Kabaty crash site

Probably no other country in the EU can boast about such long weekend falling on such beautiful season of year, as Poland, which has bank holidays on 1 May and 3 May. This year arrangement of days was extremely favourable – with days off work falling on Tuesday and Thursday, half of the country were on holiday and the rest ticking over. Given the limited number of paid holiday, I decided to stay ‘on duty’ at work over the whole week. This strategy has several upsides – little is going on in the office, one can knock on later, knock off earlier and go out for a lunch for an hour, traffic on the roads is sparse. The only downside is that public service vehicles run according to weekend timetable and if someone saves on fuel, getting to work partly by public transport is longer than door-to-door trip by car.

This year not only the calendar was on Poles’ side, also the weather couldn’t be more conducive for leisure. An unusual for late April / early May heat wave arrived to Poland on Friday before the long weekend and lasted whole seven days. For most of the weekend day-times were hitting +30C and sunshine was not disrupted by a single raindrop. In early February, when temperatures were dropping below –20C, I promised myself not to grumble about the heat. Indeed, below minus twenty it was worse.

Looking around and judging by the picture painted by the media, it can be inferred that Poles are off for a care-free week-long barbecue, devouring warm sausages and sipping cold beer. Not a good form of pastime activity to be endorsed. Popular culture promotes unhealthy lifestyle rather when physical exercise!

OK, I also ate some sausages, drank a few beers, but haven’t succumbed to the notion that life’s easy. Even at the time when almost everyone’s laid-back, pushes aside mundane worries and laps up beauty of the spring, more serious issues must not disappear from the foreground. It’s not about seeking troubles intently, it’s about discerning complexity of the world and remembering about its sadder side.

On Thursday I finally celebrated cycling shake-down day in season 2012. Head down, it kicked off late, the first opportunity was missed on 17 March and then either weather or some timesucks were keeping my off my bike. For starters, I ventured where I had planned to go since my trip to Las Kabacki two months earlier. And the time for the trip could only be slightly better.

Next Wednesday Poles will be commemorating the 25th anniversary of the most tragic airplane disaster in the history of Polish aviation. Many of would argue the Smolensk crash was the most terrible, as many of the fatalities were eminent statesmen, however in terms of death toll the Kabaty plane crash was almost two times more tragic (183 vs. 96).

Shame on me, I have to admit this was my first visit to the place where Il-62 hit the ground. This time before setting off I checked on the map how to get there and didn’t roam in vain in search of the monument as I did in March.

Getting there is a piece of cake. Inhabitants of southern part of Zielony Ursynów and adjacent villages are in a privileged position. You just need to turn into ul. Jagielska from ul. Puławska and walk / cycle / drive (the last should be deleted, as inappropriate) some two kilometres east to find a green gate closing off a path to the forest (to the right – photo taken while riding, hence blurred). Cycle or walk two hundred metres into the wood and soon you reach the destination.

If you’re heading from proper Ursynów, you’re still in the luck – your trail will be longer, but you ma enjoy a pleasurable walk / ride through the forest (especially delightful on a sweltering day, when trees give shelter from the heat) and signage should lead you to the place.

The crash site is commemorated by a small, inconspicuous clearing (here for a moment unattended). The place is arranged to play host to few visitors and brings out a conductive atmosphere to contemplate the fragility of human life. I have to say all tourist stopping over there behaved appositely.

Two artefacts on the site are a stone plaque, with names of all fatalities inscribed on it and a cross. Photographs of both objects prove my photographing skills are inadequate – I didn’t manage to snap up-to-the-mark shots on a sunny day in a shaded place. With hindsight a good incentive to tweak with my compact Canon’s settings or a reason to upgrade. The first name on a plaque is captain Zygmunt Pawlaczyk who piloted the ill-fated plane. There is a street named after him in a nearby Ursynów. Many people owe him they are alive, as captain Pawlaczyk, having realised he wouldn’t have a chance to land the plane in Okęcie airport, decided to drop the plane into an uninhabited area, without risking lives of more innocent people.

The cross has been put up by members of a local parish in Pyry. A small Jesus crucified on it, a small wreath laid in front of. In a few days there will be lots of flowers and candles all over the place and then someone will tidy it up and only silence and rare visitors will haunt the place.

A notice attached to a tree informs two masses commemorating the victims will be administered on Wednesday. I’m looking forward to seeing archival TV coverages of the disaster. Few can be found on youtube although TV reporters have covered the story quite informatively. Censorship apparatus in late 1980s eased off and news of the crash appeared in the media immediately. Truth wasn’t said in the context of co-operation with Soviet engineers, probably accountable for the glitch which led to a engine breakage, who wriggle out of helping Poles investigate true causes of the engine breakage and denied their responsibility for the faulty part.

I’ll surely be visiting the place at least once a year, and on one of 10th days of April in the coming years I’ll take a trip to Smolensk. Regardless of political views, each Pole who can afford to travel there (provided Russian visa is obtainable) should to pay homage to the ones whose lives were shattered in the Smolensk muds…

Indecency stretched to the limit

Some of the readers of this blog know my name and surname; some of the readers know where I work and what position I hold. For the rest of the world, I try to appear as an anonymous ex-student of economics, employed by one of “Polish” banks. Rationale for concealing my identity? A down-to-earth reason is that I need publicity like a hole in the head and generally tend to avoid situations when the world revolves around me. The other motive cropped up out of the blue in 2010, when I had to familiarise with some of the internal policies (containing several dos and don’ts) set out by the corporation I work for, including the blogging policy.

At first glance it seems absurdly silly that a company may require its employees to stick to regulations concerning limitations in blogging, but if a company wants to avoid adverse publicity from its employees, maybe this is the case. I plead I haven’t learnt by heart all the drivel written there, but I keep in mind that: 1) as an employee I can’t write anything about my company nor my job (event if doesn’t involve letting in on any secrets) and sign it with my name, even if I don’t mention the name of my employer, 2) as an anonymous Internet user I don’t have to refrain from mentioning my employer’s name but I’m not advised to spread negative opinions about its business. So to comply with all the regulations there’s no author’s name, nor a company name.

If someone wishes bad on me, feel free to send link to this post to the HR department of my company. This would surely help bring forward the inevitable bitter end of the shattered relationship between by employer and me. Anyway I would appreciate if you let me put myself out of this misery on my own and only after I find a better place, which is not that easy, hence I soldier on…

This might be a matter of corporate culture. They vary across the world and companies and models of socio-economic order. In American companies direct relationships, hire-and-fire approach, flexibility and opportunities to climb the ladder of career quickly are quite typical. You can like it, or detest it, fit in, or struggle to find your way inside a specific business. But is decency, a backbone of moral fibre, a part of corporate culture? Back in 2008 when several banks at the verge of bankruptcy had to be bailed out from taxpayers’ purses, executives’ bonuses and salaries outraged everyone. Do you remember where cries of anger were the loudest? These were the United Kingdom and the United States, not only because deregulated banking industries have grown too big too fail there, but also because (Bank executive’s salary / average salary in the national economy) multipliers in Anglo-Saxon countries were incomparably higher the in more civilised countries.

Many times I’ve asserted on this blog I’m glad I live in Poland, not in the United States. I also stressed the soundness of Polish banking system, prudently managed, wisely regulated and lacking depravities typical for developed investment banks. My general take on the Polish commercial banking has not changed. I still hold it as a whole in high esteem, there are just some exceptions that prove the rule…

One of the differences between Polish and American banking is a position of banks and its employees in the national economy. Financial sector in Poland is not a significant contributor to wealth creation as in Anglo-Saxon countries. Moreover, Polish commercial bankers, unlike their colleagues from investment banks, are ordinary people who don’t earn zillions and whose conduct is usually governed by moral principles, not only by pursuit of profits.

In Anglo-saxon investment banking, weaselling into the industry was (is?) one of few ways to grow rich quickly and legally (this doesn’t imply ‘in morally acceptable way). In Poland, if your expertise is above-average, you can count on above-average earnings, but don’t expect appallingly high salary. In investment banking, profits are distributed between: executives, employees and owners, the rest of the society and the state do not benefit from their activity. In Poland these are only executives and (foreign) owners that reap profits from banks’ activity.

To cut this long considerations short, I’m getting at the question whether a company can prosper at the expense of its employees? How long can you exploit workforce before they show you their middle fingers and quit? How big gaps between executives’ and rank-and-files’ remunerations are acceptable? Bigger responsibilities and higher qualifications must mean the higher your position, they higher your earnings must be, this is natural. Only the size of disproportion in earnings can be a matter of a dispute. How should employees’ contribution to a company’s prosperity be rewarded?

The other story is how executives participate in an austerity programmes they pursue in their companies. I know one company which has been more or less successfully turning around for a while. It has changed its strategy, pulled out from unprofitable business lines, laid off over 10% of its staff and continues to terminate contracts with employees. This year to show financial standing of the company is improving and to appreciate the contribution of employees to this success, most of the staff were granted a 10 PLN before tax pay rise. Getting it? Ten zlotys minus income tax, even too little to get hammered in despair! Some people who heard about it told it was a joke, I call it a slap in the face, especially if from the annual report of that company (quoted on the stock exchange) you can learn that its executives remunerations have increased by 30 – 50%. Pay rise of 10 PLN vs. pay rise of 1,000,000 PLN – just fair? This remuneration model is a sort of ‘privatising profits and socialising losses’.

The answer to the question I asked in a civilised world must be ‘no’. On a properly functioning market best employees would refuse to put up with such uncivilised treatment and would flee to work for competitors. Things aren’t so simple when labour market in a specific industry is characterised by over-supply of workforce – this is visible in Polish banking. A good banker will find a job, but room for salary negotiations has shrunk…

Not long ago my opinion on activity of trade unions was similar to this espoused by Mrs Thatcher. I thought trade unionists were spongers with endless unfounded pay rise demands, paralysing growth of businesses. I still see many times they act with detriment to their companies, but where I work things look much different. In pathological situations, such as described above, trade unions are the only organisation capable of standing up for indecently treated employees. Oddly enough, trade unions’ bargaining power is bigger in companies where employees are treated well…

Much has changed since I wrote my summary some three months ago (not only the temperature which is now some 50 degrees higher than then). I have been assigned more duties and given more responsibilities. This has upsides – new challenges, learning & development opportunities and downsides – no measurable reward in return. With each next week I feel more encumbered and less motivated. With a bold face I face new challenges take up more tasks, try to complete them all, but seeing to appreciation of my efforts I can’t see my future where I work. I’ll grind my teeth and wait until I hit two-years’ experience as an analyst, after which I’ll be fulfilling all the criteria in most job openings. Best people I work with are on the lookout for better places to work. If they quit, there’ll be no reason to stay in, and without them this ill-run boat will sink. I’m worried about the number of fatalities, but given the way it is managed, it will meet a well-deserved fate.

So bitter… Am I getting acrimonious?

Wedding after-thoughts

And so the season of knot-tying in 2012 kicked off. For no apparent reason, each such ceremony brings forth several more or less incongruous considerations in me.

Before the event I thought my friend’s wedding would be a great opportunity for our class to meet up. Unsurprisingly, as I pitched up to the scene, I went through a reality check. Albeit I can’t say this was a big let-down, par for the course, given six years that have elapsed since we went separate ways. There were five of us, including me, all boys, the four other still staying in quite close friendship with the groom. So most bonds in my high-school class have broken up…

The number of guests generally wasn’t staggering. Actually this was the third consecutive wedding I attended with a quite low turnout. So the ones that come over are usually family and close friends, plus, judging by the behaviours of some attendees, some onlookers. It’s nice to have a crowd, but I’m bracing myself for a sparse one on my own wedding… Fellow bloggers will be invited anyway.

A wedding is supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime ceremony. So how the hell can somebody turn up half an hour late for it? Prudent people take precautions and try to anticipate hitches when they plan. I set off from home 50 minutes before the beginning of the mass in the church and my journey went on smoothly until I got stuck in stationary traffic on Dolinka Służewiecka. Eventually, instead of being 30 minutes earlier, I came less than ten minutes earlier, but still was punctual.

Attire and general appearance. Maybe I’m too conservative, but I’m of the opinion casual clothes, dishevelled hair and dirt behind nails are not the apposite type of look a wedding guest should present. Dark suit, white shirt, impeccably knotted tie and properly polished patent leather shoes are a must. Maybe some people refuse to wear such clothes because they feel ill-at-ease when they put them on, maybe for some people occasions to wear elegant outfits are so rare that it makes no sense to keep them in the wardrobe, but gosh… The way you dress reflects upon your respect for fellow people and bears testimony of your sense of situation. Being overdressed maybe be as bad as being underdressed, but in the case of wedding, I’d focus on the latter risk.

Get-together with high-school classmates reminded me, again, people are made of different substances. In primary school I met children from my neighbourhood, from wealthier and poorer families, whose parents were university graduates or vocational school-leavers, from “normal” or pathological families. In middle school my entourage stayed roughly the same. Then I got in to a relatively good high school in Warsaw. More of my classmates had wealthier, better educated parents, lived in Warsaw or on the suburbs and virtually all of them were clever or hard-working. Then I went to Warsaw School of Economics, where I encountered the pick of Poland’s youth interested in economics, finance and other similar sciences. The further I went, the more high-flyers I could meet on my way. Some of my friends from primary school ended up as hairdressers or roofers, some are housewives. My high-school classmates are set up well in life mainly thanks to support of their parents. What I owe to my mother and father is negligible to what they got, but I don’t envy them. If better shapes you up, if you achieve something in life with your bare hands, but most people would prefer to live conveniently and have their parents paying for that.

And one more thing – what’s so poignant about weddings that so many people cry? Again, the bride interchangeably wept and laughed and this time several men shed tears. Why? Leave out crying is considered unmanly, but I can’t discern the reason. What’s so moving about two people of different sex promising each other love, faith and staying together till death tears them apart? I can only admire them for their bravery. Simply I never met somebody with who I would want to share my good and bad days, with who I would like to grow old. Once I met a girl I felt would make a great wife and good friend, which is essential for spending the rest of life together, but never felt something people call ‘love’ could last until the end of my days.

My mastery in economics doesn’t allow me to know the price of everything and the value of nothing, but I feel as a downright cynic right now. I saw some marriages breaking up, saw some of them swearing before God they wouldn’t part. Having observed this, marriage vows, especially spoken out in a church (where they swear before God, not before a clerk in a registry office) resound to me like hollow words. Now, you’re in love (incidentally, yesterday’s wedding was organised in haste, due to bride’s pregnancy), you’re intoxicated, one day infatuation is gone and you’ll have to share ups and downs of ordinary life, put up with habits and traits of your spouse. Time puts people to tough tests and maybe this is the reason why I would be wary to promise ‘forever and ever’…

Yesterday I had the impression my classmates haven’t grown up since we finished school. Time to get off their backs. Having written the paragraph above, I proved my own immaturity. Bartuś, time to grow up…

Manners, they matter

Last Monday I mentioned the wedding invitation I’d received out of the blue then. My first reaction was to attend the event, but on second thoughts… I turned down the invitation, just like three-fourth of the invited with the appalling five-day advance notice.

I don’t know whether anyone recalls the commemorations of 90th anniversary of regaining independence by Poland, held in Teatr Wielki in Warsaw in November 2008. The celebration was staged by late president’s office and heads of other states received invitations two or three weeks before the event, so most eminent politicians whose calendars are carefully filled in many months’ advance, failed to show up. The absence of many figures was the price paid for ignorance of diplomatic protocol. But at that time bad organisation resulted only in a diplomatic slip-up, but some seventeen months later, the Polish (and Russian as well) bylejakość (what’s the English for this???) led up to a huge tragedy…

On second thoughts it occurred to me this I would have to bring forward handling lots of things I’d had planned for the current weekend. If I was to attend the wedding, I’d have to think about a small gift (or chip in with someone), iron a better shirt kept in the chest of drawers for special occasions, vacuum-clean my car inside and wash its bodywork (after being washed in early November 2011, it’s surprisingly clean)… And given the scarcity of time in the evenings on weekdays, this would have to be completed by early afternoon on Sunday. The outing began to seem impractical.

Having in mind the form (creating the event of facebook and putting all friends on the list of invited guests) and the jaw-dropping advance notice, I decided to take advice of a few friends (all not knowing the host of the wedding and thus not invited). They all in unison advised me to decline the invitation. Firstly due to the form, secondly on account of when it had been sent.

One of my friends as a matter of principle doesn’t attend weddings for which she receives invitations on facebook. She argues she feels like wypełniacz kościoła, literally ‘church filler-in’, or more deftly, ‘crowd-maker’. Others told me by inviting so people so late, my high-school friend had showed little respect for other people’s time. And I have to say my time is precious enough not to waste it with someone who doesn’t respect it.

No wonder so many of the potential guests refused to show up. Actually most people usually plan something for the weekend and if at the beginning of the week such information comes up, some are likely to be reluctant to drop everything. Maybe many noticed the same what I did – it’s no effort to mark all names on friend list (for my friend 378; who said one’s tribe can’t count more than 150 people?) and invite them. I’m not talking about the costs now. In these times virtually everyone turns thrifty and saves on whatever they can, so I don’t hold it against them that they hadn’t printed invitations and hadn’t sent them out to everyone in beautiful envelopes. It’s always nice to be handed such invitation and I even keep the ones I received, but being notified in a more modern way is not the reason to take umbrage. But that very invitation wasn’t personal at all. I’m not sure my friend realised she had invited me at all. It’s always to have a crowd in the church, it’s always nice to deceive oneself that you have a lot of friends (half of them would be hanging around and backbiting you, but good impression for aunties remains), but Good Lord, etiquette matters.

When speaking about financial aspect of weddings, it has to be underlined lavish weddings for 200 guests, costing tens of zlotys, an equivalent of price of a brand-new compact car, are becoming the thing of the past. This trend proves positive impact of the crisis (it can be seen negative by wedding-organisers whose firms may drop like flies). I attended three such weddings in 2007 and 2008 and remember them as a huge waste of money. Squandering fifty thousand zlotys for a one-night event to have some nice photos, film or memories for the rest of life (an upbeat assumption, as one of those three marriages broke up, for the other couple life’s not a bed of roses and only the third bygone newlyweds are living a happy life) still seems to me at least silly. Young people and their parents have finally realised that it’s better to spend the same money on a few square metres of own flat or in another wise way, for something durable, rather to throw it about within one night.

And actually what has put me off attending the wedding yesterday was how it would be perceived among my ex-classmates. This would have been a great opportunity to show off. Good clothes, good jobs, money, cars – no one would fail to stress how prosperous they are, or if in fact they aren’t, they would lean over backwards to pretend they are.

Next week I’m attending the wedding and actually not to keep my head down I’ll fit in to this hideous custom. Or should I defy it, leave the car at home, go by bus in my oldest, worn-out suit and tell my ex-classmates I earn peanuts?

A longer follow-up in two weeks’ time, when I plan to impudently violate one policy…

Easter break musings

A peculiar jumble of random thoughts that have haunted me over the last days… (and my 300th post)

Good Friday. One of those days in the office when everyone is counting down minutes till the shop closes. An unwritten rule states everyone is free to knock off at two p.m. The head of my department is the first to give a cue to go home at ten past two. He’s been puzzlingly laid-back over the past weeks, coming to work late, leaving home early. His light-heartedness gets more and more disturbing, chiefly in the light of my ex-manager’s promotion to a position in the international structures of our corporation. His devil-may-care attitude has two-fold implications: the pressure under which I am is not formally strong (I have to keep self-supervising myself), but one day this will lead to serious business failure and guess who’ll be to blame for it…

I decided to sit longer than others to catch up with some overdue work. Being one of few workers in the open plan gives the opportunity to overhear what can’t be loudly said when everyone’s around. And so I learn this year’s bonus and pay rise funds will be kind of meagre. Well, it’s best to save on human capital that keeps this boat afloat, but if the remuneration policy is carried on like this, best employees will seek better paid positions outside (provided the market doesn’t slump, which is conceivable) and the boat will sink. This would be a well-deserved end… Additionally after over a year I clearly notice those who spend the most time in the office to don’t work the hardest, or the most efficiently. Often when I observe some people I conclude they could easily do the job which takes them eleven hours a day within eight hours, if only they could better organise their duties. Sometimes I think sitting from dawn to dusk in the office is a sort of lifestyle or a way of filling in emptiness. But hang on, some of those people have families, but quite probably their wives and children prefer when they’re away from home. Stop, it’s getting too bitter. I strive to perform my tasks possibly efficiently and not keep late hours in the office to be appreciated by superiors. Wise managers mind the outcome, not the effort.

Who was the dim-witted one to hatch the idea that public transport should run according to weekend timetable? The journey from work to P&R Stokłosy, normally lasting 35 minutes has taken me a quarter longer. Fortunately enough, the worst traffic on ul. Puławska are over (I deliberately waited it out the office), but traffic remains dense. Just like before each Christmas, Easter, long weekend, many migrants living in Warsaw “go home”. There is a even a term coined to describe people who’ve come from provincial Poland to Warsaw in search for a better life. These are słoiki, literally ‘jars’. This offensive term derives from the fact that every time they travel to their relatives somewhere in Poland, they put empty jars into the boots of their cars and when returning to Warsaw, they bring supplies of food in jars. I’m not sure whether the term applies to rickety cars on provincial number plates, or to their drivers with poor driving skills, for whom traffic in Warsaw is too difficult to handle… Słoiki appear as scapegoats on TVN Warszawa forum, whenever a car on LLU, BHA, LHR, TST or other in-the-sticks plates causes an accident in the capital or, as in the linked article, when such clapped-out vehicle disintegrates on the road...

Saturday, chilly and drizzly, reminds me of weather on Saturday 10 April 2010. That day was also gloomy and ugly. The second anniversary of Smolensk disaster is nearing. Today Mr Kaczynski is about to speak to its followers. I don’t really care, I let things drift…

Sunday. There was no snow for Christmas, so may it be for Easter. 8 a.m., temperature +1C and little snow falling on the ground. Not a pleasant weather to go outside, but it’s time to set off to pick up my grandparents from Konstancin and then to visit the family in Ursus, Warsaw. The streets are almost empty, one can spot only cars on Warsaw number plates, so with my WPI plate I feel like a countryman. Family gathering runs its course as usual. For a good start again disputes whether Russians had planted a bomb in Polish TU-154 that crashed near Smolensk, whether anyone could survive an impact at the speed of 260 kmph, or how come engines were gradually reducing revolutions after the explosion. Not to mention claims who is an expert in physics and aviation. Neither impresses me my cousin, bringing his father on accelerating his car to 180 kmph, touching a birch with a wing mirror to see what happens. Hearing for the tenth time if Mr Tusk was a man of honour he would have shot himself in a head doesn’t make lose my patience. But the mere thought that one day I will have to take my girlfriend for a family round-up fills me with dread. But actually from what I’ve seen in many families such gatherings are not a bed of roses… Just recalled one day Toyah was taken aback when he found out most of my relatives, both on my mother’s and father’s side vote for PiS…

Then my parents and I go for a walk to ul. Piastowska and ul. Regulska to see the progress on S2 construction. Not much has changed here since the previous Easter. The level of pessimism in me has risen since writing last week’s summary on road building programme. We’ll visit the site next year to see the progress of works. I don’t expect it to be finished in April 2013…

Woken up by beautiful sunlight today to see –4C on thermometer. This also happens on Easter Monday. I logged on facebook to get the invitation for my high school friend’s wedding, held on Saturday, yes on 14 April 2012. Great to have the advance notice – I wonder how many of the invited will drop everything, abandon their plans to show up? I will pop over anyway, it’d be a pleasure to participate in such event. Wedding season 2012 kicks off a week earlier. Coming back to the form, have social media impacted etiquette so considerably? Would facebook be the way of informing people of weddings? Would traditional invitation cards become the thing of the past? And if somebody doesn’t sign up, would they be omitted or assigned the status of socially dead? Till now, I haven’t accepted, nor declined the invitation, just watching others’ reactions…

Roads to nowhere...

For starters, a disclaimer – it’s April Fool’s Day, but please don’t try to seek out any joke in this posting (with hindsight, there’s one, linguistic). The topic broached today is, in the light of the imminent European Football Championship, no laughing matter… I travelled recently around Poland, had the opportunity to see the progress of road construction works, found out about the advancement of developments I couldn’t look over in Skyscrapercity relevant threads and the summary of what I’ve learnt appears pretty dire.

Let’s bring this chaos into numerical order… A helping hand is lent by continually updated stats coming from the ever-excellent Skyscrapercity forum – map and table. For the sake of brevity and my limited time frame, only the most important undertakings are listed below.

A1 motorway – three sections between Toruń and Łódź are to be opened on 30 April 2012. I drove over the A1 near Stryków last week and the road is almost ready, with sound barriers installed and lamp posts turned on, but the last layer of tarmac didn’t seem laid (was in the evening, so I’m not sure), but on Friday I cut through it near Kutno, where National Road 92 and A1 are to cross and I’m sure they won’t make it…

A2 motorway – great to have a toll road (with some short free of charge sections) all the way from the German border east to Stryków, where on a big junction A1 and A2 one day will meet. But then in Stryków masses of football fans travelling from the western Europe will end their journey via up-to-the standard roads and will continue the drive to Warsaw through old, congested National Road 2. There’s no chance that two out of five sections of A2 between Łódź and Warsaw forsaken in June 2011 by bankrupt Chinese companies will be finished, or at least passable. Funnily enough, two sections near Warsaw are almost finished, so there’s a contingency plan that they are opened, as scheduled (the one closest to Warsaw even one month before deadline), but does it make any practicable solution. The motorway would end in the middle of nowhere somewhere near Grodzisk Mazowiecki. For the locals – a great link to the capital, for transit traffic – a useless facility.

S2/S79 expressway – what a botch-up. The section from Junction Puławska, through Lotnisko to Marynarska was, according to preliminary plans, supposed to be opened in December 2011 and then in April 2012. If it is ready in April 2013 it will be a success, given the current progress of works, chiefly the fact that digging the tunnel under Warsaw-Radom rail line, is just about to kick off… Shame! The section from junction Lotnisko to junction Konotopa, where S2 will turn A2 and meet existing S8 section has a bit of better progress, but if any part of the Southern bypass of Warsaw is opened by the end of this year, I’m a Dutchman. And the rescheduled opening day is 31 August 2012. I don’t believe it!

A4 motorway – running from the Polish-German border in Zgorzelec, through Wrocław, Opole, Silesia to Kraków was supposed to be finished up to the Polish-Ukrainian border. No such luck, road builders are in the forest…

S7 expressway running from Gdańsk to Zakopane is a big blend of single- and dual-carriageway sections. Some, including southern Gdańsk bypass and some section in Warmia, which could come in useful for me in August, when I’m heading to Olsztyn… I’m finding it hard to judge whether the Nidzica – Olsztynek section (crucial for me) will be opened for traffic… On the other side of Warsaw I have to admit the already opened sections of expressway between Grójec and Kielce superbly facilitate the drive to the former destination.

S8 expressway – oh, how to cut the long story short. Wrocław has a beautiful bypass, which incidentally has a status of motorway (and prime minister Tusk pledged it would not be a toll road). Heading towards Warsaw we come across a few kilometres long expressway being a bypass of Oleśnica, two expressway sections are being built between Wrocław and Oleśnica and between Oleśnica and Syców. There were scheduled to be completed in late May 2012, now they might be passable then, but finished in the second half of the year. Further sections of S8 between Syców and Łódź are to by built by 2015. Additionally there is a huge 100-kilometres long section of National Road 8 dual carriageway being modernised to fit the parameters of an expressway. Driving there between Piotrków Trybunalski and Mszczonów is a big nuisance and guess what – this undertaking won’t be finished before football championship as well (deadline of 5 June 2012 is out of reach)… Further north S8 looks like S7, i.e. you have a few kilometres of new expressway and then take a break to drive a section of old National Road 8 which takes you to another section of S8, on and on. New expressway sections of S8 north-east of Warsaw to be opened this year are the bypass of Zambrów and Białystok-Jeżewo section. But the most urgent ones, not started yet, are the bypass of Marki and a road out of Warsaw south, passing by the ever-clogged-up Raszyn and Janki…

The saddest thing about the whole Road Construction Programme is not that it was designed to serve the next generations, but only to modernise road infrastructure before the oncoming football fete. I also hold the opinion we shouldn’t be ashamed of how Poland looks (we’ll be, just look at how W-wa Zachodnia station), but it’s not a primary goal to make the roads passable for Euro 2012. Football fans will see a big construction site, or rather mess, so I don’t see any point in excessive hurrying to finish some works before the championship, if the haste would impinge on quality of the ventures. These roads should serve for years to come Poland and its economy, not to foreign footballs fans, who’ll come here for three weeks, spend some money here and return to their homelands.

I’m not a football fan, so in June I’ll surely watch a few games, but I’ve scheduled my summer holidays from 11 to 21 June and I’ll be glad to stay away from Warsaw. I’ll going by car, so I would appreciate anyway, if some of the roads I mentioned (sections of S8 from Warsaw to Wrocław under construction) had temporarily the status of “passable”… On 29 March the parliament discussed the so-called “passability law”, which is set to allow to temporarily use of unfinished, but passable roads (with some limitations), legal implications are unclear…

When did I lose track of everything?

The recent business trip to Poznań (first one in over a year with any spare time to go out and sightsee) has made me realise I had ceased to keep up with current affairs. But these were not just the three days without access to computer and not watching TV (enjoying nightlife in the evenings), when ruling coalition was rowing over pensions and a wacky chap in France stage a massacre in a Jewish school, but a much longer period of time, starting in the autumn last year… Fancy a catch-up?

In October 2011 the parliamentary election was won, for the second time in a row, by Platforma Obywatelska, Donald Tusk was re-sworn in as prime minister, ruling coalition stayed in place in the same shape as it had wielded power before the election. Only make-up of the government was slightly reshuffled, with some controversial appointments (conservative non-lawyer Jarosław Gowin as justice minister, charming Joanna Mucha as sport minister and wet-behind-ears Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz and labour and welfare minister). And once the danger of relapsing IV RP was fended off and prospects of four years of mediocre rule consisting in doing excellent PR stunts and holding on to cushy stools emerged, someone has lost their common sense. Guys in power have grown complacent and began to think if the nation have elected them for the second time, they have a mandate to do anything and can go unpunished. Ordinary people have realised this has gone too far and next mistakes made by the government cannot be forgiven.

2012 brought three significant slip-ups of the PO-led government…

1. The medicine reimbursement law, prepared in the previous term by the health ministry run by Ewa Kopacz turned out to trigger backlash from angry patients. The reform, aimed at bringing some order into rules of subsidising purchase of medicines and cutting reimbursement expenses, led to an even bigger chaos, chiefly when doctors were obliged to check whether a patient was entitled to buy a subsidised medicine.

2. The ACTA dispute – this one has wound me up, although I have to admit until now I have not drilled down deep into the new regulations. Would I be personally affected by ACTA? Would I have to register my blog which I try to keep anonymous? Would I be convicted for downloading films of music (not to mention plenty for books that would set be back hundreds of zlotys)? Does ACTA really square with current Polish law? Well, I hold it dear I can run PES and withhold my identity (known for many, but not for the public), as my current employer and any potential employers do not know nothing about my activity and I can write whatever inconvenient stuff I want, including harsh criticism of misconduct of the industry I work for (the longer I work there and the deeper I dive into it, the bigger the scale of depravity I see is). And the rest? OK, from time to time I go to a cinema, but I watch most newly released films at home, all new music albums I want to listed to come from the Internet. And the books – in my life I’ve downloaded several excellent English-language books on economics and banking, for each I would have had to fork out between 50 and 100 US dollars… They all boosted by knowledge, but was it at somebody’s expense? Consider two cases: either somebody spends money to go to a cinema or to buy a book and is worse-off or they do not watch a film or read a book at all. In the former case an intellectual owner of a good is better-off, in the latter not. The issue of web piracy should be considered in two separate issues then. Firstly it is about economic rationality – if someone can have something which costs money for free, it is rational to take steps to get it for free. Secondly – when someone cannot afford to have access to culture and knowledge in any other way than by the Internet, crackdown on contents violating copyrights is a tragedy. Personally I perceive ACTA, not because the initiative has cropped up, but by dint of the back-door way of passing it, as a conspiracy of the rich against the poor and another attempt to preserve and deepen the gulf between those who have and those who are deprived… PS. By doing what I described I do not break the Polish law, which allows to copy or download goods marked as intellectual purposes for one’s private use. I do not distribute anything further, do not share it and do not draw any financial benefits from this. May it stay so…
The government, after numerous demonstrations staged in the middle of the cold snap, succumbed to the protesters and backed out of ACTA ratifications, thus spiting the lobbyists…

3. Raising retirement age to 67 for both women and men. Currently woman in Poland are allowed to retire at the age of 60, men when they knock 65. In practice on average a Pole pensions off at the age of 57, much earlier than other nations in the EU. Predictably, an attempt do adjust legislation to unremitting demographic trends triggered another hostile reaction from the PO’s coalitional partner and most oppositional parties, from the trade unions and ordinary citizens, scared with the prospect of having to work until the age of 67. Future of the reform is still not settled. Ruch Palikota is ready to back the reform, while PO is ready to strike a one-off deal with the liberal-leftist party. No one can foretell, whether the dispute over the pension deal would split the PO-PSL coalition and whether this will end up with early elections…

And me? I don’t care…
1. I’m indifferent to falling support for Platforma. I voted for it, not regret it, as there was no alternative, but at this time there is no one I could vote for. Rule of off-their-head people, whose leader is Jarosław Kaczyński do not scare me somehow, although this surely not what I want for Poland. My mindset reflects what happens in minds of many Poles for who politics is a game played somewhere beyond the small world or their problems and joys.
2. ACTA – well, comes this into effect, I will have to come to terms with it and comply. But odds that it happens, in the light of international resistance to the new law, are shrinking.
3. Well, I have long been mentally prepared to work until the age of 67 or longer, I am not one of the people attracted by the possibility of retiring early, so why should I care…

Besides, financial markets have gone bonkers, I totally do not understand what drives prices then, so I’m trying to stay out of the market and reiterate my prediction of a tsunami on the markets in the second quarter of 2012… Time will tell…

Winter timeline

From early September forecasters scared us with predictions of the harshest winter in the current millennium (second in a row). Their prophecies were allegedly backed by sudden shift from warm late summer, lasting until 6 October 2011, to chilly autumn, followed by first frost on 16 October. The first blow of arctic air brought temperatures atypical for October (-3.2C daytime low on 16 October, sub-zero temperatures over next two days), then another cold snap came on 22 October and 23 October. No such thing as warm Polish gold autumn was seen in October 2011. Average temperature of the month was +8.5C (vs. long-term /1981-2010/ average of +8.5), but if it had not been for the first six days of October when average temperatures were typical for August, the month would have been recorded as cold.

November 2011 had a quite balmy and sunny start, with month-time high of +14.7C recorded on 5 November 2011. Next two weeks brought below-average temperatures and continuation of dry weather (precipitation in many parts of Poland was record-low). Two coldest mornings were 12 November 2011 (low of -5.3C) and 23 November 2011 (low of –5.7C). Some parts of Warsaw were covered with a thin layer of snow grains in the morning on 17 November 2011, but this was not the first snow that marks the beginning of Student SGH’s winter timeline. In the last days of November North Atlantic Oscillation perked up for good (Atlantic had been dormant from September until the end of October) and brought above-average temperatures again. All in all, average temperature of November 2011 was +3.0 (vs. long-term average of +3.1C); average temperature was typical, yet deviations from mean were a bit unusual.

First decade of December 2011 was marked by weather typical for early November. Average daily temperatures hovered much above 0C. 12 December 2011 saw first hard frost since almost three weeks (in the morning temperature dropped to –4.0C), but then glorious warmth returned for a few days. Meteorologists got it right by predicting that first signs of winter would show up before Christmas.

20 December 2011
No such joke. In the morning temperature drops to –7.5C. Not unbearable, no wind chill, no snow disrupting traffic, but the winter has put its foot down. Around 8 p.m. it begins to snow. On my way from work I see snow ploughs pouring grit on ul. Puławska. This year road clearance services are planning to surprise the winter.

21 December 2011
A picturesque morning. Everything is swathed in a fog, limiting visibility to some 400 metres. Roads are slippery. Temperature of –2C and one-centimetre layer of snow means no assault, but gentle greeting by the coldest of all seasons of the year. I’m having a day off and after doing all household chores, I may lap up glorious weather (sunshine, -1C – the first day of winter 2011/2012 when temperature does not creep above zero).

22 December 2011
One more frosty morning, it’s –7C when astronomical winter begins. Over the whole day temperature stays much below zero, sky’s overcast and the day is generally dull.

23 December 2011
Frost is slowly retreating, even overnight temperature slowly rises and makes it above freezing in the afternoon, when some sunrays emerge from behind the clouds.

24 December 2011
Another Christmas thaw sets in. In the morning falling drizzles freezes on roads, pavements and my tiled stairs. Everything is slippery and drivers have to be very careful. The Christmas Eve is, just as almost every year, gloomy – fog and drizzle take over.

25 December 2011
An ordinary Christmas day. While on a walk, I spot first buds on several trees. This does not augur well; if proper winter comes, plants will suffer. Or are these the first intimations of spring? How come? Over the past week temperature was usually below freezing and today it’s mere +2C (with wind chill below zero).

26 December 2011
Balmy. +8C from 11:00 until late afternoon, sunbeams hidden behind the clouds. It’s much better than snow and/or frost, but I’m longing for a bit of sunshine. Darkness and gloom no longer lift my spirits.

27 December 2011
No, I haven’t had enough of the gloom. This is kind of weather I like – typical British winter – in the afternoon temperature tops +9C and watch out, day-time low is +8.2C! Drizzle, wind, clouds, may this weather not give way to winter!

28 December 2011
Getting colder. Skies unexpectedly (forecasters failed to predict it) cleared up at night and temperature fell to –1C before dawn. Car covered by frozen rain took me aback in the morning. I couldn’t open any, except for driver’s, door and layer of ice was so rough that I couldn’t scrape it. While waiting for over ten minutes until the car defrosts itself I took delight in beautiful sunrise. Over the day sky clouded over. Day-time high still well above long-term average: +8.2C.

29 December 2011
Could these days be lit up? Saw some sunrays in the afternoon and enjoyed the warmth again – temperature fluctuating around +5C.

30 December 2011
Wind chill – today movements of air reminded me how it feels. In the morning it was just 0C, but felt like –10C – unpleasant.

31 December 2011
Second light dusting of snow this winter lingers just for a few hours and is washed away by rain. In the afternoon skies clear up. In the evening temperature plummets and freezing fog hovers. Temperature of some –4C, just like last year.

December 2011 was very warm. Average temperature in Warsaw was +2.6C (vs. long-term average of –0.7C), it was the fourth warmest December after World War II (3rd rank goes to December 1960 (+2.8C), 2nd was December 1971 (+3.0C), the warmest (+4.0C) December was in 2006). Stats:
- month-time high: +10.0C on 2 December 2011
- month-time low: -7.5C on 20 December 2011
- the warmest day: 27 December 2011 (daily average of +8.5C)
- the coldest day: 22 December 2011 (daily average of –4.3C)

1 January 2012
Oh, late morning relieves the pain of many by greeting with beautiful sunshine and temperature jumping above zero. Great portent of the new year in weather. Weather stats say it was –5C overnight.

2 January 2012
Cloudy, rainy, depressing, but very warm, as for January, day – in the afternoon day-time and quite probably month-time high of +9.1C. From now it will be only colder and all forecasts warn of light winter next week.

3 January 2012 – 4 January 2012
Slightly colder, with occasional wind chill. The world stays dim, although distance between Earth and Sun is the lowest over the year.

5 January 2012
To put it briefly, blustery & sleet. Temperatures more typical for early January (between 0C and +3C). This year again the early-January cold snap doesn’t hit Warsaw.

6 January 2012 – 7 January 2012
Morning light snow showers don’t disrupt anything, as temperature is most of the time slightly above zero. Yet outside it’s anything, but pleasant – chilly wind makes the real feel below –5C.

8 January 2012
25 years ago, on 8 January 1987 temperature in Warsaw dropped to –30.7C, post-WW2 low. Today it doesn’t even bother to fall below freezing. Morning – gloomy, before midday – sunny intervals, afternoon – summer-like downpour. Soil needs rain after autumn drought.

9 January 2012 – 10 January 2012
Winter slowly creeps in. Temperatures most of the day are slightly above zero, but this won’t last long. In less than a week proper winter (not sleet and –1C in the morning) should be here.

11 January 2012 – 13 January 2012
Last days when staying in Warsaw one can take delight in very late autumnal warmth. On 12 January temperatures tops +7C, while the next day in the evening it hovers near zero. Proper winter comes along, but it doesn’t appear to be very harsh…

14 January 2012
Light winter – light dusting of snow, light frost in the morning that melts over the day, not that light snow shower in the late afternoon.

15 January 2012
Long live the beauty of (light) winter. –3C in the morning. Howling wind has ceased, some 3 centimetres of snow linger, sky is partly cloudy, there’s no need to drive anywhere. Over the day wind speeds up, day-time high is –2C, with wind chill of –8C. Upside – over an hour of glorious sunshine in the afternoon. Forecasters’ models have changed their mind – thaw is due around 20 January and over one wintry week it should be no colder than –10C.

16 January 2012
I’ve had enough of winter. In the morning temperature hits –7C, but really bothersome is the snow falling from early morning until late afternoon. I’d rather opt for clear skies and below –10C at dawn. At least shovels and snowploughs don’t have to be used.

17 January 2012
Great stuff. Snow showers ceased yesterday in the afternoon, air is dry and clear, temperature in the morning falls to mere –6C, day brings glorious sunshine, little snow on the ground doesn’t melt…

18 January 2012
In the morning –8C, accompanied by still air. Day-time, however, was not hit just before sunrise, but soon after midnight. Records from weather station on Warsaw airport read minimum temperature of –10.1C – first double-digit frost this winter! Before midday Warsaw is paralysed by a three-hour-long snow shower. Most of it melts, as later on temperature rises above zero.

19 January 2012
Only morning brings wet flurry and very light frost. This follow by moderate thaw which melts much of the snow. In the evening wet snow comes over again…

20 January 2012
Thaw and Warsaw’s overcome by it. Nobody bothers to get to grips with slush, so pedestrians have waddle ankle-deep in a blend of snow, mud, grit and water. Evening brings some snow showers, temperature around 0C

21 January 2012
Thaw continues – temperature between 0C and +1C linger for the whole day. Not a big melt anyway. Forecasters’ models clearly indicate high pressure system over Russia is building up…

22 January 2012
I wake up to behold the biggest snow precipitation this winter – some 5 centimetres of wet, heavy snow. Clearing this takes me over an hour but weather helps do the job – temperature doesn’t drop below zero from dawn to dusk, daytime high of +3C.

23 January 2012
The last day with positive temperature in the morning and gloom in the air… In the evening it begins to snow.

24 January 2012
Thin layer of snow fallen overnight plays havoc with everything. It takes me around a quarter to defrost the car (or rather wait until it defrosts itself, as scraping and using de-icer goes in vain), then I find the padlock of the gate frozen…

25 January 2012
Yesterday was the last day with at least little thaw. Today the frost is light, no worse than –4C, but it chills me when I see the high pressure system over North-Western Russia…

26 January 2012
Not very cold, just –4C in the morning, flurry from 6:30 to 11:30 paralyses Warsaw during morning rush hours. I slowly make it to P&R before it gets really nasty. In the evening car thermometer reads –8C, easterly wind is gusty – wind chill according to Okęcie weather station is –22C! And the cold snap has not perked up for good… Weather forecasts say the frost won’t ease until 12 February (with hindsight – what a perfect prediction!). The worst is said to come between 3 February and 8 February – down to ghastly –18C overnight…

27 January 2012
Chilly morning, below –11C at dusk and clear skies. Easterly winds keep blowing in frosty air from over Russia. Daytime high hits –8C, if you take shelter from the wind, it’s even warm…

28 January 2012
One step closer to the chill –13C in the morning, no more than –7C over the day. Gorgeous sunlight from dawn to dusk.

29 January 2012
Getting colder day by day, temperature is one degree lower than yesterday, so –14C in the morning, then with time surface of earth is heated by ever-higher-rising sun and temperature in early afternoon reaches –6C, just to retreat thereafter.
Weather forecast chop and change, now the frost is to reach its nadir on Thursday and hit some –22C in Warsaw. Then meteorologist project a veritable hell – temperatures below –10C accompanied by intense snow – I hope it doesn’t happen, as it would paralyse the whole country. Mere snow when it’s above –10C is OK, harsh frost without snow also, but the two combined is a recipe for a disaster.

30 January 2012
Just another day of big freeze. This is the time when each day a previous day’s cold record is broken. In the morning it’s –15C and so many people gripe about the cold. Rails crack, buses don’t run, water pipes burst, cars go into flames. Daytime high of –8C.

31 January 2012
Normally when the Russian high comes over, the air is still. Not this time! Chilly wind is still gusty. –16C in the morning and wind chill of –25C. Ghastly, but shining sun is beautiful. Days are visibly longer…

January 2012 was normal. Average temperature in Warsaw was -0.9C (vs. long-term average of –1.9C). This is the power of statistics – we had very warm first half of the months and anomalously cold five last days – and the average shows it was a typical January. Stats:
- month-time high: +9.1C on 2 January 2012
- month-time low: -16.3C on 31 January 2012
- the warmest day: 4 January 2012 (daily average of +6.5C)
- the coldest day: 31 January 2012 (daily average of –12.7C)

1 February 2012
The last month of calendar winter kicks off and generously bestows us with frost. In the morning –18C, over the day wind is not as obtrusive as it used to be. Over the day no warmer than –12C. Big freeze is approaching its climax…

2 February 2012
Well, -19.7C according to official records from the weather station in Okęcie is no fun any more. The coldest afternoon during the cold wave – no warmer than –14.6C officially. Sunshine, pink sky at sunset. Feels like Siberia. We’ll ride it out…

3 February 2012
Ooops… -23.1C is an official reading from W-wa Okęcie weather station, my car thermometer shows –24C, on the eastern suburbs of Warsaw temperature drops to –26C. As cold as in late January 2010. It’s not that bad in Warsaw, in Białystok temperature drops to –30C, somewhere beyond it in the sticks it must be well below –30C… Again sunshine and little chance for much warmer weather in the coming days. Just realised I’d never been exposed to such cold before! In 2006 I didn’t go out in the morning when it was below –25C…

4 February 2012
One degree warmer than yesterday and no major changes in the weather. It should get warmer day by day, but… Forecasters whisper something about snow showers… At least, unlike in many parts of Europe, there has been no snowfall in Warsaw for several days, while blizzards have wreaked havoc to many other European capitals and their inhabitants, not accustomed by harsh winter conditions.

5 February 2012
In terms of weather… We’re watching history of climatologic in Poland (and Europe) in the making, but I’ve had enough of the frost. –19C at dawn, -14C in the afternoon. When I look outside the window, spring creeps up – how misleading! And another frosty night ahead!

6 February 2012
There always must be that first time. Till today I’d never seen snow falling in the temperature of –20C. Over the day it’s no warmer than –13C, but the worst (in terms of temperature) is over, while the snows are coming over.

7 February 2012
Morning: -13C, how balmy, even snow flurry doesn’t look like pain in the arse. Evening: -9C, how balmy, only single-digit frost!

8 February 2012
With day-time low and high respectively –12C and –5C it seems pleasantly warm, although only relatively… The worst seems gone, but temperatures nearing –20C at dawn are set to return around the weekend.

9 February 2012
Getting colder, again. –14C in the morning and –7C in early afternoon and the trend is downward. Warsaw, unlike many parts of Poland, has not been affected by snow showers. After a cold weekend, some snow precipitation is expected on 13 February.

10 February 2012
Well, the second, shorter and less severe wave of cold comes to Poland. –16C in the morning, clear skies. This will last for two days, then sunny and chilly winter will give way to light frost and snow flurries.

11 February 2012
Into the second cold wave: -19C in the morning and double-digit frost over the whole day. In the morning residents of many parts of Poland can observe diamond dust. Can’t wait to see temperature statistics for February 2012… Quite probably this will be the coldest month in this century and the coldest since infamous January 1987 (monthly average of –13.0C).

12 February 2012
The last morning (hopefully) that brings –20C. Then temperature shoots up: 7:00 –18.8C, 8:00 –15.3C, 9:00 –12.4C, 10:00 –10.0C, 11:00 –8.0C, but over the beautiful sunny day it’s no warmer than –6C. Coming days are said to bring much higher temperature and abound in snow showers.

13 February 2012
-10C in the morning and –5C in the afternoon let me officially declare the cold snap over. It lasted 17 days and was probably the longest since January 1987. Little harmless flurry.

14 February 2012
Single-digit frost – balmy (-2C in the afternoon). Forecasters scare with oncoming blizzards. Actually this winter snow hasn’t played havoc with traffic, so maybe mid-February is a good time to make up…

15 February 2012
This happens virtually every winter. There comes a day when a few centimetres of snow precipitation bring the city to a standstill. This winter it happened quite late, but morning saw horror on not cleared roads. I left the car at home not to exacerbate situation on the roads. I saved on petrol, but couldn’t say the day was anything but nice.
On my way home, when I was totally fucked-up by weather and goings-on at work, it occurred to me the snow has brought in beautiful landscapes. But –23C was not such nuisance as –3C and falling snow. At least when it was 20C colder I could move around easily… Snow ceases to fall around 8 p.m. Hoping for a better tomorrow…

16 February 2012
No snow overnight, -7C in the morning. Warsaw has somehow managed to cope with slush lingering on roads, main streets are (rather) clear, many pavements aren’t. Yesterday’s precipitation was 13 centimetres, so it could have been much worse. A cold night ahead (already –10C at 9 p.m.), and then waiting for the thaw, due over the weekend.

17 February 2012
-15C in the dead of night, -10C at the crack of down, flurry since sunrise, freezing drizzle at dusk and +1C in the evening. Thaw! Thaw! Thaw! After 22 days with sub-zero temperatures!

18 February 2012 – 19 February 2012
Gentle thaw – overcast sky and temperatures between 0C and +2C, on Sunday also rain showers. The winter’s come late and looks like it’s going to depart early. Freezing rain creates ice rinks on Sunday evening

20 February 2012
Mere –1C but everything’s slippery. Over the day – beautiful sunshine.

21 February 2012
Ever-earlier-beginning morning heralds a beautiful day – gold sky and –5C. Then skies cloud over and pre-spring semi-gloom lingers…

22 February 2012
First morning without frost since 23 January. Over the day gloomy and warm (+3C), in the evening, weather ideal for the ball at the Devil’s.

23 February 2012 – 25 February 2012
Temperatures above zero even at night, over the day up to balmy +10C. All the snows melt, spring can be felt in the air… Gusty wind signifies western oscillation has returned.

26 February 2012
Woken up by a howling wind at 7:30 a.m. I pull up the blind roller to behold a snow blizzard that lasts 30 minutes and brings two centimetres of white powder. The precipitation is followed by some three hours of beautiful sunshine, which in turn gives way to ugly late winter weather (0C, wind chill of –7C).

27 February 2012
Another morning heavy, yet short snow, this time it starts at 6:35, so during the morning rush hour. –2C in the morning, over the day I can see sun shining outside the window, but it’s not the greeting of spring – outside it’s +1C. I leave the office at time (for the first time since many days) and it’s still light (sunset at 17:12 in Warsaw today).

28 February 2012
Glorious morning: -7C, pink, then yellow sky, frost everywhere. Then it gets warmer, but not much above 0C and around midday it begins to snow and in the evening flurry turns into drizzle. Ghastly on pavements and roads…

29 February 2012 – 2 March 2012
The spring is in the air. The last day of February brings a whiff of true spring: +8C and sunshine, only March greets Warsaw with autumnal gloom, temperatures above zero all the time.

February 2012 was frosty. Average temperature in Warsaw was –6.2C (vs. long-term average of –1.0C), the coldest February in my lifetime. Again, mean temperature is blend of very frosty first 12 days, cold subsequent week and warm third decade. Stats:
- month-time high: +11.1C on 24 February 2012
- month-time low: -23.1C on 3 February 2012
- the warmest day: 24 February 2012 (daily average of +6.9C)
- the coldest day: 3 February 2012 (daily average of –18.5C)

3 March 2012 – 8 March 2012
High pressure system draws in chilly air from over Scandinavia. Sky is clear from dawn to dusk, but temperatures are typical for mild winter – a few degrees below zero at nights, with month-time low of –8C and from 0C to 5C over the day. No snow, sunbeams give spring-like warmth.

9 March 2012
Thick, thick, freezing fog lingers and limits visibility even to less than 200 metres. This looks rather like gloomy November, but spring equinox nears and weather like this will be rather infrequent in the coming months.

10 March 2012 – 11 March 2012
A weekend without frost (single-digit above zeros all the time), Saturday rainy, Sunday sunny, but windy. Long-term forecasts do not indicate winter can return at all. Sunny, dry and moderately warm days ahead.

12 March 2012
The last morning with frost (-2C). Well, time to declare the winter’s over…

The frost returned twice, once on 15 March and for the last time yesterday. Funnily enough, yesterday before dawn it was –1C and then temperature shot up to +20C in the afternoon to retreat to +6C at 9 p.m. Today it topped +18C, but the heat record for Warsaw (+23.0C on 21 March 1974) has not been beaten – hope the weather will catch up by the end of the month. This weekend beautifully farewells a late-coming, short, harsh, but not snowy winter.

For a good onset of spring – off w Polskę in business tomorrow!

A foray to a forest

Early March, sun is shining high and the worst of the winter’s gone (expect another winter timeline next week). When this kind of weather comes in, the nature beckons and first intimations of winter bring on getting out and breathing in the pre-spring air.

Last Saturday (8 days ago), I had luck to find two spare hours (free time is and will be scarce commodity for me) to pop over to the fringes of the nearest reserve of intact wildlife.

I set off from home at half past two p.m., marched one kilometre to catch a 709 bus, rode three stops and got off at the corner of ul. Puławska and ul. Jagielska. The very wait for the bus stop dragged on for over a quarter – public transport in the suburbs is often unreliable, but after all I didn’t feel like going there by a fume-emitting vehicle and it was still too cold to have a bike shake-down day. Having alighted the bus, I headed east, passed by a prestigious Laguna estate and having walked some 500 metres, I had the forest to my left.

I sauntered on, with a view to find a monument commemo- rating fatalities of terrible plane crash which happened here in May 1987. Having forgotten to take a map, I didn’t find it, but located the property from which the news of the crashed airplane came to the fire brigade. It’s Jagielska 2, in 1987 there was a rural dwelling here, in 2012 you can find here an international private school. A fine location, I must say. I wonder how children can get here, if none of their parents, nor any other childminder can give them a lift…

I strolled some 200 metres further east, to spot the official entrance to the forest. As I later learnt at home, I could turn there left, walk less than half a kilometre north and spot the monument I was searching for. Tough luck, I’ll be there before and after the 25th anniversary of the disaster anyway to commemorate the victims of the most tragic (in terms of death toll) Polish plane accident after World War II.

I was curious to see what kind of development can be found near the south-western peripheries of Las Kabacki. One can spot there well-looking detached house built over the last twenty years, with well-groomed gardens. A blot on the landscape are old, often derelict, dilapidated houses, some looking like summerhouses.

Many on big plots of land occupied by wrecked or almost falling-apart greenhouses. One day these areas will be rearranged; at the present there is nothing but a disorder here.

Between ul. Jagielska and the forest lie empty plots of land, waiting for a wealthy buyer, eager to purchase land for their own residence or to built a row of terraced houses for sale. The upsides of the location are vicinity of the forest, clean air and silence. It gets worse when it comes to commuting. A bus stop is two kilometres away, road is full of potholes, in the winter it has a low priority in snow-clearing. Unless the weather is good, you have no choice, but to use a car and spend money on petrol… Prices of properties in the suburbs must reflect time and money wasted on long commuting…

And the last element of the suburban landscape are spacious, detached, or semi-detached mansions, usually built in clusters. Most of those I noticed were uninhabited, many unfinished inside, and put up for sale. Until last Saturday I hadn’t seen a single sign of crisis on the Polish property market similar to those in countries affected by property market bubbles and here strikes a surprise. Enormous, yet spirit-lacking and anything, but cosy, houses no one wants to buy. It’s all a matter of price. These days in Poland supply and demand hardly ever meet.

As I was approaching ul. Puławska on my way to the bus stop, I spotted a plane. Blinded by the sun, I couldn’t discern what airline it was run by. And now a question to you – an Ukrainian as colours suggest? I’ve never heard of Aerosvit…

The bus stops near ul Jagielska have been temporarily (temporary solutions last long) moved in the summer of 2010 for the period when a footbridge over ul. Puławska is rebuilt. The old footbridge, eaten up by rust was torn down in mid-2010, almost two years have gone by and construction of the new one is not yet completed. I noticed stairs are not ready – they don’t reach the ground, lifts are still not fit to run and no one bothers to finish this hapless venture off.

A big board next to the footbridge informs me the modernisation of this and many other footpaths in Warsaw was co-financed by the EU… And what’s the benefit. Completed footbridges are closed off for months as urzędasy in the town hall are hanging back on issuing a use permit and soon after the facilities are opened some buttheads vandalise it. For a while local residents won’t be able to use the footbridge and drivers’ life will be made harder by one more set of traffic lights. Oddly enough, the light for cars turns red not only when someone presses a button and wants to cross the road, but light alternate in regular intervals – another absurdity…

The Iron Lady - film review

An elderly, senile, yet elegant lady does the shopping and then returns home to reminisce the past events with her (dead) husband. Dejecting and magnificent is the recent biography of Margaret Thatcher, masterfully starred as by Meryl Streep (this year’s Oscar for best actress prize winner).

The film’s plot runs as a series of retrospections, bringing back the most important moments of Mrs Thatcher’s (nee Roberts) life, interspersed throughout the daily struggle with dementia and beginnings of Alzheimer.

I cannot tell how reliable the depiction of Ms Roberts’ early life is, but from the film you can learn that upbringing and influence of her father, who ran a grocery, shaped her economic views, instilled extraordinary strength in her and familiarised her with the taste of deprivation. Margaret Roberts looms as a clever, prudent and determined young girl, with good grasp of basic laws of microeconomics. Adolescent Margaret’s way is uphill. She grows up when women are still seen as inferior and many realms of life and social activity are still no-go for the weaker sex. This does not change with years and is best illustrated in the scene when she enter the parliament for the first time. Men’s room is fit for entertainments typical for males, in the bathroom you can see urinals, behind the door with “women” board you would not notice anything else, but a chair and ironing board.

The strength of Mrs Thatcher has its dark sides. Her deeds are marked by obstinacy (refusal to change course). Her belief in the power of entrepreneurship, faith in perfection of the free market, one-sided disapproval of trade unions are slightly naïve, slightly cruel and suggest her perception of economics is over-simplified. If everything was as simple, as in her mind, she would not have become such a controversial figure. The shock therapy she applied to the ailing British economy was painful, but justified. With hindsight we see shock of the first years of her rule when unemployment soared and industrial output plummeted and we the subsequent turnaround. The choices she had to make were difficult and as a prime minister, she would always remain stalwart and unrelenting. She pursued the retrenchment programme despite backlash, put down protesting workers from unprofitable mines. Having slashed expenses for social care, she did not hesitate to spend millions of pounds on the Falklands war, winning which was a matter of honour. Her self-pride and conviction of her own infallibility, combined with not caring about the image, have ousted her from the seat of Tory leader. In her last months of serving as prime minister, Mrs Thatcher is depicted as full-of-herself, cold-hearted manager trying force her own ideas upon others, such as in the case of the community charge, seen by many as unfair and as another move into redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich.

The film is worth seeing not only as a whole work, but also for a few absolutely outstanding scenes.
1. The proposal scene – and Margaret’s speech in which she warns Dennis she would not be a silent wife standing by her husband’s side and would never like to end up washing up a teacup (watch out for the last scene then!).
2. The moment when she pulls out from outside her house to leave for parliament in 1959, and her children scream to ask her to stay, but she, with stone-cold face, sets her car in motion, does not look back and trespasses into the world of politics.
3. The scene when she announces her family she is going to run for a leadership of the Conservative party. Her children, who have always held it against their mother, that her commitment into public life was at the expense of family life, simply leave the kitchen, while her husband, usually supportive, this time does not try to hide his disapproval. Left alone in the kitchen, Mrs Thatcher asks: “When did I lose track of everyone?”. The scene is an unbeatable illustration of traps one can fall into when making a career without taking heed of their near and dear ones.
4. The scene when old Mrs Thatcher visits a doctor and complains that “people do not think anymore, people feel” and sees the shift from thinking to feeling the major cause or how the world looks like. And here I could stop and muse about “think vs. feel”, as it would be a great topic for a separate post.
I try to think and feel as much as I can, mix the two, but at the end of the day thinking takes over…

The film reminded me about my old longing for a politician who would step in to rule Poland, carry out necessary but unpopular reforms, and after four years would step down in disgrace, with support in polls below 5%, but leaving the country healed of its economic woes. With politicians focused on popularity with voters, this will not work…

From psychological perspective, Mrs Thatcher is depicted as tough outside, but it is hard to determine, whether she is equally tough inside. When she writes a letter to mothers of soldiers killed in the Falklands war, the surely shows she remains a sensitive woman, but is she all the time?

And people we meet on our way – are they tough or fragile, do they show their real psyche, or do they pretend. With four combinations:
1. fragile outside, fragile inside,
2. tough outside, tough inside,
3. fragile outside, tough inside,
4. fragile inside, tough outside,
first and second are sincere, third is improbable, but could be typical for mercenary ones who play on other people’s emotions to reach their goals, the fourth is, maybe sadly, more and more often seen. The world we live in makes us act as strong, while inside we may still be weak. It might be only a matter of time when this picture falls apart…

So in life, it is best to strike a healthy balance between toughness and fragility… Did the Iron Lady learn that lesson?