Making the most of winter

Isn't it beautiful? All the traffic snarls, delayed trains, snow shovelling - it's worth it. Beauty is truth, truth beauty, said Keats, and when there's so much of it all around, one is duty bound to record and share.

Today's crop of snaps - below: feeding the ducks in the Saxon Gardens. On my way to a meeting I hopped off the 171 (on time) and crossed the park. The ducks were all clustered on the corner of Marszałkowska and Królewska, anticipating - correctly - that every three minutes or so a mohair-beret-clad benefactor would bung them a kilo of stale bread. Note the two policemen behind the tree to the left. Had this been London, the lady would have been wrestled to the ground by officious health-and-safety crazed bobbies intent on keeping the capital clear of avian faeces. After which they'd have wrestled me to the ground for taking their image. This being Poland, the policemen smiled and walked on. Twenty years of progress, eh, readers?

Below: The resultant feeding frenzy. Quite what ducks did in winter before humans started to cultivate wheat, grind flour, bake bread, leave it to go stale and bring it out to them is beyond me. Simply fly south?

A propos of stale bread: Polish bread goes stale 14 times faster than British bread - and Poles are proud of the fact. Our local supermarket advertises that all its bread is baked without flour enhancer. Polish bread, eaten within an hour or two of purchase - is the most supremely wonderful bread imaginable. It can be eaten without butter - half a loaf at a time - it is just that tasty. But 24 hours later, it's fit only for toasting.

Across Plac Piłsudskiego (right) where the snow pushed aside by the ploughs forms a heap a metre and half high. The rest of the square is kept clear of snow so that the changing of the guard by the monument of the Unknown Soldier will not be rendered undignified by the spectacle of soldiers slipping up on ice. They march in hobnails. In the distance - the Hotel Europejski.

A propos of soldiers: After my meeting I rushed off to another one, catching a 111 bus to Plac Więzniów Politycznych Stalinizmu (lit. Stalinism's Political Prisoners' Square). And whose monument did I espy in this park dedicated to the memory of the victims of Stalinist repression? Why, a Stalinist repressor. A soldier of the Polish People's Army, bearing a Kalashnikov.

Above: Evening descends on Al. Jana Pawła II. I'm on a tram heading back to the office. The photo is taken looking towards Rondo Zgrupowania Armii Krajowej Imienia Radosława (lit. The Roundabout of the Home Army Grouping Named For Radosław). Until 2000, it was named (and is still universally known as) Rondo Babka. Without wishing to belittle the Home Army soldiers who fought in the Radosław group, replacing snappy local names with vastly longer ones is a bit naff. I read today that a Warsaw councillor wants to rename one of the city's thoroughfares "German Underwater Vessel Sabotage Street" (ul. Sabotażu Niemieckich Okrętów Podwodnych). Bear in mind that a standard bank paying-in slip has two lines each of 32 boxes for your entire address, including house number, flat number, name of city and post code. 'ul. Sabotażu Niemieckich Okrętów Podwodnych 123/456 06-789 Warszawa' does not fit.

And so, homeward bound. The 17:05 from W-wa Śródmieście to Radom, via W-wa Jeziorki, was announced as running 80 minutes late. The 18:18 from W-wa Śródmieście to Radom, via W-wa Jeziorki, was however on time, and to the minute. So I caught that.

Back in Jeziorki, I find that we've had even more snow. My wacky one-second exposure showing the trenches that residents of ul. Karczunkowska have dug came out looking so surreal that I thought I'd upload it anyway. Illuminated by sodium street lighting, it looks like the surface of the sun.