Szlachetna Paczka 2023 - a write-up

This year the Szlachetna Paczka coverage comes up later than usual as the final days (weekend cudów) were staged a week before Christmas, not roughly 10 - 16 days ahead of the festive season, as customarily. The timing in the pre-holiday rush was not the most fortunate and hopefully in 2024 it will be held earlier.

This year's edition in my district was another record-breaking one, with 85 families visited by volunteers (+1 vs. 2022) and 58 taken on (+5 vs. 2022). The latter number meant logistics of collecting the paczki from donators and delivering them to families was a sort of a challenge, yet with proper planning in advance and more than a bit of spontainety in diverging from the plan during the final weekend, we have it without botch-ups (which I deem to be quite an achievement).

I feared 2023 edition in Ursynów would be impacted by high rotation of volunteers. Most of my friends who supported me in 2022 dropped off for several reasons and hence out of 26 volunteers less merely 7 had track record in the area. Nevertheless, the vast majority of newcomers have found their way in the Paczka easily and upon overcoming fears of first meetings with families, they carried on superbly. I am glad to have been a part of such team.

This year we received several applications (which must be submitted by third parties, not potential beneficiaries themselves) to visit families already contacted in previous edition. Not a truly fortunate state of affairs, since as a matter of principle, Szlachetna Paczka ought to be a one-off trigger of positive changes in families' lives. But as most of the recurring families were elderly people living on their own, we eventually have taken many of them on. In 2024 we will need to take a look at the formula of the wise aid and talk over whether to redefine our targets.

In 2023 I was a volunteer, a deputy leader and deputy logistics co-ordinator. My role was much less time-consuming than last year and I know I could carry on with such scope of responsibilities into 2024. I have not talked to the leader, whether she would want to continue her role. I know it is too early to raise the topic, given I realise how exhausted she is now.

The blend of fatigue and happiness which kept me company during the weekend of miracles and past it, is an unforgettable feeling. It sometimes takes to little to bring lots of pure you into someone's life, by delivering them ordinary stuff such as warm jacket for the winter or a brand-new washing machine, stuff we take for granted to have it in place, sadly still unaffordable for many. This year I don't experience the burnout I had a year ago. I feel now is the time to recharge batteries before the next edition, so temporarily do not crave for more, but I am quite sure my adventure with the Paczka is not over.

Next post due on 14 January 2024, once I am back from Wisła.

Changes

A short note written amid a hectic period to posterity (as nearly all recently) during two underground train rides.

Again, I have entered the phase of learning to live together. My girlfriend moved in to my flat a week ago. My one-bedroom 51 sqm place has become a kind of tiny, yet I bear in mind this is a temporary dwelling. The experience is different to the one I went through a few years ago, especially since I have invited a co-host to a space I had occupied for a longer while, instead of moving in to a flat rented together. We are doing some refurbrishments, preparing my girlfriend's flat before subletting, hence a lot is going on around.

Weather-wise, worth noting the current December is the "most wintry" since 2012. The average temperature in the first decade of the month had a material negative deviation, snow has been on the ground for over a week now. A mild thaw sets in today, but outlook for the second half of the month remains uncertain. Keeping fingers crossed for white Christmas anyway.

This year I am only a volunteer and a deputy leader in Szlachetna Paczka, with these role being far less time-consuming that last year. The circle keeps turning and people keep doing a good job, with a record number of 58 families from Ursynów receiving aid this year. I am proud to have had the contribution to set this machine in motion.

Corpo-wise, my workload has not eased up. Turning over a new leaf is due on 1 February - I am about to move to a parallel team dealing with more complicated transactions.  Lots of challenges ahead and with a bit of overstaffing out there I hope to have more space for recharging batteries.

The experience of the recent months has reinforced my dislike for life in haste. Being in constant rush is detrimental to physical and mental health, takes away pleasure from life, hampers relationships (all, not only romantic ones) and brings out a feeling of missing out on important things. The worst of all is the feeling that with such shortage of time I could not be a caring and committed father, fully involved in looking after children. The clock is ticking slowly, but the time seems to be running out too fast.

Next post on Christmas Eve!

In condemnation of oversized vehicles

My deep dislike for agrestic oversized vehicles has not been a secret for many readers of this blog for years. I could go on and write a tirade how far too big vehicles reflect their users’ oversized ego, megalomania, inferiority complex, but… spewing out so many insults would mean hurting some of my good friends and workmates, hence in order not to spoil my relationships with people I contain myself and in casual conversations only express my (strong) preference not to use such cars. Instead of compiling a yet another rant about their uselessness (they are not more capacious than a smaller and lighter well-designed estate cars) and lack of off-road capacities, I will make reference to a series of articles published recently in the Guardian, quote (italicised) the crucial takeaways and add a few words of my own comments.

1. Monsters of the road: what should the UK do about SUVs?

After a period of falling, the CO₂ emissions of new cars sold in both the UK and the EU have been rising since 2016. Experts attribute the reversal to an increase in SUV sales.
–> you won’t circumvent the laws of physics. Heavier vehicles need more power to be propelled and even with more fuel-efficiency improvements in place, a two-tonne SUV emits more carbon dioxide than a small city car manufactured in the 1990s, whose weight is over 50% lower. Actually if only cars kept being reasonably small, overall emissions would go down considerably.

For a couple of years, more than a decade ago, I was the car reviewer for the Guardian. I test drove very few SUVs, but on the rare occasions that I did, I experienced two distinct feelings. The first was a debilitating concern about navigating such a large vehicle through the capital’s congested streets. And the second, as that anxiety began to ease, was a sensation of being above the fray, apart from the crowd, somehow superior to my surroundings.
–> sitting higher and looking down on the surrounding traffic from above is what I detest about SUVs. Oddly enough, it does not make me feel any safer. I feel more comfortable in a “normal” car, where a gravity load is located lower.

After a slightly banal tour of west London’s A roads, I ask the salesman what the car is like at negotiating speed humps.
“Try accelerating towards one,” he suggests.
On a deserted side street I do just that, driving at the kind of speed over a “traffic-calming” hump that would rip out the undercarriage of my hatchback. The big-wheeled SUV glides over it. Thus measures implemented to protect pedestrians work very effectively with the cars that do least damage, but are next to useless with the cars that cause most harm.
–> this is one of the essences why I believe driving an SUV is anti-social…

I had an ominous encounter with this marketed anxiety one afternoon a while ago. As I carefully lined up my small hatchback to reverse into a parking space that faced out into a north London street, a great bulbous shiny black thing, like some armour-plated sci-fi machine, drove straight into “my” space and also occupied a couple of feet of the one next to it.
A moment later, an elegantly dressed woman in her 30s climbed down from the vehicle with its bumper wheels and blacked-out windows, and started to walk off. I called out that she’d left me no room to park. Exasperated, she complained that I should have told her when she was in the car, and reluctantly returned to re-park. After five or six attempts, she gave up and got out. She was still impeding the adjacent space, but not by as much.
“Excuse me,” I said, as she stomped off, “can I ask why you have such a big car?”
She looked at me as though I were some mad Unabomber-type, and in a voice quaking with righteous indignation snapped: “Because I’ve got a baby!”
At the time, it seemed an absurd response (it still does), but that woman’s perspective has become a cliche. The problem with building cars for the protection of those within them, however, is that it tends to have a deleterious effect on the protection of those without.
As Murray puts is: “If you’re driving around in a small lightweight vehicle and you have a collision with, say, a Land Rover Defender, it’s going to smash you to bits.”
–> if I come across a badly parked car in Poland, it usually is an SUV. Besides, the delusory sense of protection at the expense of other road users is an example of selfishness I cannot stand.

Even the slow switch to electric cars is an unsatisfying solution. EV design favours SUVs because the elevated seats allow space for the battery pack, but they tend to make electric SUVs even heavier than the petrol versions.
“With bigger vehicles,” says Hannon, “you’ll get less kilowatt/hour efficiency, more material used to build them, bigger battery packs, and there are serious supply chain concerns around precious metals and minerals that go into these vehicles, and questionable ethics associated with how they are mined and processed.”
–> I pointed out more than once electrics cars are a dead-end street, but the claim electric SUVs can combine the human megalomania and the climate protection issues is an enormous lie.

2. Motor emissions could have fallen by over 30% without SUV trend, report says

Emissions from the motor sector could have fallen by more than 30% between 2010 and 2022 if vehicles had stayed the same size, a report has found.
Instead, the size of the average car ballooned as the trend for SUVs took off, meaning the global annual rate of energy intensity reductions – the fall in fuel used – of light-duty vehicles (LDV) averaged 4.2% between 2020 and 2022.
–> this is anything, but surprising…

The authors of the report called for governments to place restrictions on vehicle sizes to reverse the SUV trend.
–> I am sceptical towards pure restrictions and would rather call for heavy sin taxes for such vehicles, predominantly on purchases of new vehicles, less severe on ownership of existing ones, to price in (even excessively) their detriment to the environment.

3. SUVs emit more climate damaging gas than older cars do, study finds
–> this article is behind the paywall, but the message from the heading stands to reason. A 10-year-old small, sparingly used city car will do much less harm to the planet than an SUV used for one-per-car short-distance trips.

While keeping in mind an impending climate disaster, I do not tend to favour radical steps, as they bring out human defiance. When people are prohibited from doing something, they are even more tempted to do it. I believe financial penalties (heavy sin taxes) for selfish behaviours work much better. Being told you cannot afford to drive an SUV is a preferable solution to being forbidden to drive an SUV. You can say there still will be a handful of rich men driving embarrassingly chunky vehicles, but they will not constitute 50% of brand-new car sales, as they do now on many markets. SUVs are a product of marketing a useless good. Brushing aside all their drawbacks, they actually lack a major merit carmakers claim they have – space. A Skoda Octavia estate is more capacious in terms of space for passengers and luggage than an average SUV, while its kerb weight (standard petrol engines below 1.5 litre) is between 1.26 and 1.51 tonnes (depending on engine and equipment), some 25% lower than of a typical brand-new SUV. By dint of sheer mass difference, a petrol-fuelled Skoda Octavia estate 1.5 TSI emits (a bit) less CO2 per kilometre than a hybrid Toyota RAV4, with large 2.5-litre engine and kerb weight of 1.91 tonnes. The numbers speak for themselves, but they are sadly unlikely to convince consumers fond of “obese” cars…

COVID-19 is back

The long-forgotten virus apparently is in overdrive again. We cannot tell how rampant it is, since the public testing system in Poland is currently virtually non-existent and might only hint at possibly even up to 100,000 new (but usually not first) infections daily. The public reporting covers approximately 2,500 tests carried out daily, which, with positivity rate above 40%, have translated into 7-day moving average of new cases exceeding 1,000 on 17 November 2023. The hospitalisation statistics are not published, but the health service does not report a bigger strain than during a typical flu season. Weekly stats of all deaths also do not indicate increased mortality nation-wide.

As I am writing this I am far from concern or panicking. The last restrictions (face covering obligation in health centres, hospitals and pharmacies) were lifted in Poland in July 2023. The virus will stay with us forever, is generally milder and our immune systems have got accustomed to it, hence we are in the phase of learning to live with it and we are nearly getting it right.

Although the disease usually gives symptoms similar to a common cold, being infected by COVID-19 still remains a risk to whose vulnerable - elderly and with underlying health problems. Such examples are my parents who tested positive this week, but undergoing the illness relatively mildly (given their age and health issues). The outgoing Polish government has yet disregarded the issue and has not secured deliveries of Paxlovid and delayed by 2 months distrubution of new vaccines (still no idea how many will arrive), thus putting healths and lives of several million people, including my mother and father, at risk. Despite this I suppose less than 10% of the population will take the next dose, especially once many got through COVID-19 mildly and being vaccinated since months has not given any benefits.

Looking back at the pandemic, I surmise the next one will be perfectly shrugged off. If during the last one, when mortality was up by 100% vs. "normal" times, the extra efforts were not taken to save lives, then once a more severe virus attacks, the price to pay will be high. Interestingly, I see no traces of trauma of isolation and two hundred thousand excess deaths - the pandemic deprived Poland prematurely of nealy 0.5% of its population, being the biggest disaster (in terms of number of fatalities) after World War Two and... nearly everybody gets on with this.

Looking forward, take care of yourselves!

The warmest autumn since records began?

Writing the annual winter timeline has just commenced (with first snow or a first day with average temperature below 0C marking its beginning - this year yesterday), but before I foster the tradition, let’s have a look what the passing autumn was like weather-wise.

Most of the September 2023 was covered here. The last days of the month saw record-breaking (for late September) warmth (in Warsaw temperature reached almost +27C on 29 September 2023), but nowhere in Poland temperature exceeded +30C, hence the record-late appearance of heat (so far 27 September 2012) was left untouched. All in all, September 2023 in Warsaw with mean temperature of July-like +18.5C was warmer by 4.5 Celsius degrees than 1991-2020 average and the warmest since records began, beating the previous-warmest September 1892 by 2 degrees.

October had a summer-like beginning, with temperature topping at +25.8C on 3 October 2023 in Warsaw. The reading was mere 0.1 Celsius degrees short of the outstanding October-time high for the capital of Poland (+25.9C measured on 5 October 1966). On the same day a country-wide October heat record was set. In Legnica in south-western Poland temperature reached +29.3C. Then the weather got a kind of changeable – after a few more nicely warm days, temperature dropped and we had first incidences of ground frost. It got warmer in the second decade of the month, however +22.6C measured on 14 October 2023 does not stack up against +24.4C measured on the same day 4 years earlier. Near the end of the second decade of the month morning frost haunted the capital of my homeland twice, but then temperature drifted higher and the end of the month was quite balmy, with two last days bringing day-time highs close to +18C (not utterly impressive if the records tell me we had +19.0C on 28 October 2022, +19.8C on 27 October 2019 and +21.5C on 30 October 2018). The entire month was +2.3C warmer than long-term average in Warsaw (+8.7C) and ranked among ten warmest October since records began, but still colder than in 2022 or 2019.

The first days of November 2023 seemed relatively warm, yet the deviation from the long-term average was not impressive (mere 3 Celsius degrees). Month-time high of +14.3C reported on 2 November 2023 was lower than the average (1991 – 2020) month-time high for that month (+14.8C) and well below +15.5C on 8 November 2022, +16.0C on 3 November 2020, +16.5C on 4 November 2019 or record-high +19.2C on November 2018. In the second decade of the month weather entered the gloomy pre-winter mode and temperatures got closer to typical long-term readings. This weekend Warsaw is tacking a sudden, yet short-lasting onslaught of winter, which is expected to give way to late autumn tomorrow.

Will autumn 2023 go down as the warmest ever in Warsaw? Given how warm September 2023 and October 2023 were, even with November 2023 exactly at the par with long-term average (+3.8C), it would beat the warmest until now autumn 2006 (+10.8C) by over 0.1 Celsius degree (which is quite much).

Less is more - book review

I sadly cannot recall how I have come across the book by Jason Hickel. Most probably via a mention of it in a newspaper article. As with most books I spot, I ordered it in a local library and waited my turn to borrow it.

The work starts off with analogy to early days of the coronavirus pandemic when the mankind subjugated to strict lockdown regimes in the face of peril. The government-imposed discipline was meant to prove humans can sacrifice to fend off a disaster. The author has forgotten the adherence to stringent social distancing rules was short-lasting and during the next waves of the virus in late 2020 and early 2021 several deaths could have been put down to a lockdown fatigue.

Humans can make big, but short-lasting sacrifices, while tacking the global warming is a long-distance issue which has to prompt the western world to rethink its priorities. Actually, each and every area of life will need to affected: housing, travelling, eating, manufacturing, agriculture, consuming. As the author points out, life of upper classes in rich countries ought to be turned upside down, not to avoid a cataclysm, but just to diminish its scale.

The book espouses a wide criticism of GDP growth as a measure of development and as an overriding goal in capitalism. I share the view GDP is a grossly imperfect indicator of economic well-being, with a tiny correlation with happiness and life quality, but have become fed up with the obsession of the evil capitalism. Yes, free market is imperfect, yet nobody has come up with any sensible alternative so far.

The observation the author illustrates and which I share is that we have to continually work more to afford to have needs met and the more we work, the shorter of time we are. It starts with a basic need which is the roof over one's head. Does not matter whether you buy it or rent it, the cost in relation to your annual wage is several times higher than a few decades ago. You have to then work more you pay your landlord or to make mortgage repayments. If you need to work more, you lack time to cook, clean your house, etc., therefore you decide to farm it out and need to work more to pay for the outsourcing. Mr Hickel puts forward working less and doing more with one's own hands, the idea which takes my fancy as an alternative to a treadmill people around me are in.

Being mindful how adverse consequences of climate changes are, we agree limitations to the western world's current lifestyle are justified. But can they be imposed by governments or should they be rather encouraged or discouraged? Prohibitions are associated with authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, while financial benefits and fines more delicately indicate what is desirable. 

Such reasoning naturally leads to a question about limits of personal liberties. Traditionally, they have been constrained by other people's freedom and well-being. The impending climate catastrophe prompts us to revise it and broaden to the planet's well-being.

Humans as a mass by nature are defiant rather than obedient. If something if forbidden, defiant humans are more tempted to do this, therefore I suppose a carrot would work better than a stick. The problem is we have probably run out of time to play with carrots and sticks, when the earth is getting increasingly hotter.

Michael warned me the book's purport was leftist and indeed, a radical angle was clearly felt. I believe a more moderate language could be more effective in persuading middle-of-the-road readers to revise their lifestyle. Mr Hickel with his leftist tilt sadly lacks such power and by many will be labelled as left-wing lunatic.

The worst human trait, redefined

More than a decade ago, I claimed unreliability is a human trait I detest the most. Although I have not changed my mind about that one, today what winds me up much more is procrastination, being often one step ahead of the unreliability.

The word, translated nearly literally into Polish as prokrastynacja (in my books zwlekactwo), has made it big with psychologists and those who explore whys and wherefores of the human nature. Some define it as a problem, others as indispensable part of being good enough and letting up when necessary. I hold the view it is a shortcoming which makes my hackles rise and which humans ought to try to overcome.

When I am to set about doing something, no matter if ordered by somebody or off my own bat, I either move on without further ado or plan the onset of the activity for a defined moment in the future when circumstances are likely to permit. I dislike having at the back of my head some overdue stuff waits to be sorted out. Besides, not putting back doing things is a part of fairness towards fellow people and myself.

But most people do not handle it my way. I have identified four reasons why humans tend do delay what they are meant to do.
Firstly, I put it down to overt laziness (does not need extra commenting I believe).
Secondly, for some individuals "taking their time" is a part of their mindset and their lack of hurry extends into procrastination. Alternatively some humans are excited by doing things at eleventh hour and feel most motivated when a deadline pushes them.
Thirdly, it is a matter of being overwhelmed with other duties or having different priorities. This is a sign of our times, featured with constant overload.
Fourtly, and I believe this reason is underappreciated, the delay driver is a fear of taking a wrong decision or making a wrong step - by proscrastinating, people allow themselves to spend more time on analysis (sometimes leading up to a paralysis).

I hazard a guess losers tend to procrastinate. Opportunities in life have to be chased. Once they come up, decisiveness and quick reaction let humans grab them and get ahead.

Post-election fears

The final outcome of the election was actually above expectations, yet still below some hopes. Formally, PiS won the plebiscite, but effectively by getting 3.96 million fewer votes than 3 committees of the democratic opposition, it lost 41 seats in the lower house in the parliament in comparison to their result after the election in 2019. With 194 out of 460 seats, PiS now stands no chance to wield power, as the united opposition has 248 deputies in total.

For the time being PiSites intend to step down democratically, but with one attempt to call the government by the party which won the election, the moment Tusk and company take charge of Poland will likely be put back by a few weeks, probably until pre-Christmas days. Although voters of the outgoing ruling party are livid, there no serious intention to dispute the election results as Donald Trump's supporters breaking into Capitol building on 6 January 2021 did.

Over the past 8 years, we had Zjednoczona Prawica (formally a coalition of three parties which won the elections as one committee) in power stand-alone, not needing alliance with any other party to keep the majority. Soon we will have a government made up of three committees, from seven political groupings. Their common denominator is commitment to liberal democracy, rule of law and pro-European stance. Their agendas vary in several social and economic issues. Forming a long-lasting ruling coalition will involve a lot of compromising.

The new government will be in a difficult position finance-wise. Spending spree was in overdrive and people have got accustomed to being given gifts (financed from taxes they pay). Confronted with a prospect of a mammoth budget deficit in 2024 they will face uneasy decisions whether to extend some programmes (espiecially anti-inflation shield).

I basically don't expect much from the new government. I have merely four basic wishes to those I have given a mandate to run my country.

Firstly, run public finances prudently and long-sightedly.

Secondly, reinstate law and order in public institutions mangled by PiS, but do so without violating the law.

Thirdly, call people responsible for wrongdoing to account. So much evil has been done in last 8 years, so those guilty of it must not escape punishment. When doing so, act within the boundaries of law and avoid a revenge.

Fourthly, restore good relationships with our partners in the EU and unlock the flow of money from the National Recovery Plan. Poland badly needs it.

I realise knocking PiS out of power will not solve all problems instantly. It is just a beginning of a long walk towards a recovery.

I fear the nascent coalition will be fragile, not only due to divergent agendas of particular groupings, but also because personal ambitions of specific politicians.

The coming months will put political maturity of the democratic opposition's leaders to the test. Poland has been freed up from the hands of the quasi-authoritarian regimes. Poles have pinned hopes in them and they must not waste it by not seeing further than ends of their noses.

The reshuffle in the parliament has not coincided with a presidential election. Andrzej Duda's tenure ends in August 2025, but by that time he might be a stumbling block for attempts to reverse the harms done by PiS. The opposition, even with Konfederosja, is short of 60% tally required to reject a presidential veto.

I am keeping fingers crossed for the newly elected parliamentary majority, but will be reviewing them critically if they deserve.

Italy, Campania, late summer

Back in Poland (since two weeks) from my fourth trip to Italy in my life (I visited the country in September 2017, October 2021, August / September 2022), this time spent with my girlfriend, her friends and their son. This was my first holiday foray longer than 10 days since spending nearly a fortnight in a sanatory in June 2019, however given what has been going on at work, the all-out logout was exactly what I needed.

For the first time in my life I flew somewhere from Modlin. Getting there and out of there is a nuisance, yet I at least departures and arrivals are more likely to be on time (no queues of aircrafts) and the luggage claim is reasonably quick. But next time I will think twice before saving on a distant airport (in this case opting for Modlin reduced the cost of the holidays by nearly PLN 1,000 per person).

Weather-wise, last week of September and first week of October is a perfect time for visiting the Italian province with capital in Naples. Just like in most parts of Europe, temperature in Italy wasabove long-term averages, hence we enjoyed over +25C in afternoons (up to +30C with staggeringly high air humidity), but evenings and nights gave relief from the heat. The sea temperature was around +24C, so swimming was in order on most days.

Our holiday mode was to spend one day sightseeing and then one day on a beach or wandering around. We stayed at Nerano, a relatively quite coastal village, not far from most attractions of the legendary Amalfi coast.

To the right - a view on beaches in Sorrento. Note the cliffs, the Italian architecture and azure skies. The venue has its charm, but you also need to have stamina to walk up and down.

The coast of Campania is rocky and altitude rises quickly as you move away from the sea. The view from the town of Ravello into another town Minori is a breathtaking illustration thereof.

The crater snapped is the inside the dormant Vesuvio. As long as the volcano does not wake up, it is open for tourists. Was definitely worthing climbing up there to see for the first time in my life a piece of nature which nearly 2,000 years ago sent doom on the nearby town of Pompei...

... the ruins of which are also a fascinating piece of heritage. The hot lava has presered well the brick walls, so most structure (except for roofs) survived the eruption and having not been destroyed thereafter, bear testimony to the disaster. Note the volcano in the background.

If you once visit the area, you will definitely want to take a ferry trip to Capri. Do so just not to regret, but keep in mind the posh island is overrated and infuriatingly crowded. Still, some sights are truly enchanting.

From Nerano, we could walk to a nearby town of Termini to watch the sun go down into the Tirrenian sea. The price to pay for such view was the ascent of one mile with slope above 10% (200 metres different in altitude). The island behind the satellite dish is Capri.

If you want to pop over to towns on Amalfi coast, do not think of reaching them by car. A boat is much more practical and offers splendid views of coastal areas. The price for a day-long trip was a reasonable EUR 50 per passenger. To town on the picture is Amalfi (overcrowded and expensive).

The other, much prettier town on the coast of Campania is Positano, also too popular with tourists and horrifcally expensive, but if you are fit enough to roam around the hilly area, eye-pleasing views will compensate your for sweating uphill.

When selecting one shot from Naples I deliberately picked the one taken outside the tourist area, but still less than two miles from the very centre. The photo could have been taken in a post-soviet town and only the lack of Lada cars parked outside hints the shot comes from a civilised world.

Now time for some hints for travellers...

Moving around Campania is most effective by car (buses run very rarely, railway tracks cannot be even built cheaply in such hilly areas), which takes a bit if a skill. Roads are narrow, winding at times steep and locals drive like lunatics. Ensure you buy a full insurance, since risk of returning a car with a scrape is material.

Those fond of eating will take delight in local cuisine. I am far from being a foodie, yet recommend going to local eateries or bars, being on the market for decades, if you want a tasty and decently priced meal.

Large differences in altitude mean you need to be quite healthy and fit to walk a lot there, but those forced to lead sedentary lifestyle, yet longing for exercising, will appreciate the undulating Campanian landscapes.

The area I holiday in has its charm and I would recommend it to be visited, yet... I would not come back, as there are definitely many more interesing places to be discovered.

The Polish parliamentary election in 2023

I hardly can believe this has all happened.

The campaign by the end of September was drab and lacklustre. PiS was bound to win, yet not to reap the majority of seats in the lower house. Five parties or less were about to cross the score threshold, with Trzecia Droga being the most likely to drop off.

On 1 October hundreds of thousands (or over a million) people marched through the streets of Warsaw, rallying to show a middle finger to the ruling party. From that day the campaign grew apace. Petrol stations were running out of underpriced fuel suddenly became a symbol of how PiS wanted to buy off voters. I presume the march and the fuel crisis have taken a bit off wind of the ruling party’s sails. In polls PiS scored some 5 percentage points more than Koalicja Obywatelska being the main grouping in the opposition.

The only country-wide debate in this campaign was hosted by the government-controlled propagandist television. Both the current prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki and opposition’s leader Donald Tusk did not fare well during the squabble, but the ultimate winner of the debate turned out to be Szymon Hołownia, a co-leader Trzecia Droga. With his superb performance he at least secured a score well in excess of 8% (being a parliament entry threshold for coalitions).

The days in the run-up to the election were quite eventful. All in all we observed a scaremongering campaign of two main parties trying to defame one another, rather than present their agenda for the coming years.

The last polls before the election-time silence indicated PiS would win the vote, however even with Konfederosja they would not secure majority in the lower house of the parliament.

A few weeks ago I planned to vote somewhere in provincial Poland. Having read of voting tourism being a form of gambling, I ditched the idea and eventually cast my ballot in the local polling station.

In the afternoon, an X (formerly Twitter) screening mode went on. Leaking exit polls results indicated PiS was to win the election, some 4 – 5 percentage points ahead of KO. The proportion remained unchanged until polling stations were being closed (or queues outside them cut off).

Waiting for the story to unfold. Due to record-high turnout of 72.9% the actual results might deviate from the exit polls, but the winner and the runner-up are unlikely to swap their position. The major question mark is the score of Konfederosja, in the exit poll at mere 6.2%, well below forecasts. My calculations shows even if the right-wing wackos drop off, PiS will still be some 20 seats short of majority.

I would not rule out an early election in a few months…