually 10 have been completed, two ones, covering the period between 8 May and 31 December 2003 were supposed to be supplemented later, but I’ve never followed out this plan) dealt with matters most important for a typical teenager, i.e. friendships, first affections, family affairs, school. The writing provided insight into tribulations of ordinary life – joys intermingled with sorrows, downs were followed by ups, failures were outshined by successes. Notably, I wrote everything off my memory, I didn’t have to recourse to any notes to bring back with accuracy most important moments from recent over two years of my life.

In the last days of August 2004 I shared the book, sending the copies via e-mails, with my closest friends. It went down well, was praised for good style and maturity and criticised for my ease and shamelessness in exposing my inner-most feelings to any audience. On the last day of summer holidays of 2004, having discharged all the loads off my mind, I secured the file containing the book with a password and left it on my hard disk. I’ve never printed a copy of the book, as the I concealed the writing from my parents. They actually realised I was writing something, as it took some time to compile an over a hundred-page-long work, but were left unaware of what the book dwelled on. Probably some excerpts of it would fill them with dread and for some they would tell me to look for a new home. The book was safely copied to a new hard disk of my laptop, as I changed computer in 2006 and stayed there until June 2010.

From the very moment of closing the book, I had no courage to revert to it, nor to read it over. The mere thought of reliving the moments I depicted there made me want to puke. Later, as I became more focused on mundane issues, such as those mentioned in the name of this blog, and less emotional, I didn’t even feel the need to reopen my work. In June 2010 the file was wiped out with most of my hard disk’s content. I easily came to terms with the loss of the book as I my turbulent teenage years were meant to be left behind.

Just some time ago, while drifting somewhere between cloud nine and slough of despond, I felt the strong need to relive some moments from before almost 10 years. Coming by the book was anything, but an easy job; I had to stoop low to get the only printed copy of it (no electronic version has been saved), but eventually the coveted 134 pages came into my hands.

For a few days I was keeping it in a glove compartment of my car and hanging back on getting to grips with my past, but last Friday I finally took it out of the car, smuggled in my briefcase to the house and put into one of several binders containing study materials, so that it could not be found easily.

I read the book almost from cover to cover on Saturday – Sunday night last weekend. I must admit I have skipped a few pages, as at some moments I was running out of courage to confront myself my past emotions, but I did manage to overcome my fear. Felt like a healing…

Looking at the book from the perspective of being eight years older than when writing it, I must assert in some respects I changed much, in others, I haven’t evolved at all. In terms of style at times the writing seems superb, at times mediocre of worse. At times the author appears very childish, at times mature. Today I could tweak it (note it’s been written in Polish) and rearrange a lot, still leaving the purport untouched. I would edit out childish comments, irrelevant details and probably leave the rest out, as committed into paper then. The two missing chapters will remain unwritten forever. I can’t recall now eight months of 2003 to cover them day by day, nor would I have any pleasure in looking back on those days. The book will be preserved in the form I got hold of it ever after.

PS. As some of you have noticed, there have been some deviations from the dreary posting schedule (i.e. one post a week each Sunday). Don’t expect any news this weekend, as I’m staying at work overtime to co-ordinate implementation of a new IT tool, the same overtime job is scheduled in two and four weeks over weekends. Plus tomorrow evening I’m heading to Łódź for another friend’s wedding (alas this time skipping the reception for abovementioned reasons).

Daleko od Wawelu - book review

Spent the last two days of the shorter working week (i.e. Wednesday and Thursday) on a sick leave. I had been fighting the illness since late October, but surrounded all the time either by sneezing and coughing parents at home or by sneezing and coughing colleagues at work, I finally gave up and came down with some sort of cold. Unfortunately for my employer, I was not the only one to be absent at work at this time, but if they wanted an open plan, they should have taken into account that they would create excellent conditions for germs to fly around. And so they did…

Actually feeling a bit off-colour and staying in bed for three days has even done me good. The first day, when I had a fever did not actually bring the coveted chill-out, but then I finally found time to read books and watch films I had planned to read or watch since months.

One of them was the book written by Michał Majewski and Paweł Reszka - Daleko od Wawelu (“Far from Wawel”, where Poland’s late president Lech Kaczyński was buried). I first heard of the book in October 2010, just upon its publishing, as it was mentioned in “Polityka” as a good account of Lech Kaczyński’s term in office. As the book was reviewed mostly in liberal media, I thought it would focus on presenting the demerits of late president, yet, to my surprise, the picture of the Lech Kaczyński is anything, but one-sided.

As the authors declare, the book, compiled over many months was set to be given some finishing touches in April 2010. Before final editing, authors were appointed to talk it over with Mr Kaczyński himself, yet the final meeting was postponed until mid-April 2010 in the run-up to visit in Smolensk. Needless to say, it has never been held. Shock brought about by the Smolensk disaster put the publishing plans on hold, but a few months later authors decided to make a few technical amendments (e.g. putting past tense instead of present, for “technical” reasons) and print in the book in its pre-Smolensk shape and under a different title.

Mr Majewski and Reszka have aptly drawn a picture of Lech Kaczynski as an ordinary man, as many of us having feet of clay. They carried out several interviews with people who knew the late president well and put their accounts together. The profile of the late head of state is delineated in an unbiased way, giving credit when it was due, and pointing at weaknesses, when necessary. The picture of Lech Kaczynski which emerges from the book shows a man full of contradictions, driven most by emotions. As someone claimed, you could tell about Mr Kaczynski that he was a kind-hearted, affable interlocutor, great speaker who could deliver a speech ad hoc, meet people in a provincial town and talk to them spontaneously, or you could call him hot-tempered, dogged, disorganised, suspicious or indecisive and in both cases you would not depart from the truth. Lech Kaczynski changed moods very quickly, shouted at people and fired them, just to forget about such brawls after two days…

The biggest problem of Mr Kaczynski was, from what I inferred from the book, the fact he was extremely pliable. It is commonly known that he was steered by his brother, who had laid out their plans in politics, and wife, who toned him down, yet this was not the real case. The late president was surrounded by droves of people working in his office who competed with one another at work and used their positions to pursue their own goals. Mr Kaczynski apparently could not tell a sincere man from a mercenary bastard and often trusted too much those who did not deserve it.

Mr Kaczynski seems to appear as a victim of bad people. Not just of his brother, who made him a meaningful figure in politics or the lousy entourage from his office. As everyone realises, late president fell victim of black PR campaigns run by PO politicians masterfully since their victory in 2007 parliamentary election. The purport of PO’s depiction of the president was to present him as a stumbling block that prevents the country from moving forward and an excuse for government’s idleness. The book also sheds some light on the dark side of PO and its leader, Donald Tusk, who have rarely held back from punching below the belt. Recently, the author published a new book, titled Daleko od miłości (“Far from love”), being a similar profile of prime minister Donald Tusk. As soon as I get hold of it and read it from cover to cover, you can expect a review here.

Mr Lech Kaczynski was derided not only in Poland. Foreign diplomats took the trouble to work him out and find his soft spots. In a psychological profile they noticed he felt badly in official situations and was ill at ease during less official meeting owing to his lack of command of foreign languages. They did not hesitate to make use of that knowledge to pound at him. No wonder his ability to pursue foreign policy in a way many Poles wanted (similar to his predecessor, Mr Kwaśniewski) was largely limited.

I was deeply appalled by the overwhelming disorganisation of Mr Kaczynski’s office (kancelaria) workings. The late president could not enforce discipline, the office was run by competing cliques, decisions, due to president’s inherent indecisiveness were taken at hour eleventh, meetings were arranged much too late. Many decisions were taken on the spur of the moment and inspired by bouts of emotions. The book provides a coverage of incident of the ‘Georgian flight’, when the pilot refused to touch down in Tbilisi, slightly different than presented in Gazeta Wyborcza and gives good insight into the president foray into provincial Georgia in November 2008 when someone could have tried to shoot the president. This case, when plans were rapidly changed only due to president Saakashvili’s whim and without providing proper security to the head of state sheds light not only on bad organisation of president’s administration but also is a big question mark for alleged big friendship between the two presidents.

After reading the book, Lech Kaczynski is in my mind more like a tragic character than a mediocre president. I still claim he did not deserve to be buried in Wawel, but the time will not be turned back. The late president was actually a good man, but had no makings for a president. He did not feel comfortable holding the office and it probably would have been better if he had stayed on as professor, instead of stepping back into politics.

Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile

Except for a good book about North Korea, I could not have made any better choice on the Christmas and the subsequent slack period (how I call those days between Christmas and New Year’s Day when everything Polish economy comprises of is ticking over) read. I amm in two minds whether “Cityboy” is must for everyone who wants to work or works in banking, but the memoirs by Geraint Anderson, former investment banker, who shows his readers around the darkest nooks and crannies of world’s financial capital are surely a valuable read.

Before I set out to read, I was a bit afraid the book (I read original version in English, again thanks for Michael Dembinski for buying me it in the UK) would contain a lot of slang and a blend of colloquial and offensive language. My guesses proved right, but either I am already familiar with most of those phrases or it is written in such an intuitive way that I never had problems understanding the plot. Actually over 400 pages resulted in around 200 new English words, half of which I will surely fail to memorise.

I was not shocked by debauchery depicted in the book. Lifestyle sky-high bonuses paid in the City entail and the “culture” of investment bankers’ entourage have been widely described since the financial meltdown of late 2008 and those who, like me, delved into it earlier should not suffer any shock.

But what truly upset me was the ignorance, although it should not have…I generally know how to value a company and even if you ask me to value a certain public company, I will refuse to do it, for a simple reason. Every valuation rests on assumptions which are in fact subjective projections of future cash flows, profits, dividends. The very valuation is a simple task every high-school leaver could perform, if they were only given all formulas and data. The data makes a problem and you cannot even prove an analyst making wrong assumptions. This is why you can come across discrepant valuations of big Polish companies (example: in 4Q2010 KGHM was valued by two brokerage firms at 126 PLN and 175 PLN (31 Dec 2010 close ca. 167 PLN) and Pekao S.A. was valued by other two brokerage firms at 145 PLN and 201 PLN (31 Dec 2010 close ca. 179 PLN) that put you on the spot as a market participant.

Steve Jones (the character of the book, in fact Anderson himself), a history graduate, is hired by a bank in 1996 without having any in-depth knowledge about finance. His brother, at that working in the City, arranges an interview with him and then someone decides to take him on. One good change that has been made in the City since than is that history graduates have no chance to become bank analysts and nepotism is not so widespread. In Poland, on contrary, graduates of history or political science work at banks, but they open accounts and sell cash and mortgage loans in bank outlets, so at least they do not stand a chance to get really high.

The way Jones deals with clients is slightly despicable. He openly admits what he tells clients about results of his analyses is ‘bollocks’, but he wins their trust by taking them to bars, restaurant, concerts. In fact, what he does seriously matters in business and Jones knows how to entertain people. Plus this way is widely accepted as all banks have budgets for taking clients out and Jones most of the time has fun on the house.

Money… is what life in the City revolves around. Money is not what actually makes you strive for perfection; pursuit of money teaches you how to break rules to get a higher bonus. Executive turn a blind eye on reprehensible practices as long as they do not tarnish a bank’s reputation and as long as they do not come to the light. You have to make a profit, it is up to you how you make it, you only have to remember you must not get your bank into troubles… Compliance rules – they are worth as much as the paper they are written on. Insider trading is the order of the day, what marks out the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable demeanours is not decency but risk of litigation or adverse publicity.

Financial results of the banking industry much hinge upon goings-on on the markets. Bull markets mean good times are rolling in, when bears dominate trading floors business is winding down, bonuses are tiny (just 50,000 pounds per year…) lay-offs are in the offing.

The dominance of money means that for cityboys every asset can be priced. This view goes into extremes when bankers try to price women and some even delude themselves that those young chicks, their mistresses who are with them only for money, really love them. As the picture of the city clearly indicates, money does not bring happiness. Broken families, broken relationships with family and friends, divorces, sex as a substitute of love, nervous breakdowns, burnouts – is what cityboys (or “deranged fuckwits”) experience. And even if after a few years, despite spending a lot they manage to amass a fortune, they are unable to give it up, they do not make do with what they have, they get addicted to earning money and yearn for more… Meanwhile in the city there are no real friendships, the crucial element of survival there is learning to get on with relentless rivalry.

As Anderson precisely points out, the City destroys the world all around. Huge salaries of the bankers are driving the costs of living in London up (once Anderson mentions that prices in most shops seem extortionate to him, despite his sky-high earnings). This why I would not fancy Warsaw becoming CEE’s financial hub. Most inhabitants of Warsaw would be probably impoverished as a result of local inflation (prices adjusting to earnings of financial elite) and would be totally priced out of property market.

The author also explains why playing the stock market is a zero-sum game. If you buy stocks before their price goes up, you buy them from someone else and the other market participant does not in fact lose their money, but they incur the costs of missed opportunities, resulting from not holding a certain stock.

Anderson describes in the book a few job interviews he had throughout his career. They totally do not resemble the ones I have had in my much shorter career. In the City employers look for ruthless and greedy rat-racers, even the knowledge is not the most important as it is all ‘bollocks’ after all. In Poland, in turn, I was almost always asked substantial questions concerning my academic knowledge and hard & soft skills, and they often asked about pastime activities, hobby, balance between private life and work. In Poland banks do not (thank God) seek callous money-oriented graduates, integrity is an asset, compliance rules are enforced, nepotism does not seem to exist and people without proper academic background are not employed. In Poland banking industry appears to be rose-coloured, even if it does not offer enormous salaries (the pay is decent and commensurate to efforts, skills and experience).

At some moments I felt affinity with Anderson, for instance when he revealed he had worn a suit he had bought in a charity shop for six pounds three years into his career. It reminds of my first , eight-year-old suit (slightly worn-out and knackered by dry-cleaning), which still comes in useful for every day office work. In Poland times when you were judged by the clothes you wore are over. Style matters, brand tag no longer. But unlike Anderson into his career, I do not pay over the odds for brand-name clothes, but try to pick good quality stuff.

And the book is a must for every beginning stock market player. It may leave you disillusioned but shows the truth of how markets behave. And tells the truth who is privileged on the market. Anderson spent 12 years in the city and between 1996 and 2008 markets evolved. He went through roaring late 1990s, bursting of dot-com bubble, bear market of 2000-2002 and last gasp of prosperity from 2003 to 2007. He left in March 2008, when financial world began to capsize. He came to a right conclusion that old truths about investing are out-of-date in the days when markets are driven by big speculators and volatility is much higher that it used to be. Additionally, he draws an accurate picture of depravity within the financial industry that led up to the financial meltdown. No new ideas committed into paper, but it was quite nice to read a former banker saying who was (partly) guilty.

My feelings about Mr Anderson are still ambiguous. On one hand throughout his whole career he did not stoop as low as his colleagues, at least he realised he was paid far too much and obediently paid taxes, unlike his fellows, who all practised tax evasion and whose effective tax rate was lower than the one of their secretaries. But on the other hand, for twelve years he led a life of alcohol-addicted, coke-sniffing, self-indulgent party-goer whose weekly wages were equivalent of most people’s yearly wages and rode the gravy train more by luck than judgement. But after all I think by writing “Cityboy” and laying bare the murky and devious reality of the City, he atoned for all his previous misconduct.

The Intelligent Investor

The book my colleagues bought me a month ago is one of those which trigger the perennial question “who am I”? It may seem at least weird that a book about managing your personal finances can make you ponder upon a part of your identity, but this particular one definitely does it.

So who am I as a market participant? On the market there are two major groups of participants: investors and speculators. Usually market commentators call everyone who trades in securities an investor, which is a palpable insult to all true investors. Those two terms must not be used interchangeably, as their meanings are worlds apart. In short, an investor is someone who seeks out profitable companies, analyses their financial statements, the way they are run, industries in which they operate, estimates their fundamental values and puts his money into companies he picks out for a long period of time. Hence, an investor feels and acts like a co-owner of a company. A speculator in turn seeks quick profit, doesn’t care much about fundamentals of companies he buys and sells, falls back on various sets of rules that, as he believes, will enable him to reap profits. His only goal is to earn as much as possible in a possibly short period of time. Money never sleeps…

So who am I? Both. Impossible? I bought some stocks a few months ago and still hold them, but I also trade in stocks on a daily basis. I have to plead for some time now I have been faring better as an investor than as a speculator. Whenever buying companies for a long time I sought out those markedly undervalued and settled on middle-term investments in them. The strategy proved right and bore robust fruits. Most of my profits actually come from proper investments. How about speculation then? Here I have to confess I made an error almost everyone makes just before starting to run through money on a stock exchange. My over-confidence led me astray. I thought nothing bad would happen to me and eventually I sank around 1,000 PLN in risky, volatile stocks. It was still wiser than lending it to the ex-classmate, but has taught me a lesson of humility, a very precious one.

Speculation means risk – the odds to reap a quick profit are lower than to cover a position with a loss. Why is it more probable to incur a loss even if we assume stock prices follow a random walk? The answer lies in transaction costs. At my brokerage firm fee for a transaction is 0.39% of its amount. Hence, to let me break even, a price of a security has to go up by over 0.78%, if I buy a stock for 100.00 PLN and sell it for 100.50 PLN I lose. I even dread to tot up how much I have spent this year on brokerage fees. The sum is unfolded when the tax report (necessary to fill in the tax return on which traders report their capital gains on security trading) from my brokerage firm is delivered to me.

I think my colleagues had discerned all perils and traps of speculation and gave me that book to dissuade me from trading strategies which sooner or later would do me out of money.

Has reading the book changed my investment “mindset”? It was a kind of eye-opener, but I remain critical about some theses set there.

Firstly, I began to look at myself as at a co-owner of companies I invest in (or even just trade in). Those are not just securities which I buy to sell later at a higher price. I own a minuscule part of a company so I should have a stake in it.

Secondly, it changed my perception of investment horizon. As a young person I still find it hard to imagine that I could freeze money for thirty years in stocks. Alright, it might not be the best choice to buy stocks and sell them after a few days, but my plans have never reached beyond five years…

I remain wary of long-term investments. OK, I may stay on the market (provided my portfolio is made up mostly of blue-chips) during the whole bull market, but I feel it is wiser to sell stocks when the next bear market is imminent. It is not a stupid strategy, because everyone buys then and pays over the odds for stocks. Benjamin Graham has a recipe for bear and bull markets – you should always buy stocks for the same amount of money every month. If market prices are high, you buy fewer stocks, if they are low, you buy more and in the long run you will rake in profits. Surely an ideal recipe would be to buy in the dead of bear market, but who can grasp the moment when it cannot be worse?

I see two major drawbacks of the book. It was first released in 1949, then had several updates with the last one dated 1970. The Polish edition (unfortunately they would have to spend more and take some extra effort to get the paperback in English) includes commentaries made in 2003, after the burst of dot-com bubble which triggered the worst (until then) bear market in post-war history of NYSE. But… it has not been updated in the ongoing financial crisis in which the bear market wiped out profits from the whole previous bull market. From mid-2007 to March 2009 the peak-to-trough decline of S&P 500 was 57%. On Warsaw Stock Exchange indices fell by 67%. Was there any investor not put to a very tough test? The bear market of 2007 – 2009 was unprecedented in its scale, some economists predict an even more severe meltdown around 2015. In the light of the recent events, the book seems a bit outdated, even despite the fact its author rode out the Great Depression and came burnt and bruised, but stronger out of it.

The second downside is that it is relevant to developed American capital market. Warsaw Stock Exchange is not yet twenty years old, Poland remains and will remain for some time an emerging market, it is not possible to find companies listed on WSE that meet all investment criteria set out by Mr Graham. Polish stock market is totally different from the American one, so it ought to be handled in a different way, although many principles outlined in the book will always apply.

The book condemns speculation, but doesn’t get with the times. Today speculation is far is easier. When everyone has access to online brokerage accounts and transaction fees are much lower (in Graham’s times they stood at 4%, today they are below 0.5%), cost-effectiveness of such actions is higher, but it is hard to determine whether the risk has also gone down.

Finally, the author advises the readers to keep away from short-selling. This makes another difference between investors and speculators. Only the latter indulge in and profit from “betting against the stocks”, but I do not denounce it. Short selling after all only improves market efficiency because it allows market participants to bring the market value of a security down towards its fundamental value. Of course going short entails a far greater risk than taking only long positions, but hang on. The risk is what stock market is also about!

Recently bought

After months of getting round I finally went to the bookshop, looked out for a thick navy volume and bought it.


My wonderful copy knocked me back over 160 zlotys (after combining numerous discounts) – PWN Oxford Polish-English dictionary is indeed a bit pricey, but I consider it the best dictionary available on the market and the money spent on it as a profitable investment. Probably no other dictionary has been worked out so well, other publications don’t cover as many idioms, colloquial words and phrases. The work at least doesn’t omit the most problematic phrases (some time ago I coined a new definition of a dictionary – “a book which translates the obvious words, but somehow leaves out those very ones you don’t know”) and offers thousands of examples of usage of different words in different contexts. It’s not ideal of course – still it doesn’t offer a good translation of the word dziadostwo (much depends on how you understand the original word in Polish – what in my family is called dziadostwo doesn’t square much with the definition given by Słownik Języka Polskiego), moreover, it omits a Polish idiom przechodzić ludzkie pojęcie, what could be translated as “pass all beliefs”! As a would-be professional I wouldn’t carelessly rely on its translations of financial or economic terms.

The second item arrived today by traditional mail. I have to say I’m surprised with the quality of postal services – the book was delivered within four working days (sent by economical registered letter) and it wasn’t soaked up as many other letters had I received.


Tip of the Week by Jacek Koba is a record of the author’s advice given to his colleagues at Ernst&Young, where he used to work as a proof-reader. After having a flick through it I consider it a must for Poles who (will) often draw up writings in the corporate setting. Why is it worth buying? It lists errors often made by Polish writers, touches upon the words Poles tend to have problems with and gives advice on how to write in a plain and comprehensible English. The book is available at the auctions put up by this allegro user – a representative of Altravox publishing office. It cost me only 17,99 zł, which I find dirt cheap, not to mention delivery is free of charge. So, my dear schoolmates, log in to your allegro accounts and keep it under your desk when you’ll be pursuing your careers in consultancy firms…

Czwarty Czerwca

The title of the book I read last Sunday – going through the 260 pages long paperback took me a bit more than two hours. Reading a book from cover to cover is usually doable when it grabs your attention and you can submerge yourself in the content. This one, written by Joanna Szczepkowska (the Polish actress famous for announcing the end of the communism in Poland) is an outline of her memories of living in People’s Poland.

With some conflicting feelings about the content, I hail the book as readable, gripping and all in all rather well-balanced. At the beginning my approach to the work was rather negative. The first years of Szczepkowska’s life were presented in rather one-sided and selective way. Picture was kind of gloomy – Labour Day parades, the rally in front of the Palace of Culture after Gomułka took over power, moral dilemmas and bickering over the system between her parents. Here the balance is already struck – mother is shown as a hard-line anti-communist figure, father does not support the system but tries to get by in it, hammering out as much freedom as possible without incensing the party dignitaries. Actress’ adolescent years are described as a series of events depicting the evil of communism – forbidden religion classes, children telling on one another, cracking sounds of drowned out Radio Wolna Europa, schoolmate proud of her father taking part in military intervention in Czechoslovakia, events from March 1968, one history taught officially, another passed on at home. The facts to describe were chosen rather selectively, but along the timeline world from black and white takes on the variety of all the shades of grey.

In 1969 an insurgent who fought in Warsaw Uprising pays visit to her parents. His story bears testimony of the big bravery, but as he leaves the flat young Szczepkowska challenges him by telling him what she had heard at school – that the Uprising had been a mistake. He admits, but signifies he’s afraid to said it aloud as everyone who says so is thought to be an Ubek.

In the early seventies actress-to-be flies to France for a theatre festival – here’s where a reader sees what the socialism was – not only lack of free speech, omnipresent lies, political prisoners, etc, but also backwardness. Students from France in colourful outfits making laugh at the poor student from behind the Iron Curtain.

Further comes the delineation of struggling the system, making concessions, fighting for the rights of people, joy with the foundation of Solidarity movement, later on the shock of Martial Law and the subsequent years of gloom. The chapter of 1983 is followed by the one of 1988 – an annoying gap for me. In the last passages the system is already falling apart, the Solidarity elites are divided into the one in favour of carrying on clandestine activity and blowing the system up and the one who incline towards talks with the ruling party. Szczepkowska is for give and take, Szczepkowska does not try to model herself on a person with a anti-communist biography – she was only flesh and blood, she had the moments of weakness.

The very last part is a detailed description of the recording of Dziennik telewizyjny, when she uttered the famous sentence “Ladies and gentlemen, on 4th June, 1989, the communism in Poland came to an end". As I watched the very short fragment of it, I could resist the impression of unnaturalness and theatrical gesture made by the actress – my right, but the fact it was not broadcast live and was not edited out by the censors symbolised the ultimate decay of the socialism – although the party still kept public broadcaster in a grip, the days of communists in power were numbered.

Saved from oblivion?

Yesterday on my way home from the last English class, passing by the estate of housing blocks in Mysiadło I spotted a middle-aged man, having a tracksuit on, carrying a pile of old books towards the bins… That very view aroused a bit my curiosity, I’ve always wondered why people trash out books. One doesn’t throw books away, one needs to have respect for books, I was taught it by my parents, who amassed more than one thousand volumes during their lives – it was even hard to fit all of them into our terraced house, I’m even afraid to think what will happen, if one day I want to sell the house and move to a smaller flat. I won’t dump them – I’ll give them away, sell off for a song on allegro, put them on consignment or donate to local libraries, in case I don’t want to keep them.

I approached the man and asked what was he going to do with the books. Throw away – he replied bluntly. I persuaded him to let me glance through the heap of books, before they wound up in the bin. Actually there was nothing really worth attention, nothing, apart from the one item (real jewel!) which I took and probably saved from being recycled and turned into lavatory paper (unless someone else wouldn’t root about in the bin and wouldn’t rummage it and take it away). The English textbook I found (on the photo below, on the left) was published in Poland in 1968 (clicking on the photo you’ll see some details) and was destined for the university students.


I flicked through it and in a way it met my amazement. I was raised on the different type of books for learning foreign languages, prepared by the methodologists from English-speaking or German-speaking countries (mostly from the UK, in case of English), with lots of pictures, various exercises, plays, etc, meant to facilitate memorising new words, structures, etc. The one I procured yesterday brings to my mind one word – “austerity”. This book is a kind of embodiment of austerity. Pages are already faded, on some there are notes written with a navy pen, there’s a picture of a witch flying on the broom on the back of the cover, also made with that pen. As all the scripts from those times (późny Gomułka, wczesny Gierek) it’s typewritten.

The method of teaching is also utterly different – every word is translated into Polish, rather than explained in English, there are scores of practical exercises, including phrasal verbs and idioms, after each chapter there’s a glossary. As the title suggests, it’s indeed somewhat of C1 (Effective operational proficiency) level, I’ll surely go over it, I’m sure I’ll learn something new from it (when learning any language one’s mind can absorb new knowledge endlessly) and perhaps I’ll find a few errors to pick on.

The new find made me mull over the evolution that took place in the methods of teaching within lat forty years – compare with the current book I’ve been using for the last few months. Probably those methods have been improved but after getting it into my hands I feel like turning back the clock and checking out those out of ark approaches – the book doesn’t leave much room for fancy exercises, it focuses on ‘hard learning’, I’m somehow craving for – a thorough exploration is still ahead of me!

I also thought over the issue of learning English in Poland, which I’m going to elaborate on one day (inspiration, come over! Please come over!). Today every Wyższa Szkoła Wszystkiego i Niczego (EN: university of everything and nothing), as I call those private universities which mushroomed after the downfall of communism and for huge sums of money produce lousy and under-educated graduates, offers studying English philology. In the People’s Poland learning western language wasn’t a big distinction as it is sometimes thought (my both parents learned English, my father after five years of learning in technikum, forty years ago, would still communicate in basic situations, to my astonishment), however, as my parents say, there was no incentive to learn. As I’ve read in the Internet one could study English philology on only few biggest universities at the time, people would declare it was “sleazy” (PL: zapyziały – any better translation of that word into English? / updated on 22th June - indeed, dodgy fits better, thx), except one, at the University in Poznań, where the head of that faculty was professor Jacek Fisiak – who by the way collaborated overtly with communist secret service (PL: SB) and expelled everyone who hadn’t fallen into line with the system (mostly in the 80’s for membership in Solidarity), but falling into line allowed students to spread their wings, go on the scholarships abroad, etc. I have a dictionary, the chief editor of which was Mr Fisiak – it’s “sleazy” nonetheless. Today every school gives the opportunity of studying English philology but I’m bitterly disappointed with the level some graduates represent, many of them let me down, some even know English worse than me. Maybe I should say “we all have feet of clay”, but if I decided to spend five years focusing almost only on exploration of foreign language, I would strive to reach a level of proficiency which features a well-educated native speaker. Sometimes it appears to me that their studies could have been an endless binge with some breaks taken for the exams…

That must have been a stroke of fate – one book which accidentally changed hands evoked so many thoughts and reflections…