Street names in Poland appear exotic to Brits, who are used to a rather dull conventions, such as naming streets after towns. I have lived on Cleveland Road and Ribchester Avenue. For 16 years I worked on New Oxford Street. All these streets named after towns. But note - one's a Road, one's an Avenue and one's a Street. But in the UK you can also live on a Gardens, a Fields, a Meadows, a Common, a Grove, a Square, a Place, a Crescent, a Drive, a Way, a Vale, a Terrace, a Close, a Mews, a Lane, a Court, a Row, a Gate, a Rise, a Hill, a Walk, a Park, a Circus, a Boulevard and a Chase (thanks Denzil) and a Croft. [Indeed, I spent my childhood on Croft Gardens.] Or no suffix at all - prefixed with 'The' followed by a plural noun - The Ridings, The Little Boltons. Or 'The' plus any one of the above-mentioned toponyms - The Avenue, The Mews, The Grove etc. I doubt if this list is exhaustive; no doubt there'll be some Scottish ones too.
In Poland, there's an ulica, an Aleja (capitalised) - an Aleja has to be broad, straight, multi-laned and reprezentacyjna, a Plac (also capitalised) - which is a Square or a Place - and that's your lot. The latter two are relatively rare; 95% of streets in Poland are ulice and that's that.
But then in Poland you get naming conventions that are alien to Britain. Alien, for instance, is the practice of naming streets after dates of historical significance. To a Brit, this smacks of banana republics where streets are named after the date of The Revolution. Poland has fewer of these than it used to in communist days (gone are all the Aleje 22 lipca), but there's still many Ulice 3 maja - 1 maja even. As well as oddball ones - ul. 29 listopada (29th of November Street). And Warsaw still has an ul. 17 stycznia ( 17 January Street - the date the city was 'liberated' by the Red Army).
Far more Polish streets are named after famous people than in Britain. It tends to grate on the British sensibility to come across a 'Councillor Reg Sprott Avenue' (it smacks of lefty-ism rather than a commemoration of a life of service). Poles are happier to accept streets named after people, including - I would argue - far more foreigners than the insular British would deign to name their streets after. Warsaw has four streets named after Indians, for example - two Gandhis, Nehru and Tagore. Categories of people that British streets are named after tend to be great poets, writers, artists, long-dead generals and admirals, generic royalty (King Street, Queen Street, Princes Street).
Genitives and Adjectival forms
Another thing about Polish street names is that they take the genitive (possessive) form of the noun, or they are in the form of an adjective. So it's ul. Dembińskiego (literally, Dembinski's Street, or the street of Dembinski), not ul. Dembiński. Adjectival forms - ul. Słoneczna, sunny street, are the other form. As a result (genitive noun or adjective), very nearly all Polish street names end in the letters a, i, o, y. Rarer plural forms will end in -ych or -ów. Exceptions prove the rule - ul. Wylot, ul. Przeskok, ul. Widok, ul. Giewont, ul. Solec, ul. Foksal - these are older names, in their non-genitive, non-adjectival form, they are rare.
Victorian Britain, when most of the nation's urbanisation occurred, liked to name its streets after Victoria and Albert, but also after 19th Century battles. So Waterloo, Trafalgar, Balaclava and Sevastopol. The Empire provided names for many British streets - Adelaide, Melbourne, Bloemfontein, Jamaica, Singapore.
There is a new practice in Poland of going full-on Polnische Romantizmus - ul. Spełnionych Marzeń (yes! - literally a 'Dreams Come True Street'); ul. Malinowy Gaj (Raspberry Grove), Pachnącej Wiśni (Smelling Cherry), Kwitnących Kwiatów (Flowering Flowers) etc etc. Check out Baszkówka, an exurb south of Warsaw. Another one of my favourites is ul. Posag 7 Pań ('Dowry of Seven Maidens Street'). At last, the developers and estate agents have got their hands on the instruments of street-naming. Gone are those streets whose names put off prospective buyers; ul. Bagno (lit. Bog Street), ul. Asfaltowa - the newer the street, the more poetic and less prosaic the name.
Common in both countries are streets named after trees - Dębowa, Bukowa, Topolowa (pronounced 'Topple Over'); Yew Tree Lane, Old Oak Common, Elm Street, The Firs. And just like Acacia Avenue is the stereotypical English suburban street name, so are Akacjowa, Bukszpanowa, or Polnych Kwiatów.
Roads that point to somewhere - or not
Here's a subtle one; the use of the definite article 'the' in front of the road name, as in 'the Uxbridge Road'. No Londoner would say "My office is on Uxbridge Road." They'd say "My office is on the Uxbridge Road". But then writing the address on an envelope, you'd write, for example, 255 Uxbridge Road, Hanwell, not 255 The Uxbridge Road, Hanwell. If a 'Road' is prefixed by a definite article, something only locals would know, it suggests that the road goes there. The Great West Road, the Old Kent Road, for example, go west and to Kent respectively.
We have this in Poland too; ul. Puławska heads south out of Warsaw, and go far enough in its general direction and you'll get to Puławy. Likewise ul. Raszyńska heads out towards Raszyn, and ul. Radzymińska towards Radzymin. But you need some local knowledge to know which streets behave this way - ul. Rzymska does not lead (or even point) towards Rome, nor Brzeska towards Brześć nad Bugiem.
Out Jeziorki way we have Musical Names given to streets that were developed after the war, named after dances, songs or instrument(alist)s (Puzonistów, Drumli, Baletowa); on the other side of ul. Puławska are Bird Names (Pelikanów, Tukanów, Kuropatwy).
My final note is about translating the word 'ulica' into English when used in an address. DON'T. Leave the address in Polish as it is. To translate ul. Chopina 39 as 39 Chopina Street is just WRONG. I know lots of people do it; they are all WRONG. You don't translate Rue St Michel as St Michel Road, nor do you translate Bahnhofstrasse as Bahnhof Street. So leave ul. Chopina just like that - or (and this is probably the cause of this mistake) - because ulica is always abbreviated in Polish to 'ul.', it can seem a little unfamiliar in English, so my advice if you're doing literary translation is to spell it out in full - ulica Chopina.
This time five years ago:
A glorious month
This time six years ago:
My grandfather
This time seven years ago:
My home-made fixie bike
This time eight years ago:
Well-shot pheasants
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
Monday, 26 September 2016
On conservatism - a personal view
Old Polish saying: Umiesz liczeć? Licz na siebie. - 'Can you count? Count on yourself'. Counting on others - counting on the state - to bail you out when times are tough is not a good idea. Self-reliance is, I believe, the cornerstone of conservatism. Not nationalism, not traditionalism, not allegiance to a leader, but the notion that you are the master of your fate, and that this ownership should not be delegated to any higher authority.
I was inspired by Margaret Thatcher the most when she spoke of conservatism in terms of a household's balanced budget, of taking responsibility for your own actions - or indeed inactions.
I've written several times about the differences between British and Polish conservatism, and how as a British conservative I cannot feel at home around Polish conservatism.
On the spectrum of individualist vs. collectivist, I veer towards individualism. Obviously no man is an island, we need roads, schools, hospitals, security, territorial integrity. We need the rule of law to defend the sanctity of private property. Courts to enforce it fairly. Yet these are the constructs of a society, of a collective. Good to have; a framework within which an individualist can thrive and prosper. I'm glad that such a framework was there for me as I was growing up in the UK, and I'm delighted to have been able to witness such a framework being created around me here in Poland.
But I expect nothing from anyone. No help, no cheery word of encouragement, no free lunch, no Christmas presents. Should these things happen - hey! I'm delighted. I am truly thankful. As I am for health.
But I can't - I don't - expect these blessings. As Jacek Koba commented on my blog a few months ago, happiness is when the ratio of your expectations to reality is 1:1.
Suddenly, a crashing change of gear as this post takes another direction.
I read that the output of the construction sector in Poland is down 20% compared to last year. I look out of my window and see this (below). Dear readers, this is the private sector at work. Individuals, privately owned companies, operating for profit. Hard at work. A skyline of cranes. Warsaw is full of them - in the centre, in the suburbs. A barn. A distribution centre. A car showroom.
So why's there a big fall in Polish construction?
Because the public sector is postponing its investments.
The money (from the EU, mostly) is there - but the local authorities, the government agencies, the national infrastructure operators - don't know how to spend it. They don't have the know-how in project management. They don't have the people. Those that are involved in having to spend public money to procure projects live in fear of being sacked for taking the wrong decision. For taking any decision. And so construction companies who were counting on the state to give them work are going hungry. Licz na siebie. Trakcja PRKiI, the company that's modernising the Warsaw-Radom railway line, has just announced that it will be laying off several hundred people come next July, as this and other rail modernisation contracts comes to an end. There's plenty of money for further projects - it's just that the tenders have not been issued, decisions are being postponed.
Conservatives want to see a small, efficient state, not a bloated bureaucracy that's employing people for the sake of giving them jobs - that add little or no value for the taxpayers' money.
At a conference I'm speaking at this week, I gaze down the delegate list and a certain local authority will be sending nine people, when most private-sector firms will send one or two.
The public sector should be a tight ship, everyone pulling their weight for the public good, getting paid a competitive salary with the private sector, but with the expectation that their employment will be for the common good.
The dobra zmiana promised by the current government is merely a replacement of one lot of party political placemen with another - though the new ones lack the expertise or experience to do their job properly.
This is not conservatism. This has nothing to do with small-state government, nor promotion of self-reliance.
My brand of conservative government focuses on education - giving a solid grounding in basic facts for the bright and the less-gifted up to high-school level, then universities that teach students to think for themselves, to question, to push the boundaries of human knowledge. My brand of conservatism focuses on delivering a world-class infrastructure, which would enable private business to thrive and create new jobs and wealth. Not just railways, roads, airports and waterways, but broadband internet connections. And a paperless state, where you don't have to visit your local urząd twice when you simply wish to register a vehicle. An environmentally friendly state that is awake to the danger of climate change and wants to step back from burning fossil fuels to generate electricity and power vehicles.
It's easy to hold a view about abortion, in vitro fertilisation or gay rights. Anyone can launch into a heated discussion on these subject. You don't need to be an expert. However, you do need to be an expert to plan urban drainage systems, balance the nation's energy needs with carbon emissions, negotiate trade deals with emerging nations or set the optimal monetary-policy course for forthcoming years. Wise regulation, balancing the interests of different groups, is crucial. This government is focusing its energy on those issues that merely raise heat and social division rather than on doing solidly those things that a modern state needs to do to provide a strong framework for a strong economy and happy (yes, happy) society.
A final point about British conservatism. Since the days of Mrs Thatcher, the dividing line within the Conservative party seemed to have been Europe. Now, after the EU referendum, it's now clear the split lies far deeper than arguments that have their roots in the shape of post-war Europe. No, we now go back to the 1840s, to the repeal of the Corn Laws, where the real argument is Free Trade vs. Protectionism. The supporters of Hard Brexit (i.e. the UK leaves the single European market and imposes visa restrictions on visitors from the EU) have roots going back to the landowning classes who wanted the British market in wheat protected from imports. Those militating for a more open trading relation with the EU are heirs to the free-traders who wanted the Corn Laws repealed, so that traders could trade freely and consumers would benefit from lower prices. In this configuration, who are the 'Wets' and who are the 'Dries'? It looks like the free-traders are being branded 'wets' by the protectionist, nativist wing of the Conservative party. How times change.
I am for free trade - I am an economic liberal (and for the record a social liberal and environmental illiberal).
This time two years ago:
Between equinox and equilux
This time four years ago:
Heritage or high-rise?
This time five years ago:
Shopping notes
This time six years ago:
My grandfather
This time eight years ago:
Surreal twilight, ul.Karczunkowska
This time nine years ago:
From Warsaw to Seville, via Munich and Madrid
I was inspired by Margaret Thatcher the most when she spoke of conservatism in terms of a household's balanced budget, of taking responsibility for your own actions - or indeed inactions.
I've written several times about the differences between British and Polish conservatism, and how as a British conservative I cannot feel at home around Polish conservatism.
On the spectrum of individualist vs. collectivist, I veer towards individualism. Obviously no man is an island, we need roads, schools, hospitals, security, territorial integrity. We need the rule of law to defend the sanctity of private property. Courts to enforce it fairly. Yet these are the constructs of a society, of a collective. Good to have; a framework within which an individualist can thrive and prosper. I'm glad that such a framework was there for me as I was growing up in the UK, and I'm delighted to have been able to witness such a framework being created around me here in Poland.
But I expect nothing from anyone. No help, no cheery word of encouragement, no free lunch, no Christmas presents. Should these things happen - hey! I'm delighted. I am truly thankful. As I am for health.
But I can't - I don't - expect these blessings. As Jacek Koba commented on my blog a few months ago, happiness is when the ratio of your expectations to reality is 1:1.
Suddenly, a crashing change of gear as this post takes another direction.
I read that the output of the construction sector in Poland is down 20% compared to last year. I look out of my window and see this (below). Dear readers, this is the private sector at work. Individuals, privately owned companies, operating for profit. Hard at work. A skyline of cranes. Warsaw is full of them - in the centre, in the suburbs. A barn. A distribution centre. A car showroom.
So why's there a big fall in Polish construction?
Because the public sector is postponing its investments.
The money (from the EU, mostly) is there - but the local authorities, the government agencies, the national infrastructure operators - don't know how to spend it. They don't have the know-how in project management. They don't have the people. Those that are involved in having to spend public money to procure projects live in fear of being sacked for taking the wrong decision. For taking any decision. And so construction companies who were counting on the state to give them work are going hungry. Licz na siebie. Trakcja PRKiI, the company that's modernising the Warsaw-Radom railway line, has just announced that it will be laying off several hundred people come next July, as this and other rail modernisation contracts comes to an end. There's plenty of money for further projects - it's just that the tenders have not been issued, decisions are being postponed.
Conservatives want to see a small, efficient state, not a bloated bureaucracy that's employing people for the sake of giving them jobs - that add little or no value for the taxpayers' money.
At a conference I'm speaking at this week, I gaze down the delegate list and a certain local authority will be sending nine people, when most private-sector firms will send one or two.
The public sector should be a tight ship, everyone pulling their weight for the public good, getting paid a competitive salary with the private sector, but with the expectation that their employment will be for the common good.
The dobra zmiana promised by the current government is merely a replacement of one lot of party political placemen with another - though the new ones lack the expertise or experience to do their job properly.
This is not conservatism. This has nothing to do with small-state government, nor promotion of self-reliance.
My brand of conservative government focuses on education - giving a solid grounding in basic facts for the bright and the less-gifted up to high-school level, then universities that teach students to think for themselves, to question, to push the boundaries of human knowledge. My brand of conservatism focuses on delivering a world-class infrastructure, which would enable private business to thrive and create new jobs and wealth. Not just railways, roads, airports and waterways, but broadband internet connections. And a paperless state, where you don't have to visit your local urząd twice when you simply wish to register a vehicle. An environmentally friendly state that is awake to the danger of climate change and wants to step back from burning fossil fuels to generate electricity and power vehicles.
It's easy to hold a view about abortion, in vitro fertilisation or gay rights. Anyone can launch into a heated discussion on these subject. You don't need to be an expert. However, you do need to be an expert to plan urban drainage systems, balance the nation's energy needs with carbon emissions, negotiate trade deals with emerging nations or set the optimal monetary-policy course for forthcoming years. Wise regulation, balancing the interests of different groups, is crucial. This government is focusing its energy on those issues that merely raise heat and social division rather than on doing solidly those things that a modern state needs to do to provide a strong framework for a strong economy and happy (yes, happy) society.
A final point about British conservatism. Since the days of Mrs Thatcher, the dividing line within the Conservative party seemed to have been Europe. Now, after the EU referendum, it's now clear the split lies far deeper than arguments that have their roots in the shape of post-war Europe. No, we now go back to the 1840s, to the repeal of the Corn Laws, where the real argument is Free Trade vs. Protectionism. The supporters of Hard Brexit (i.e. the UK leaves the single European market and imposes visa restrictions on visitors from the EU) have roots going back to the landowning classes who wanted the British market in wheat protected from imports. Those militating for a more open trading relation with the EU are heirs to the free-traders who wanted the Corn Laws repealed, so that traders could trade freely and consumers would benefit from lower prices. In this configuration, who are the 'Wets' and who are the 'Dries'? It looks like the free-traders are being branded 'wets' by the protectionist, nativist wing of the Conservative party. How times change.
I am for free trade - I am an economic liberal (and for the record a social liberal and environmental illiberal).
This time two years ago:
Between equinox and equilux
This time four years ago:
Heritage or high-rise?
This time five years ago:
Shopping notes
This time six years ago:
My grandfather
This time eight years ago:
Surreal twilight, ul.Karczunkowska
This time nine years ago:
From Warsaw to Seville, via Munich and Madrid
Friday, 23 September 2016
Kriegslok passes through Jeziorki
Acting upon reliable information that a Ty42 Kriegslok from the railway museum at Chabówka heading to Warsaw would be passing through Jeziorki, I took up position with my camera. I turned up some ten minutes before the allotted time - good. Just as I got myself ready, I heard a train whistle in the distance. Here it comes! A rake of vintage carriage, hauled by an ET22 electric loco more used to pulling coal - and at the end, Ty42-107, a Polish-built version of the once-ubiquitous Ty2 Kriegslok, my favourite steam engine.
Such a thing, such a thing. What a marvel to behold! Without doubt, the most amazing sight on my local railway line I've ever seen. Below: the inter-war carriages up close. Once upon a time, such a sight (minus the overhead power lines) would have been commonplace around here.
This train was moving slowly, around 50 km/h (30mph), heading northward towards W-wa Dawidy and onto the junction at W-wa Zachodnia. What makes this pictures all the rarer from the archival point of view is the lack of the 'up' line; the trackbed currently awaits the lower layers of ballast. I was delighted to have caught it; twice in the past I've been waiting to snap steam engines passing through, both times I missed them. Third time lucky.
This train will be under steam tomorrow, travelling from the Warsaw railway museum (long due for closure) to Sochaczew and back. All tickets sold except for a pool of 20 tickets that will come on sale at the museum from 8am tomorrow.
The fact that the tickets - selling for 50 złotys (a tenner a pop) have sold out is a good sign - it shows a growing interest in railway heritage. Now - all that's needed is a world-class Polish railway museum to go with the Warsaw Uprising museum and Jewish history museum.
Below: bonus photo - from yesterday, a few kilometers west of Konin. Another PKP Cargo ET22, this one hauling a more normal load - oil cisterns.
This time four years ago:
A little way west of Jeziorki
This time five years ago:
The Old Sailor's Tale - part II
This time six years ago:
Prague-Jeziorki-Moscow
This time seven years ago:
The passing of Lt. Cmdr. Tadeusz Lesisz
This time nine years ago:
Summer ends, autumn begins
Such a thing, such a thing. What a marvel to behold! Without doubt, the most amazing sight on my local railway line I've ever seen. Below: the inter-war carriages up close. Once upon a time, such a sight (minus the overhead power lines) would have been commonplace around here.
This train was moving slowly, around 50 km/h (30mph), heading northward towards W-wa Dawidy and onto the junction at W-wa Zachodnia. What makes this pictures all the rarer from the archival point of view is the lack of the 'up' line; the trackbed currently awaits the lower layers of ballast. I was delighted to have caught it; twice in the past I've been waiting to snap steam engines passing through, both times I missed them. Third time lucky.
This train will be under steam tomorrow, travelling from the Warsaw railway museum (long due for closure) to Sochaczew and back. All tickets sold except for a pool of 20 tickets that will come on sale at the museum from 8am tomorrow.
The fact that the tickets - selling for 50 złotys (a tenner a pop) have sold out is a good sign - it shows a growing interest in railway heritage. Now - all that's needed is a world-class Polish railway museum to go with the Warsaw Uprising museum and Jewish history museum.
Below: bonus photo - from yesterday, a few kilometers west of Konin. Another PKP Cargo ET22, this one hauling a more normal load - oil cisterns.
This time four years ago:
A little way west of Jeziorki
This time five years ago:
The Old Sailor's Tale - part II
This time six years ago:
Prague-Jeziorki-Moscow
This time seven years ago:
The passing of Lt. Cmdr. Tadeusz Lesisz
This time nine years ago:
Summer ends, autumn begins
Thursday, 22 September 2016
Konin - town of aluminium, electricity and coal
Little did I realise as I left home this morning that I'd spend the day in Konin - a town some 200 west of Warsaw, on the way to Poznań. By 11:30 I was on a TLK train, freshly-printed ticket in hand (51 złotys, about ten quid), ready to go to Konin to give a presentation to local entrepreneurs about exporting to and investing in the UK.
Before continuing, a few more words about Polish railways. TLK trains are the low-cost arm of PKP InterCity, giving you InterCity style speed with prices that are significantly cheaper - at the expense of comfort. Instead of a modern Pendolino or Dart train as in the full-price IC services, or at worst fully pimped-out old carriages refurbished with all mod-cons, the TLK trains offer no buffet car, no Wifi, no electric sockets, eight seats rather than six to the compartment and doors that need the heft of a sumo wrestler to open. My TLK train - in both directions - was a long-distance service from Białystok to Szczecin and back. No buffet car for all that distance. Still, the train was fast and punctual, and in less than two hours I was in Konin.
I've been to Konin before - in 1977, on one of our Montserrat holidays for the youth of our Ealing Polish parish. Konin is round the corner from Licheń, which we visited before it became the Disneyland it's become today. In Konin, however, we visited the aluminium smelter. From 1960 to 1975, the town's population tripled as the aluminium plant, the opencast lignite mine and the ZE PAK group of brown-coal burning power stations (three of the four are in Konin) were built.
I didn't have time to see the Old Town, but I had a look round the new town centre, to the south of the railway station, mostly built in the 1960s and '70s, and using lots of aluminum for facades, windows and doors, as one would expect.
Below: very period, ostentatiously modernist department store in the town centre. Kinda reminds of Marineville out of Stingray. Across the road, the Hotel Konin obviously once had lovely neons advertising its restaurant; the tubes have gone, the signs remain, sadly unlit, but a beautiful typeface. The smiling face on the cube with the clock is saying: "The happy don't count time. Smile."
Below: aluminum everywhere. Lots of shops clad in the stuff, and those PRL-era aluminum doors that rattle when you open them.
Below: "By their street names, thou shalt know them" Konin has a 1st May Street too.
Below: the 1970s housing was well laid out, campus style, and is close to the town centre and its amenities, which include Klub Hutnika ('Smelters' Club') which advertises dancing on Friday and Saturday nights. Socialist planning on a human scale. The aluminium smelter - Poland's only one - closed in 2009, when the price of electricity became too high to profitably produce aluminium from ore. Unemployment in Konin today is 10.1% (end July 2016).
Konin lies on the main east-west railway line running from Berlin through Poznań and Warsaw, via Minsk in Belarus, and on to Moscow. It's a busy line.
Below: before reaching Konin, I walked from the hotel where the conference at which I was speaking was held. I walked some 5km to the station, through lovely fields, parallel to the railway line, until I reached the industrial outskirts of the town. Massive flashbacks, those anomalous memories to... what?
Today was equinox day; from now until 21 March next year, the nights will be longer than the days. It was also car-free day - free public transport in Warsaw all day. Today, I walked over 23,000 paces (18 km).
This time three years ago:
Car-free day falls on a Sunday
This time four years ago:
Vistula at record low level
This time seven years ago:
Car-free day? Warsaw's roads busier than ever
This time eight years ago:
The shape of equinox
This time nine years ago:
Potato harvest time in Jeziorki
Before continuing, a few more words about Polish railways. TLK trains are the low-cost arm of PKP InterCity, giving you InterCity style speed with prices that are significantly cheaper - at the expense of comfort. Instead of a modern Pendolino or Dart train as in the full-price IC services, or at worst fully pimped-out old carriages refurbished with all mod-cons, the TLK trains offer no buffet car, no Wifi, no electric sockets, eight seats rather than six to the compartment and doors that need the heft of a sumo wrestler to open. My TLK train - in both directions - was a long-distance service from Białystok to Szczecin and back. No buffet car for all that distance. Still, the train was fast and punctual, and in less than two hours I was in Konin.
I've been to Konin before - in 1977, on one of our Montserrat holidays for the youth of our Ealing Polish parish. Konin is round the corner from Licheń, which we visited before it became the Disneyland it's become today. In Konin, however, we visited the aluminium smelter. From 1960 to 1975, the town's population tripled as the aluminium plant, the opencast lignite mine and the ZE PAK group of brown-coal burning power stations (three of the four are in Konin) were built.
I didn't have time to see the Old Town, but I had a look round the new town centre, to the south of the railway station, mostly built in the 1960s and '70s, and using lots of aluminum for facades, windows and doors, as one would expect.
Below: very period, ostentatiously modernist department store in the town centre. Kinda reminds of Marineville out of Stingray. Across the road, the Hotel Konin obviously once had lovely neons advertising its restaurant; the tubes have gone, the signs remain, sadly unlit, but a beautiful typeface. The smiling face on the cube with the clock is saying: "The happy don't count time. Smile."
Below: aluminum everywhere. Lots of shops clad in the stuff, and those PRL-era aluminum doors that rattle when you open them.
Below: "By their street names, thou shalt know them" Konin has a 1st May Street too.
Below: the 1970s housing was well laid out, campus style, and is close to the town centre and its amenities, which include Klub Hutnika ('Smelters' Club') which advertises dancing on Friday and Saturday nights. Socialist planning on a human scale. The aluminium smelter - Poland's only one - closed in 2009, when the price of electricity became too high to profitably produce aluminium from ore. Unemployment in Konin today is 10.1% (end July 2016).
Konin lies on the main east-west railway line running from Berlin through Poznań and Warsaw, via Minsk in Belarus, and on to Moscow. It's a busy line.
Below: before reaching Konin, I walked from the hotel where the conference at which I was speaking was held. I walked some 5km to the station, through lovely fields, parallel to the railway line, until I reached the industrial outskirts of the town. Massive flashbacks, those anomalous memories to... what?
Today was equinox day; from now until 21 March next year, the nights will be longer than the days. It was also car-free day - free public transport in Warsaw all day. Today, I walked over 23,000 paces (18 km).
This time three years ago:
Car-free day falls on a Sunday
This time four years ago:
Vistula at record low level
This time seven years ago:
Car-free day? Warsaw's roads busier than ever
This time eight years ago:
The shape of equinox
This time nine years ago:
Potato harvest time in Jeziorki
Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Evolution of Consciousness
Here's what intrigues me most about this life that we are living. That continual stream of consciousness, passing through the mind, forever observing, reflecting, discerning, pondering... We are more than just meat-covered skeletons moving about a rock that's hurtling through space, as someone recently stated on Facebook. There is something in us - and indeed in many higher-order animals - that rises above the mere mechanical-biological actions of merely surviving through feeding and breeding and the birth-life-death cycle.
Observe for a while a dog or a cat, look at its face, its eyes; you can make out a train of thought going through its consciousness. It looks slowly around, sizing up the situation, before returning to rest, or yap, or yawn, or wag its tail.
The human mind is a versatile tool, it can plan complex deeds, in coordination with many other human minds. Building cities and vehicles and phones and computers is extremely clever, but this is the product of human intelligence, based on an ever-expanding knowledge of empirical fact.
Our consciousness is harder to define and to display to others. How can others tell what I'm thinking? What thoughts are passing through my mind, how they are being processed? Certain humans - artists - the great poets, the great musicians in particular, have the gift to render the most subtle emotions in such a way as to resonate with the consciousnesses of their audience. Certain sequences of notes can conjure up moods; sometimes a memory response, sometimes an association - but the greatest music will transport you to places you have never been.
I do believe that great musicians - from Chopin to David Bowie - demonstrate a higher level of consciousness than most of us. Some musicianship is little more a mechanical craft skill - a competence to recreate sounds; but what distinguishes great musicians is their ability to shape listeners' emotions. And the same goes for great poets, whose chosen art form confines them to mere words. For me personally, Sir John Betjeman's poetry resonated most strongly, though I can appreciate why others might choose a different favourite poet.
Consciousness is about sensitivity. The more evolved the consciousness, the more sensitive. This does not mean weeping at every piece of sad news; rather, this sensitivity, the sensitivity of consciousness is about the observation of fine details, discernment of nuances - and the ability to communicate those feelings and thoughts to other humans; in words, in music, in pictures. It's not a mere intelligence or practice-makes-perfect thing. A sensitive, observant consciousness, picking up the subtlest signals, can express the way they impinge upon the awareness, play back the precise mood they create.
I mention music - the sensation of sound, how well we are adapted to responding to tones and musical interval. Just two notes, played one after another, can create a mood - of tension, of playfulness, sombre or joyful. Yet smell is not something with which we can create the equivalent of, say a 40-minute long olfactory concerto. Smell is, however, an incredibly powerful agent acting upon the consciousness, powerful in the way it can bring memories into being.
I recently had a strong memory of my family's room on a French seaside holiday nearly 50 years ago; the smell of beach towel, seawater-damp; the smell of suntan oil (in the days when the oil was meant to promote tanning rather than protect the skin from ultraviolet rays); the smell of the pine trees outside our window, the smell of French cooking from the kitchens below. And then - by a wonderful coincidence - I stumble upon this excellent article in Atlas Obscura about a scientist who is recording smells for posterity (centuries-old books, for example). As she says, science can break down smells into their constituent parts, but cannot - for now, at least, recreate them. Fascinating.
These experiences, or qualia, run through our conscious minds; in some minds, this is happening almost continually, in others, the reflections occur less frequently - dare I say in others - hardly at all?
I was watching an interview on the BBC with billionaire My Cashly, the owner of Sports Direct - not a sympatyczny człowiek. A man seemingly driven entirely by an insatiable desire for money - I could not see in those eyes any spark of spiritual curiosity or indeed any sense of humanity. [Click on that link, read the Wikipedia article, let it sink in for a while before continuing...]
How can one prove one's consciousness to others? Only, I would posit, through creative output; using original thought, analogies, concepts that have not been learnt and repeated, but are entirely fresh. This is not dependent on education (as evinced by the Gypsy poet Bronisława Weis, aka Papusza). Not all musicians, not all film makers, not all novelists can do this.
I wrote the other day about the physical evolution of humans and the effects of cooking and cutlery on the size of jawbone and the cranium. Lactose tolerance and blue eyes have been evolutionarily useful for northern Europeans. But what of the evolution of consciousness?
Here we move from science to belief. I strongly believe that as the universe unfolds, matter within it on a journey towards fulfilment, from zero to one, to total consciousness, the awareness of all. As higher-order life evolves, so with it evolves its consciousness - not at a constant or steady pace, but the tendency is there. More about this subject from my 2016 Lenten thoughts here.
This time last year:
Farewell to Ciocia Jadzia
This time two years ago:
By train from to Konstancin and Siekierki
This time three years ago:
Summer's end, Jeziorki
This time five years ago:
Ząbowska, Praga's newly-hip thoroughfare
This time eight years ago:
Catching the klimat
This time nine years ago:
Road to Łuków - a road trip into the sublime
Observe for a while a dog or a cat, look at its face, its eyes; you can make out a train of thought going through its consciousness. It looks slowly around, sizing up the situation, before returning to rest, or yap, or yawn, or wag its tail.
The human mind is a versatile tool, it can plan complex deeds, in coordination with many other human minds. Building cities and vehicles and phones and computers is extremely clever, but this is the product of human intelligence, based on an ever-expanding knowledge of empirical fact.
Our consciousness is harder to define and to display to others. How can others tell what I'm thinking? What thoughts are passing through my mind, how they are being processed? Certain humans - artists - the great poets, the great musicians in particular, have the gift to render the most subtle emotions in such a way as to resonate with the consciousnesses of their audience. Certain sequences of notes can conjure up moods; sometimes a memory response, sometimes an association - but the greatest music will transport you to places you have never been.
I do believe that great musicians - from Chopin to David Bowie - demonstrate a higher level of consciousness than most of us. Some musicianship is little more a mechanical craft skill - a competence to recreate sounds; but what distinguishes great musicians is their ability to shape listeners' emotions. And the same goes for great poets, whose chosen art form confines them to mere words. For me personally, Sir John Betjeman's poetry resonated most strongly, though I can appreciate why others might choose a different favourite poet.
Consciousness is about sensitivity. The more evolved the consciousness, the more sensitive. This does not mean weeping at every piece of sad news; rather, this sensitivity, the sensitivity of consciousness is about the observation of fine details, discernment of nuances - and the ability to communicate those feelings and thoughts to other humans; in words, in music, in pictures. It's not a mere intelligence or practice-makes-perfect thing. A sensitive, observant consciousness, picking up the subtlest signals, can express the way they impinge upon the awareness, play back the precise mood they create.
I mention music - the sensation of sound, how well we are adapted to responding to tones and musical interval. Just two notes, played one after another, can create a mood - of tension, of playfulness, sombre or joyful. Yet smell is not something with which we can create the equivalent of, say a 40-minute long olfactory concerto. Smell is, however, an incredibly powerful agent acting upon the consciousness, powerful in the way it can bring memories into being.
I recently had a strong memory of my family's room on a French seaside holiday nearly 50 years ago; the smell of beach towel, seawater-damp; the smell of suntan oil (in the days when the oil was meant to promote tanning rather than protect the skin from ultraviolet rays); the smell of the pine trees outside our window, the smell of French cooking from the kitchens below. And then - by a wonderful coincidence - I stumble upon this excellent article in Atlas Obscura about a scientist who is recording smells for posterity (centuries-old books, for example). As she says, science can break down smells into their constituent parts, but cannot - for now, at least, recreate them. Fascinating.
These experiences, or qualia, run through our conscious minds; in some minds, this is happening almost continually, in others, the reflections occur less frequently - dare I say in others - hardly at all?
I was watching an interview on the BBC with billionaire My Cashly, the owner of Sports Direct - not a sympatyczny człowiek. A man seemingly driven entirely by an insatiable desire for money - I could not see in those eyes any spark of spiritual curiosity or indeed any sense of humanity. [Click on that link, read the Wikipedia article, let it sink in for a while before continuing...]
How can one prove one's consciousness to others? Only, I would posit, through creative output; using original thought, analogies, concepts that have not been learnt and repeated, but are entirely fresh. This is not dependent on education (as evinced by the Gypsy poet Bronisława Weis, aka Papusza). Not all musicians, not all film makers, not all novelists can do this.
I wrote the other day about the physical evolution of humans and the effects of cooking and cutlery on the size of jawbone and the cranium. Lactose tolerance and blue eyes have been evolutionarily useful for northern Europeans. But what of the evolution of consciousness?
Here we move from science to belief. I strongly believe that as the universe unfolds, matter within it on a journey towards fulfilment, from zero to one, to total consciousness, the awareness of all. As higher-order life evolves, so with it evolves its consciousness - not at a constant or steady pace, but the tendency is there. More about this subject from my 2016 Lenten thoughts here.
This time last year:
Farewell to Ciocia Jadzia
This time two years ago:
By train from to Konstancin and Siekierki
This time three years ago:
Summer's end, Jeziorki
This time five years ago:
Ząbowska, Praga's newly-hip thoroughfare
This time eight years ago:
Catching the klimat
This time nine years ago:
Road to Łuków - a road trip into the sublime
Monday, 19 September 2016
Evolution, the future and us: any evidence?
Walking through Cleveland Park and Pitshanger Park to get my 10,000 paces in today, I see many other walkers, joggers and cyclists out and about, as well as people using the exercise machines and playing tennis. Great stuff! No doubt most of these good people eat a healthy, balanced diet and take care of themselves.
But what of the rest? The ones driving themselves a few hundred yards to the fast-food takeaway, fag in hand? The ones who are nowhere near their five portions of five fruit-and-veg a day, or walking 5 miles/8km a day? What will happen to their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren?
Is there any chance that homo sapiens as a species will branch into two distinct sub-species?
Before I start to ponder the future, I shall ponder the evolutionary recent past. I chanced upon an interesting article the other day, about wisdom teeth and human evolution. In 2004, scientists discovered the MYH16 gene, which regulates the strength of our jaw muscles. You need strong jaw muscles to bite through the hide and rip the raw flesh off a freshly-killed beast, then grind it down between your molars thoroughly enough to swallow.
But once homo sapiens learnt to harness the power of fire to bring about the chemical transformation of meat, and to use flint implements to remove animals' muscle fibre from bone, so the need to tear away at a carcass and chew meat became less of a survival imperative. The jaw muscles became weaker, through a mutation in the MYH16, allowing the skull to expand in size and accommodate a larger brain; finer control of the jaw facilitated speech . This from evolutionary scientist Matan Shelomi:
In other evolutionary indicators, however, I'm less advanced. The gene allowing humans to metabolise milk once they are no longer infants proved really useful. Most common in north-west Europe, it led to the development of dairy farming; it is one reason why the Dutch are the tallest men in the world. Now, as child I had a mild revulsion to raw milk, but could still drink it in tea or coffee until I was in my late 30s, after which intolerance set it. [I can still eat cheese, butter and yogurt]. Milky tea? Bleuugh! Lactose tolerance is found in 90% of northern Europeans, but only 10% of east Asians.
Blue eyes are another human evolutionary novelty, appearing as recently as 6,000 years ago in the Black Sea region. Conferring a 5% advantage in reproduction, blue eyes have now spread to around one-fourteenth of humanity. (Not me, setting me back a few thousand years evolutionarily speaking)
If Darwin had anything to shout about, tall, blue-eyed, lactose-tolerant, small-jawed people without wisdom teeth would be biologically fitter, meaning they'd have more offspring, driving out the short, brown-eyed, lactose-intolerant, large-jawed people equipped with a full set of 32 chompers.
Hang around for a few million years to see if this is indeed the case...
Meanwhile, back to Pitshanger Park, I'm reminded of a Sunday morning in Liverpool about ten years ago. I was on the bus from the airport to the city centre. The bus was full of boys and young men in football kit, clutching footballs, heading to the parks to play footie. The pavements were full of runners, the roads full of cyclists, cars were driving kids to karate classes - it seemed like the entire city consisted of fit, active people enjoying sport. But I knew what I didn't see that morning - the unfit part of the population lying in bed, too lazy to get up and move.
There is a clear correlation between fitness and intelligence, between having the will to live a healthy life and eating sensibly and exercising.
Now the crucial question for evolutionary biologists is - so what?
Ten years ago, a movie came out that failed to take the box office by storm, but nevertheless became a cult classic - especially in the year that Donald Trump strives to become US president. The movie is called Idiocracy - see it, do - it's wretchedly funny. The premise is as follows:
Or will intelligent, fit - and wealthy - people will seek one another out, reproduce to bring into the world children that are advantaged from birth, while a genetic underclass, unfit, unhealthy and of low intelligence, lacking the will or nous to self-improve, evolve into a separate subspecies?
Or will the children of the wealthy settle comfortably into a complacent life that brings them a reasonable existence without needing to strive - while the children of the have-nots struggle against the odds to get the better jobs in a competitive labour market shaped by globalisation, robots and algorithms?
And another question: does longevity confer any evolutionary advantage, or is the product of evolutionary selection for its own sake?
Coming to the end of this post, I'm forced to ask once again - is there a gene that determines will? That determines determination? Is it why some people seek more and more, while others are content with just enough to get by on?
Strive to understand your biology, and strive to overcome it.
I happen to believe in spiritual - as well as physical - evolution. But that's for another post.
This time two years ago:
Relief as Scots vote to remain in UK
This time three years ago:
The S2 opens all the way to Puławska
This time four years ago:
This time five years ago:
Push-pull for Mazowsze
This time six years ago:
Okęcie runway repairs are complete
This time eight years ago:
I know that painting from somewhere...
This time nine years ago:
The March of Progress, ul. Postępu
But what of the rest? The ones driving themselves a few hundred yards to the fast-food takeaway, fag in hand? The ones who are nowhere near their five portions of five fruit-and-veg a day, or walking 5 miles/8km a day? What will happen to their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren?
Is there any chance that homo sapiens as a species will branch into two distinct sub-species?
Before I start to ponder the future, I shall ponder the evolutionary recent past. I chanced upon an interesting article the other day, about wisdom teeth and human evolution. In 2004, scientists discovered the MYH16 gene, which regulates the strength of our jaw muscles. You need strong jaw muscles to bite through the hide and rip the raw flesh off a freshly-killed beast, then grind it down between your molars thoroughly enough to swallow.
But once homo sapiens learnt to harness the power of fire to bring about the chemical transformation of meat, and to use flint implements to remove animals' muscle fibre from bone, so the need to tear away at a carcass and chew meat became less of a survival imperative. The jaw muscles became weaker, through a mutation in the MYH16, allowing the skull to expand in size and accommodate a larger brain; finer control of the jaw facilitated speech . This from evolutionary scientist Matan Shelomi:
"Our mouths are getting smaller and more bullet-shaped. Our teeth aren’t quite changing as fast, which is why orthodontics and wisdom teeth removal still exist … for now. More and more people are being born without wisdom teeth, or have their wisdom teeth erupt later if at all. Wisdom teeth were useful before knives and cooking, when humans would probably lose molars to chewing hard food and needed the wisdom teeth as replacements. Today, 35% of people lack wisdom teeth, although the genes involved in this are unknown so we aren’t quite sure why this is happening yet."Now I understand why I only have one wisdom tooth (lower right), while the remaining three have failed to emerge. It is not that I lack wisdom or maturity, no - it is because I'm evolutionarily more advanced than the rest of you primates (I jest of course).
In other evolutionary indicators, however, I'm less advanced. The gene allowing humans to metabolise milk once they are no longer infants proved really useful. Most common in north-west Europe, it led to the development of dairy farming; it is one reason why the Dutch are the tallest men in the world. Now, as child I had a mild revulsion to raw milk, but could still drink it in tea or coffee until I was in my late 30s, after which intolerance set it. [I can still eat cheese, butter and yogurt]. Milky tea? Bleuugh! Lactose tolerance is found in 90% of northern Europeans, but only 10% of east Asians.
Blue eyes are another human evolutionary novelty, appearing as recently as 6,000 years ago in the Black Sea region. Conferring a 5% advantage in reproduction, blue eyes have now spread to around one-fourteenth of humanity. (Not me, setting me back a few thousand years evolutionarily speaking)
If Darwin had anything to shout about, tall, blue-eyed, lactose-tolerant, small-jawed people without wisdom teeth would be biologically fitter, meaning they'd have more offspring, driving out the short, brown-eyed, lactose-intolerant, large-jawed people equipped with a full set of 32 chompers.
Hang around for a few million years to see if this is indeed the case...
Meanwhile, back to Pitshanger Park, I'm reminded of a Sunday morning in Liverpool about ten years ago. I was on the bus from the airport to the city centre. The bus was full of boys and young men in football kit, clutching footballs, heading to the parks to play footie. The pavements were full of runners, the roads full of cyclists, cars were driving kids to karate classes - it seemed like the entire city consisted of fit, active people enjoying sport. But I knew what I didn't see that morning - the unfit part of the population lying in bed, too lazy to get up and move.
There is a clear correlation between fitness and intelligence, between having the will to live a healthy life and eating sensibly and exercising.
Now the crucial question for evolutionary biologists is - so what?
Ten years ago, a movie came out that failed to take the box office by storm, but nevertheless became a cult classic - especially in the year that Donald Trump strives to become US president. The movie is called Idiocracy - see it, do - it's wretchedly funny. The premise is as follows:
"As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point. Natural selection, the process by which the strongest, the smartest, the fastest, reproduced in greater numbers than the rest, a process which had once favored the noblest traits of man, now began to favor different traits. Most science fiction of the day predicted a future that was more civilized and more intelligent. But as time went on, things seemed to be heading in the opposite direction. A dumbing down. How did this happen? Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most, and left the intelligent to become an endangered species."This science-fiction satirical comedy, set 500 years in the future, presents a dystopian vision of a nation run by the dumb pandering to the dumb. Could this come to pass? Intelligent people failing to breed?
Or will intelligent, fit - and wealthy - people will seek one another out, reproduce to bring into the world children that are advantaged from birth, while a genetic underclass, unfit, unhealthy and of low intelligence, lacking the will or nous to self-improve, evolve into a separate subspecies?
Or will the children of the wealthy settle comfortably into a complacent life that brings them a reasonable existence without needing to strive - while the children of the have-nots struggle against the odds to get the better jobs in a competitive labour market shaped by globalisation, robots and algorithms?
And another question: does longevity confer any evolutionary advantage, or is the product of evolutionary selection for its own sake?
Coming to the end of this post, I'm forced to ask once again - is there a gene that determines will? That determines determination? Is it why some people seek more and more, while others are content with just enough to get by on?
Strive to understand your biology, and strive to overcome it.
I happen to believe in spiritual - as well as physical - evolution. But that's for another post.
This time two years ago:
Relief as Scots vote to remain in UK
This time three years ago:
The S2 opens all the way to Puławska
This time four years ago:
This time five years ago:
Push-pull for Mazowsze
This time six years ago:
Okęcie runway repairs are complete
This time eight years ago:
I know that painting from somewhere...
This time nine years ago:
The March of Progress, ul. Postępu
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