Key Performance Indicators - if you can't measure it, you can't manage it - and that goes for health too. Here we are, end of the first half of the year, and once again time to look at the numbers.
I'll start with the exercises. These tend to start well, with a New Year kick and then carrying on strongly into Lent, before tailing ofp into the second half. This year, the press-ups are really good, well up on last year - I'm now able to do 36 in one go comfortably, 42 maximum. Now using 5kg weights rather than the 3kg I started the year with, using them to build up shoulder strength. And pull-ups - 10 easy, 12 at a stretch. In each category more exercises done than in the first half of last year, 2016, 2015 and 2014. So what's being exercised the most - the will to do it. Thanks again to Michał Borzyskowski from Australia for the tips and regular motivation!
My walking achievements were held back by a heavy dose of flu in January (that month my daily average was under 8,000), but since then I've been pushing forward, knocking out more and more. June's daily average was 12,405 paces a day, bringing the half-year daily average up to 11,079 (down a bit from last year's 11,098, but then I didn't miss four days through illness)
Alcohol consumption slightly up on last year (17 units a week, compared to 15 last year; UK health guidelines now being 14 units for both men and women. But number of days without alcohol has stayed the same - 116 this year and last (out of 182 days in the half). This does suggest that I could do with reducing the numbers of glasses of wine per session! Intake of fresh fruit and vegetables at 5.4 portions a day identical to the first six months of last year.
But the real achievement is in tackling high blood pressure without medication. This time last year, average readings were 140 (systolic) over 100 (diastolic). I was prescribed pills ("to be taken for the rest of my life"). I bought the prescription but didn't take any. How am I faring? 30 June last year - average reading was 134/95. 30 June this year - it was 112/79. Can it be I've willed a long-term drop in blood pressure? Or is just a slight improvement in my exercise regime helping? Looking at the daily averages, by late August last year, my blood pressure was down to acceptable levels. Which, according to the Heart Foundation's guidelines from 2016, are between 90-129 (systolic) and 60-84 (diastolic). Was it a one-off episode last summer? Anyway, if you don't measure it, you can't manage it! Schrodinger's cat and the power of the Conscious Observer to influence the outcome!
This time last year:
Three and half years of health and fitness data
This time two years ago:
First half of 2016 health & fitness in numbers
This time three years ago:
Venus, Jupiter - auspices
This time four years ago:
Down the line from York
This time five years ago:
Cider - at last available in Poland
This time six years ago:
Despondency on Puławska
This time seven years ago:
Stalking the stork
This time nine years ago:
Late June lightning
Saturday, 30 June 2018
Munich Airport - lessons for Poland
The Polish government is planning a Central Communication Port (Centralny Port Komunikacyjny) is the municipality of Baranów, 40km (24 miles) south-west of the centre of Warsaw. The airport is intended for a capacity of 40m passengers a year from the outset, ultimately rising to 100m.
On Thursday, I flew to Munich to meet Scottish firms on a trade mission to Germany who had expressed interest in the Polish market. The trip through Munich Airport gave me some insights into what the Polish authorities need to think of when planning a super-connector hub.
I touched down on time and discovered that making my way to the driver who was waiting for me would take a whole lot longer than leaving Warsaw Okęcie or 'London' Luton airport. A train ride was needed to get to the exit! Now, Munich last year handled 44m passengers, so it's comparable to Baranów's planned opening capacity. Many of these are travelling to Munich, 44km by road from the airport, so the link to the city is critical.
Up the stairs looking down at the airport railway station. Like London's newer Jubilee Line stations, glass walls and doors prevent passengers from falling on to the tracks. The trains have rubber tyres and are driverless.
At the exit, I was met by a driver with a tablet digitally displaying my name, who ushered me into the back of a brand new S-class Mercedes-Benz. Luxury! (though the trend for darkened rear windows is stupid - why deprive passengers of daylight, carmakers?) Out of the airport and onto the A92 Autobahn - three lanes of very slow, stop-start crawling traffic. It took 80 minutes to cover the 44km to the city centre. I got to my destination five minutes before my meeting.
My journey to the airport - leaving the city around the start of the rush hour - took 95 minutes. I had planned to arrive in good time for my flight, which I did (as it was, it was 35 minutes late). Anyway, Baranów planners note. If you want people to get to the airport on time, and from the airport to their business meetings on time, the two lanes of the A2 motorway between Konotopa and Stryków is totally useless. I'd suggest tearing up the central reservation and turning it the whole thing into one five-lane motorway in one direction, and building an entirely new five-lane motorway from scratch running in parallel. Otherwise - forget it.
Munich in the rain struck me as drab and shabby, a kind of larger version of Gorzów Wielkopolskie with posher cars. The trams (four cars long) were something that many Polish cities could do with.
Back at Munich Airport; being a hub for global airlines, it needs to be able to serve the largest planes. Here's an Airbus A380 - note two bridges, one for the lower deck, one for the upper deck.
Another A380 across at another terminal (numbered A-M; my gate was K04). Will Baranów also have a couple of hundred gates?
If Baranów is to be even bigger than Munich (which is only the world's 38th busiest airport - behind London Gatwick, in 33rd place) the Polish planners need to work out how to attract the airlines, turn state carrier LOT Polish Airways into a super-connector like Emirates or Turkish and then plan how to get passengers to Warsaw and back quickly. Otherwise, the whole plan makes no sense at all.
This time last year:
Unusual sights on the tracks
This time two years ago:
Brexit - it was new-EU immigration that swung it
This time three years ago:
Still flying after all these years
This time four years ago
Yorkshire's smallest city
This time five years ago:
Cramp in the night
This time six years ago:
Football goes home
This time seven years ago:
Birds of Omen
This time eight years ago:
Yes, it does matter who you vote for
This time nine years ago:
Poland could do with some more mountains
This time ten years ago:
Warmth of the Sun - the Beach Boys and Noctilucence
This time 11 years ago:
Polish roads that look like America
On Thursday, I flew to Munich to meet Scottish firms on a trade mission to Germany who had expressed interest in the Polish market. The trip through Munich Airport gave me some insights into what the Polish authorities need to think of when planning a super-connector hub.
I touched down on time and discovered that making my way to the driver who was waiting for me would take a whole lot longer than leaving Warsaw Okęcie or 'London' Luton airport. A train ride was needed to get to the exit! Now, Munich last year handled 44m passengers, so it's comparable to Baranów's planned opening capacity. Many of these are travelling to Munich, 44km by road from the airport, so the link to the city is critical.
Up the stairs looking down at the airport railway station. Like London's newer Jubilee Line stations, glass walls and doors prevent passengers from falling on to the tracks. The trains have rubber tyres and are driverless.
At the exit, I was met by a driver with a tablet digitally displaying my name, who ushered me into the back of a brand new S-class Mercedes-Benz. Luxury! (though the trend for darkened rear windows is stupid - why deprive passengers of daylight, carmakers?) Out of the airport and onto the A92 Autobahn - three lanes of very slow, stop-start crawling traffic. It took 80 minutes to cover the 44km to the city centre. I got to my destination five minutes before my meeting.
My journey to the airport - leaving the city around the start of the rush hour - took 95 minutes. I had planned to arrive in good time for my flight, which I did (as it was, it was 35 minutes late). Anyway, Baranów planners note. If you want people to get to the airport on time, and from the airport to their business meetings on time, the two lanes of the A2 motorway between Konotopa and Stryków is totally useless. I'd suggest tearing up the central reservation and turning it the whole thing into one five-lane motorway in one direction, and building an entirely new five-lane motorway from scratch running in parallel. Otherwise - forget it.
Munich in the rain struck me as drab and shabby, a kind of larger version of Gorzów Wielkopolskie with posher cars. The trams (four cars long) were something that many Polish cities could do with.
Back at Munich Airport; being a hub for global airlines, it needs to be able to serve the largest planes. Here's an Airbus A380 - note two bridges, one for the lower deck, one for the upper deck.
Another A380 across at another terminal (numbered A-M; my gate was K04). Will Baranów also have a couple of hundred gates?
If Baranów is to be even bigger than Munich (which is only the world's 38th busiest airport - behind London Gatwick, in 33rd place) the Polish planners need to work out how to attract the airlines, turn state carrier LOT Polish Airways into a super-connector like Emirates or Turkish and then plan how to get passengers to Warsaw and back quickly. Otherwise, the whole plan makes no sense at all.
This time last year:
Unusual sights on the tracks
This time two years ago:
Brexit - it was new-EU immigration that swung it
This time three years ago:
Still flying after all these years
This time four years ago
Yorkshire's smallest city
This time five years ago:
Cramp in the night
This time six years ago:
Football goes home
This time seven years ago:
Birds of Omen
This time eight years ago:
Yes, it does matter who you vote for
This time nine years ago:
Poland could do with some more mountains
This time ten years ago:
Warmth of the Sun - the Beach Boys and Noctilucence
This time 11 years ago:
Polish roads that look like America
Wednesday, 27 June 2018
Raffles Europejski - Warsaw and the world of real luxury
Warsaw's first luxury hotel, the Europejski officially reopened this month and I visited it today - very impressive. Operated by Raffles Hotels and Resorts, it's the eleventh Raffles hotel in the world and the second in Europe after Paris.
In my working life, walking into five-star hotels is a weekly occurrence, but walking into the Raffles Europejski, in my best suit, polished Loakes and silk tie, I still felt slightly ill at ease, intimidated by the unfamiliar air of super luxury, global elites and ultra high-net worth individuals. The biggest suite is over 300 square metres, expandable to 500, where families travelling with their security detail can be entirely comfortable. The presence of a Raffles in Warsaw has put the city on the map for some of the world's wealthiest people, who'd not envisage staying at a lesser establishment. Inside, it is awe-inspiring, not least for its collection of fine art. If there were such a thing as a six-star hotel, this would be it. (Note the characteristic Warsaw street lights - pastoralki - 'croziers')
Italianate in style, designed by an Italian (Enrico Marconi) with rounded corners and neo-classical elements, the Europejski opened its doors on 1 January, 1857. Severely damaged during WW2, the pre-war owners were in the process of rebuilding it when, in 1948 it was seized by the communist government, which turned the place into a military academy. It was restored as a (state-owned) hotel in the late 1950s; I remember it in the 1970s functioning as part of the Orbis group as the 'Bristol i Europejski', run as a single entity with the Bristol hotel across Krakowskie Przedmieście.
The heirs of the former owners got the Europejski back from the state, and together with external investors and French hotel group Accor began the latest restoration in 2005. During the long rebuild, on the northern side (facing ul. Ossolińskich), there was a scruffy fine-dining place called U Kucharzy (lit. At the Cooks') with the decor of a communist-era toilet (all chipped white tiles) where you could eat an authentic communist-era meal served by surly staff. Food wasn't bad though. All this is now a memory, the new Raffles bringing a level of luxury as yet unseen in any Warsaw hotel.
A Raffles in London? In two years' time. The first Raffles hotel is, of course, in Singapore, opened in 1897 and named after Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of the city state.
All very British you might think, but look at this from the Daily Telegraph: "The development will be carried out jointly by AccorHotels, and the joint-owners: the Hinduja Group and Spanish construction firm Obrascon Huarte Lain Desarrollos, who combined to purchase the building from the Ministry of Defence in 2016 for a reported £350m."
In other words, a French chain will be operating a hotel owned by Indian and Spanish capital, in the former British War Office building. Further evidence of Britain selling itself out. I must say, I can see the sense of Polish premier Mateusz Morawiecki's push for economic patriotism when I think of how great British firms have sold themselves to foreign capital; Cadbury's, Pilkingtons, Freightliner, British Oxygen Company, ARM, Rolls-Royce Motors, Jaguar Land Rover. And a propos of luxury cars, I caught this magnificent FSO Warszawa 200 on the corner of Pl. Piłsudskiego...
The FSO Warszawa was a licence-built copy of the Soviet GAZ M20 Pobieda; this is the modernised version from the late 1950s (without the arrowhead mascot of the previous Warszawa M20-57, but with the original indicators rather than the larger ones of the Warszawa 201 (1960).
This time three years ago:
The ballad of Heniek and Ziutek
This time four years ago:
Yorkshire's yellow bicycles
This time nine years ago:
Horse-drawn in the Tatras
This time ten years ago:
Rain, wind and fire
This time 11 years ago:
The Road beckons
In my working life, walking into five-star hotels is a weekly occurrence, but walking into the Raffles Europejski, in my best suit, polished Loakes and silk tie, I still felt slightly ill at ease, intimidated by the unfamiliar air of super luxury, global elites and ultra high-net worth individuals. The biggest suite is over 300 square metres, expandable to 500, where families travelling with their security detail can be entirely comfortable. The presence of a Raffles in Warsaw has put the city on the map for some of the world's wealthiest people, who'd not envisage staying at a lesser establishment. Inside, it is awe-inspiring, not least for its collection of fine art. If there were such a thing as a six-star hotel, this would be it. (Note the characteristic Warsaw street lights - pastoralki - 'croziers')
The heirs of the former owners got the Europejski back from the state, and together with external investors and French hotel group Accor began the latest restoration in 2005. During the long rebuild, on the northern side (facing ul. Ossolińskich), there was a scruffy fine-dining place called U Kucharzy (lit. At the Cooks') with the decor of a communist-era toilet (all chipped white tiles) where you could eat an authentic communist-era meal served by surly staff. Food wasn't bad though. All this is now a memory, the new Raffles bringing a level of luxury as yet unseen in any Warsaw hotel.
A Raffles in London? In two years' time. The first Raffles hotel is, of course, in Singapore, opened in 1897 and named after Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of the city state.
All very British you might think, but look at this from the Daily Telegraph: "The development will be carried out jointly by AccorHotels, and the joint-owners: the Hinduja Group and Spanish construction firm Obrascon Huarte Lain Desarrollos, who combined to purchase the building from the Ministry of Defence in 2016 for a reported £350m."
In other words, a French chain will be operating a hotel owned by Indian and Spanish capital, in the former British War Office building. Further evidence of Britain selling itself out. I must say, I can see the sense of Polish premier Mateusz Morawiecki's push for economic patriotism when I think of how great British firms have sold themselves to foreign capital; Cadbury's, Pilkingtons, Freightliner, British Oxygen Company, ARM, Rolls-Royce Motors, Jaguar Land Rover. And a propos of luxury cars, I caught this magnificent FSO Warszawa 200 on the corner of Pl. Piłsudskiego...
The FSO Warszawa was a licence-built copy of the Soviet GAZ M20 Pobieda; this is the modernised version from the late 1950s (without the arrowhead mascot of the previous Warszawa M20-57, but with the original indicators rather than the larger ones of the Warszawa 201 (1960).
This time three years ago:
The ballad of Heniek and Ziutek
This time four years ago:
Yorkshire's yellow bicycles
This time nine years ago:
Horse-drawn in the Tatras
This time ten years ago:
Rain, wind and fire
This time 11 years ago:
The Road beckons
Sunday, 24 June 2018
My new used laptop
Friday evening, and my nose detects the fainest whiff of hot oil, like that from a model train-set locomotive after a few laps round the track. It's coming from my laptop... I press the 'start' button - it's dead. So on Saturday morning, I'm off to Master computers (Al. Ken 105). I'm a happy long-term customer of this shop, run by two guys who are trustworthy and dependable. They built my desktop computer (the one I'm writing this on) a few years ago; 11 years ago they built its predecessor and upgraded its storage in 2010. I enter the shop; it turns out that a circuit in my Samsung laptop (bought new in November 2011) has indeed burnt out. A replacement board will be 600zł, more than the whole thing is worth, and in any case the screen was doing funny things (green lines scrolling up and down when set at certain angles to the keyboard).
The data was saved; I lost one file (which I backed up eight days ago anyway). Unlike the crash last September, where I lost many files, this time it was still all there on the hard drive. This was extracted from the laptop, and for 50zł I bought a connector and casing that turns the hard drive into 320 MB of external storage. The old Samsung will fetch 15zł-20zł as elektrośmiecie. There's a lot of gold and other precious metals in there!
In place of the Samsung, a second-hand Dell Latitude E7440, "ex-corporate leasing, from Germany, never been out of the office, 18 months old". Why not new? Circular economy. If you can fix something, fix it. If you can't, buy slightly used. If you can't, then and only then buy something straight out of the factory. And my Samsung replaced an earlier Dell, which I also bought second hand, and that lasted me six years. It still works, I use it for the old, licensed version of MS PowerPoint from time to time.
For 1,900zł (compared to new price of 3,590zł), I get the laptop with a set of Polish keyboard stickers over the German ones (for some strange reason the German keyboard has the Z where the Y is and vice-versa) and Windows 10 operating system in English (I cannot get to grips with Polish as a language of IT). The process of installing everything takes the guys in the shop around an hour and half. There will still be other things that will need doing once I'm in the office tomorrow; I expect at least two more hours of work to get the new computer back to where the old laptop was.
Windows 10. I cannot see the sense. I don't want it, I'm entirely happy with Windows 7 - but that's no longer possible. Yes, the guys from the shop can get me a licensed copy for Monday, but they warn me that from 2020, drivers for peripherals will no longer support Windows 7. So a short-term fix. Windows 10 is pointless. It's for babies. It's silly little pictures. Windows 7 for me was the ideal; a step forward over Windows XP, I don't want to play games on my laptop. I use it for work - LibreOffice installed (the successor to OpenOffice) - again, MSOffice lost the way replacing the simple File-Edit-View-Insert-Format-Tools-Help menu with a load of pictures - along with Chrome browser. Mozilla Thunderbird for emails - I will need help from IT support in the office to get that back. And I still need to reinstall Adobe Creative Cloud (I have a subscription for Photoshop) and that's that.
IT events such this become like markers in one's life; once upon a time I was cars and TVs. The computer, the laptop, the smartphone, have become integral parts of our lives and reflect our personalities. Mine tend to be spartan, ascetic, bereft of games or other toys; a tool for writing, processing images, creating presentations and spreadsheets, a tool for communicating.
The future will be different. The human-computer interface will get smarter; the keyboard will surely be gone in the next 20 years. My new laptop features Microsoft's Cortana - but if it's as dumb as Amazon's Alexa or Apple's Siri, it will take a while to take off. Voice recognition software has been around since the 1990s but has as yet failed to gain traction. It will happen as advances in artificial intelligence (AI) begin to accelerate the pace at which computers can teach themselves. Machine learning will take hold and will touch our lives in many ways. But the big changes are still around five years away. My new second-hand laptop should be OK until then.
This time three years ago:
Face to face with Mr Hare
This time five years ago:
Central Warsaw vistas
This time six years ago:
Future of urban motoring?
This time nine years ago:
On foot to Limanowa
This time ten years ago:
Crumbling neo-classicism in Grabów
This time 11 years ago:
Bike ride into deepest Mazovia
The data was saved; I lost one file (which I backed up eight days ago anyway). Unlike the crash last September, where I lost many files, this time it was still all there on the hard drive. This was extracted from the laptop, and for 50zł I bought a connector and casing that turns the hard drive into 320 MB of external storage. The old Samsung will fetch 15zł-20zł as elektrośmiecie. There's a lot of gold and other precious metals in there!
In place of the Samsung, a second-hand Dell Latitude E7440, "ex-corporate leasing, from Germany, never been out of the office, 18 months old". Why not new? Circular economy. If you can fix something, fix it. If you can't, buy slightly used. If you can't, then and only then buy something straight out of the factory. And my Samsung replaced an earlier Dell, which I also bought second hand, and that lasted me six years. It still works, I use it for the old, licensed version of MS PowerPoint from time to time.
For 1,900zł (compared to new price of 3,590zł), I get the laptop with a set of Polish keyboard stickers over the German ones (for some strange reason the German keyboard has the Z where the Y is and vice-versa) and Windows 10 operating system in English (I cannot get to grips with Polish as a language of IT). The process of installing everything takes the guys in the shop around an hour and half. There will still be other things that will need doing once I'm in the office tomorrow; I expect at least two more hours of work to get the new computer back to where the old laptop was.
Windows 10. I cannot see the sense. I don't want it, I'm entirely happy with Windows 7 - but that's no longer possible. Yes, the guys from the shop can get me a licensed copy for Monday, but they warn me that from 2020, drivers for peripherals will no longer support Windows 7. So a short-term fix. Windows 10 is pointless. It's for babies. It's silly little pictures. Windows 7 for me was the ideal; a step forward over Windows XP, I don't want to play games on my laptop. I use it for work - LibreOffice installed (the successor to OpenOffice) - again, MSOffice lost the way replacing the simple File-Edit-View-Insert-Format-Tools-Help menu with a load of pictures - along with Chrome browser. Mozilla Thunderbird for emails - I will need help from IT support in the office to get that back. And I still need to reinstall Adobe Creative Cloud (I have a subscription for Photoshop) and that's that.
IT events such this become like markers in one's life; once upon a time I was cars and TVs. The computer, the laptop, the smartphone, have become integral parts of our lives and reflect our personalities. Mine tend to be spartan, ascetic, bereft of games or other toys; a tool for writing, processing images, creating presentations and spreadsheets, a tool for communicating.
The future will be different. The human-computer interface will get smarter; the keyboard will surely be gone in the next 20 years. My new laptop features Microsoft's Cortana - but if it's as dumb as Amazon's Alexa or Apple's Siri, it will take a while to take off. Voice recognition software has been around since the 1990s but has as yet failed to gain traction. It will happen as advances in artificial intelligence (AI) begin to accelerate the pace at which computers can teach themselves. Machine learning will take hold and will touch our lives in many ways. But the big changes are still around five years away. My new second-hand laptop should be OK until then.
This time three years ago:
Face to face with Mr Hare
This time five years ago:
Central Warsaw vistas
This time six years ago:
Future of urban motoring?
This time nine years ago:
On foot to Limanowa
This time ten years ago:
Crumbling neo-classicism in Grabów
This time 11 years ago:
Bike ride into deepest Mazovia
Saturday, 23 June 2018
No, this will be the last summer before the S7...
Things take a little longer than expected... Three days ago, the consortium that won the tender to extend the S7 from Grójec to the airport submitted a request to the governor of Mazowsze for permission to go ahead and build. This should be a formality, and given the lack of political obstacles here, preparatory work should begin in time so that the construction can get under way next spring. The next real deadline will be to remove trees from the route before birds start nesting (okres lęgowy). So this summer will be the last, not last summer!
There are crops in the field right now, and the houses that will need to be demolished (on Baletowa, in Nowa Wola for example), still have people living in them.
Below: looking across from ul Postępu in Zgorzała towards ul. Wróbelka. The inhabitants of those houses will endure three-four years of disruption before acoustic fences wall them off from the constant roar of the S7's traffic.
Below: looking down the footpath that connects Dawidy Bankowe with the railway track.
Below: looking towards Zamienie, the S7 will run parallel to the tracks before diverging south-west. This remote field is full of bird life, the song of the skylark, home also to marsh harriers and lapwings. I doubt they'll stay once the asphalt's buzzing with traffic.
Below: looking towards town; fields of oats, barns, the airport - and then the metropolis. Buildings in the middle distance will make way for the asphalt.
Below: repairing the power lines, Zamienie. Yesterday's storm was unusual in that it was heralded by a massive dust storm, some 90 minutes before the first rains. An intense wind; at first I thought I was being struck in the face by hailstones - it turned out they were real stones - much larger than grains of sand. I must say - in all my 60 years, I've never experienced such a climatic event.
Yes, the climate is changing and we must change our habits to slow down the negative effects of that change.
UPDATE: JAN 2019. It looks like 2019 will be the last summer (or maybe not) - yes, work is getting under way on the S7 connection between Grójec and the S79 at the airport - but from the Grójec end. No signs of any clearing work that precedes major road-building projects in the fields south of Węzeł Warszawa Południe (formerly Węzeł Lotnisko).
This time last year:
Nostalgia, ideology, aesthetics, emotions
This time three years ago:
Civilisation and barbarism - how the former deals with the latter
This time four years ago:
Ahead of the opening of Jeziorki's Biedronka
This time five years ago:
New views of Jeziorki
This time six years ago:
Motorway finally links (the outskirts of) Łódź and (the outskirts of) Warsaw
This time nine years ago:
Kraków Air Museum
This time ten years ago:
Quintessential Jeziorki
This time 11 years ago:
Little boxes, Mysiadło
There are crops in the field right now, and the houses that will need to be demolished (on Baletowa, in Nowa Wola for example), still have people living in them.
Below: looking across from ul Postępu in Zgorzała towards ul. Wróbelka. The inhabitants of those houses will endure three-four years of disruption before acoustic fences wall them off from the constant roar of the S7's traffic.
Below: looking down the footpath that connects Dawidy Bankowe with the railway track.
Below: looking towards Zamienie, the S7 will run parallel to the tracks before diverging south-west. This remote field is full of bird life, the song of the skylark, home also to marsh harriers and lapwings. I doubt they'll stay once the asphalt's buzzing with traffic.
Below: looking towards town; fields of oats, barns, the airport - and then the metropolis. Buildings in the middle distance will make way for the asphalt.
Below: repairing the power lines, Zamienie. Yesterday's storm was unusual in that it was heralded by a massive dust storm, some 90 minutes before the first rains. An intense wind; at first I thought I was being struck in the face by hailstones - it turned out they were real stones - much larger than grains of sand. I must say - in all my 60 years, I've never experienced such a climatic event.
Yes, the climate is changing and we must change our habits to slow down the negative effects of that change.
UPDATE: JAN 2019. It looks like 2019 will be the last summer (or maybe not) - yes, work is getting under way on the S7 connection between Grójec and the S79 at the airport - but from the Grójec end. No signs of any clearing work that precedes major road-building projects in the fields south of Węzeł Warszawa Południe (formerly Węzeł Lotnisko).
This time last year:
Nostalgia, ideology, aesthetics, emotions
This time three years ago:
Civilisation and barbarism - how the former deals with the latter
This time four years ago:
Ahead of the opening of Jeziorki's Biedronka
This time five years ago:
New views of Jeziorki
This time six years ago:
Motorway finally links (the outskirts of) Łódź and (the outskirts of) Warsaw
This time nine years ago:
Kraków Air Museum
This time ten years ago:
Quintessential Jeziorki
This time 11 years ago:
Little boxes, Mysiadło
Monday, 18 June 2018
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli - a review
Although the word 'brief' appears in the title of this book as it does in Steven Hawking's A Brief History of Time, Carlo Rovelli's book wins hands down in the brevity stakes. Many people gave up on A Brief History of Time half way through; Seven Brief Lessons is just 81 pages long (including the preface, excluding the index), so 40 pages is not challenging.
It is the runaway success of this book (a million copies in 31 languages) that prompted Rovelli to write a longer book, The Order of Time, which I reviewed recently (in three parts, Pt 1, Pt 2 and Pt 3). Yet Seven Brief Lessons is the one that turned a theoretical physicist into a pop-science superstar of the same magnitude as Hawking. It is a slim volume, comparable to a collection of poems, which several reviewers have alluded to.
For like The Order of Time, it is a book that often strays from the strict confines of theoretical physics into a world of curiosity and wonder, a world where metaphor yields more enlightenment than equations. The key question for the lay reader is: Is this book accessible to me? It depends on how well versed you are in notions such as spacetime, quantum mechanics, the nature of elementary particles and black holes. If these are not new to you, you will undoubtedly gain new insights into how science currently sees matter, the universe, time and our place within these. If you understand space as being a big empty box in which stars are randomly distributed, and atoms consisting of just electrons whizzing around a nucleus consisting of neutrons and protons, you'll need to catch up.
Help is at hand. I cannot envisage reading any science book without a laptop or desktop PC (or even smartphone now) through which I can get at Wikipedia. More than any other thing on the internet, Wikipedia I cherish most. So much knowledge, well curated, well linked, so instructive. If only Wikipedia had been around when I was growing up...
Rovelli's great gift is to be able to link science with literature, with the poetic insights of the classics - written at a time before science, yet containing instinctive, intuitive appreciation for the structure of our world and the cosmos.
Can you heat up a gravitational field, he asks. We don't - as yet - know (nor what would happen if you did). If you diffuse heat to gravitational field, he posits, space and time should... vibrate. Here, in the fifth lesson, Rovelli is writing about quantum gravity, his principle area of research. We are nearer to understanding how gravity (the attraction of one body to another) squares with quantum mechanics (the discovery of gravity waves in 2016 was a significant step forward), but not there yet.
In fact there's much we don't know, but what we do know is succinctly and poetically depicted. "Myths nourish science, and science nourishes myth," writes Rovelli in the final chapter, which is about we human beings on our world, a "swarm of ephemeral quanta"- who are we? Having explored the furthest reaches of the cosmos, being at the birth and death of stars, peering deep into the core of the atom, he asks the most fundamental questions about us - conscious beings, curious, thirsting knowledge, mortal, fragile.
This is a book that every intelligent person should have. It is easy to dip into, to pick up new insights, to use as a framework for further investigations through Wikipedia. It provokes profound thoughts that we should never let go of in our mundane everyday existence.
Costing little more than a pint of beer in a London pub, it brings you a few steps closer towards understanding infinity and eternity, and our discreet, quantum-like place within them. Order online now, you'll not be disappointed.
This time last year:
Now it belongs to the ages - on Great Works of Art
This time two years ago:
More Brictorian Liverpool
This time three years ago:
Łódź - city of tenements
[Gosh! Three years since I bought a flat there!]
This time four years ago:
Liverpool reborn
This time five years ago:
What goes round comes around: retro is cool - again.
This time six years ago:
Warsaw's southern bypass by this time next year?
This time seven years ago:
Stand Easy! - a short story
This time ten years ago:
God Save The Queen - I mean it, Ma'am
It is the runaway success of this book (a million copies in 31 languages) that prompted Rovelli to write a longer book, The Order of Time, which I reviewed recently (in three parts, Pt 1, Pt 2 and Pt 3). Yet Seven Brief Lessons is the one that turned a theoretical physicist into a pop-science superstar of the same magnitude as Hawking. It is a slim volume, comparable to a collection of poems, which several reviewers have alluded to.
For like The Order of Time, it is a book that often strays from the strict confines of theoretical physics into a world of curiosity and wonder, a world where metaphor yields more enlightenment than equations. The key question for the lay reader is: Is this book accessible to me? It depends on how well versed you are in notions such as spacetime, quantum mechanics, the nature of elementary particles and black holes. If these are not new to you, you will undoubtedly gain new insights into how science currently sees matter, the universe, time and our place within these. If you understand space as being a big empty box in which stars are randomly distributed, and atoms consisting of just electrons whizzing around a nucleus consisting of neutrons and protons, you'll need to catch up.
Help is at hand. I cannot envisage reading any science book without a laptop or desktop PC (or even smartphone now) through which I can get at Wikipedia. More than any other thing on the internet, Wikipedia I cherish most. So much knowledge, well curated, well linked, so instructive. If only Wikipedia had been around when I was growing up...
Rovelli's great gift is to be able to link science with literature, with the poetic insights of the classics - written at a time before science, yet containing instinctive, intuitive appreciation for the structure of our world and the cosmos.
Can you heat up a gravitational field, he asks. We don't - as yet - know (nor what would happen if you did). If you diffuse heat to gravitational field, he posits, space and time should... vibrate. Here, in the fifth lesson, Rovelli is writing about quantum gravity, his principle area of research. We are nearer to understanding how gravity (the attraction of one body to another) squares with quantum mechanics (the discovery of gravity waves in 2016 was a significant step forward), but not there yet.
In fact there's much we don't know, but what we do know is succinctly and poetically depicted. "Myths nourish science, and science nourishes myth," writes Rovelli in the final chapter, which is about we human beings on our world, a "swarm of ephemeral quanta"- who are we? Having explored the furthest reaches of the cosmos, being at the birth and death of stars, peering deep into the core of the atom, he asks the most fundamental questions about us - conscious beings, curious, thirsting knowledge, mortal, fragile.
This is a book that every intelligent person should have. It is easy to dip into, to pick up new insights, to use as a framework for further investigations through Wikipedia. It provokes profound thoughts that we should never let go of in our mundane everyday existence.
Costing little more than a pint of beer in a London pub, it brings you a few steps closer towards understanding infinity and eternity, and our discreet, quantum-like place within them. Order online now, you'll not be disappointed.
This time last year:
Now it belongs to the ages - on Great Works of Art
This time two years ago:
More Brictorian Liverpool
This time three years ago:
Łódź - city of tenements
[Gosh! Three years since I bought a flat there!]
This time four years ago:
Liverpool reborn
This time five years ago:
What goes round comes around: retro is cool - again.
This time six years ago:
Warsaw's southern bypass by this time next year?
This time seven years ago:
Stand Easy! - a short story
This time ten years ago:
God Save The Queen - I mean it, Ma'am
Sunday, 17 June 2018
Karczunkowska viaduct - further delays likely
It's almost two months to the day ul. Karczunkowska was closed so that a viaduct could be built, taking it over the newly-modernised Warsaw-Radom railway line. Things have settled down a bit; the temporary level crossing, opened last spring, is doing its job. But while the viaduct itself is growing, there seem to be problems with the ramps at either side.
Below: the approach road is taking shape at the western end. The tight bend here is good - it will slow down traffic.
UPDATE: Friday, 22 June, and I can see more clearly what's going on here. This is actually the access road to ul. Kurantów and ul. Gogolińska, this suggests that there won't be another span of viaduct crossing Gogolińska at its junction with Karczunkowska.
Contractor PRKiI has announced that from 22:00 this Thursday, 21 June, until 20:00 on 21 August, Karczunkowska will be closed on the short stretch between Gogolińska and Kurantów for the construction of retention walls and mains sewers. They did this earlier this spring (from 27 April to 7 May). re-opening bang on time. Now, it's not ten days, it's 61 days. Lots of opportunities for things to go wrong... If you click to enlarge the photo below, you'll see ul. Gogolińska running off to the right at 90 degrees to Karczunkowska. To keep this road open, the viaduct will need a further set of pillars between the wall you see and the near side of Gogolińska, plus access to Kurantów. This is almost as big a job as throwing the bridge over the tracks.
UPDATE: Friday 22 June - the road will be closed at 22:00 hours tonight, 26 hours after the original date. How long will it stay closed?
In the meanwhile, as happened last time this stretch of road was closed, there are the eternally optimistic drivers who believe that the five no entry/road closed signs do not actually apply to them. They will carry on heading east along Karczunkowska, then seeing barriers and heavy construction equipment, they'll turn into Kurantów. Those equipped with Google Maps (below) may see that at the end of Kurantów, they can swing right and soon be on Gogolińska, and hop-skip-jump, they're across the tracks. Let me show them (in good time) that Google Maps is WRONG. Click to enlarge. I've marked the closed section in pink, and the highlight in pale green the bit of ul. Kurantów that is not actually a road, but a very narrow footpath running through an overgrown field.
Below: local residents, annoyed by these optimist drivers, have put up a sign. 'STOP! TURN AROUND THE ROAD ENDS IN 80 METRES'
Below: indeed it does. There is a footpath, between the wheelie bins and the post; it is wide enough for pedestrian, but waist-high in grass. You could do this on a mountain bike or enduro motorbike, but you'll spend half an hour extracting vegetation from the chain and spokes. In other words - don't bother. The alternative, however, is an 8km detour via Baletowa.
Meanwhile, across the tracks, this is how things are looking. But word is (and I've heard this from two local residents) that the ramp that will carry the roadway up to the viaduct has been badly planned, and will end on the wrong side of the turn-off for Biedronka (on one side of Karczunkowska) and ul. Nawłocka (on the other). The answer is to make it steeper, with the possibility of a roundabout at this junction to slow traffic down. One way or the other, the re-planning of the gradient of the on-ramp means further delays.
Below: view from the 'up' platform - the first set of steps are appearing. These will allow people to walk up to the viaduct from ul. Gogolińska.
Below: for the convenience of passengers from across the track travelling into town, now that the scaffolding has been removed from the viaduct, a new footpath has been laid alongside the coal train line, saving a detour of 120 metres.
All in all, progress is far slower than planned. Here's a quote from Piaseczno News from just three weeks ago:
– Jeśli chodzi o wiadukt, to ma być on gotowy na przełomie III i IV kwartału tego roku. Utrzymane jest tam dobre tempo prac – podkreśla Karol Jakubowski z biura prasowego PKP PLK.. Widać już konstrukcję budowli. W tej chwili wykonywane są podtrzymujące wiadukt filary. Cały czas trwają także prace przy budowie zjazdów.
"As far as the viaduct is concerned, it is to be ready at the turn of the third and fourth quarter of this year. A good pace of work is maintained there," emphasises Karol Jakubowski from the press office of PKP PLK... "The construction of the building is already visible. At the moment, the pillars supporting the flyover are being built. The construction of the congresses is also in progress all the time." [Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator]
End of September? No. Way.
This time six years ago:
Russia's going home
This time 11 years ago:
Sun and zenith rising
Below: the approach road is taking shape at the western end. The tight bend here is good - it will slow down traffic.
UPDATE: Friday, 22 June, and I can see more clearly what's going on here. This is actually the access road to ul. Kurantów and ul. Gogolińska, this suggests that there won't be another span of viaduct crossing Gogolińska at its junction with Karczunkowska.
Contractor PRKiI has announced that from 22:00 this Thursday, 21 June, until 20:00 on 21 August, Karczunkowska will be closed on the short stretch between Gogolińska and Kurantów for the construction of retention walls and mains sewers. They did this earlier this spring (from 27 April to 7 May). re-opening bang on time. Now, it's not ten days, it's 61 days. Lots of opportunities for things to go wrong... If you click to enlarge the photo below, you'll see ul. Gogolińska running off to the right at 90 degrees to Karczunkowska. To keep this road open, the viaduct will need a further set of pillars between the wall you see and the near side of Gogolińska, plus access to Kurantów. This is almost as big a job as throwing the bridge over the tracks.
UPDATE: Friday 22 June - the road will be closed at 22:00 hours tonight, 26 hours after the original date. How long will it stay closed?
In the meanwhile, as happened last time this stretch of road was closed, there are the eternally optimistic drivers who believe that the five no entry/road closed signs do not actually apply to them. They will carry on heading east along Karczunkowska, then seeing barriers and heavy construction equipment, they'll turn into Kurantów. Those equipped with Google Maps (below) may see that at the end of Kurantów, they can swing right and soon be on Gogolińska, and hop-skip-jump, they're across the tracks. Let me show them (in good time) that Google Maps is WRONG. Click to enlarge. I've marked the closed section in pink, and the highlight in pale green the bit of ul. Kurantów that is not actually a road, but a very narrow footpath running through an overgrown field.
Below: local residents, annoyed by these optimist drivers, have put up a sign. 'STOP! TURN AROUND THE ROAD ENDS IN 80 METRES'
Below: indeed it does. There is a footpath, between the wheelie bins and the post; it is wide enough for pedestrian, but waist-high in grass. You could do this on a mountain bike or enduro motorbike, but you'll spend half an hour extracting vegetation from the chain and spokes. In other words - don't bother. The alternative, however, is an 8km detour via Baletowa.
Meanwhile, across the tracks, this is how things are looking. But word is (and I've heard this from two local residents) that the ramp that will carry the roadway up to the viaduct has been badly planned, and will end on the wrong side of the turn-off for Biedronka (on one side of Karczunkowska) and ul. Nawłocka (on the other). The answer is to make it steeper, with the possibility of a roundabout at this junction to slow traffic down. One way or the other, the re-planning of the gradient of the on-ramp means further delays.
Below: view from the 'up' platform - the first set of steps are appearing. These will allow people to walk up to the viaduct from ul. Gogolińska.
Below: for the convenience of passengers from across the track travelling into town, now that the scaffolding has been removed from the viaduct, a new footpath has been laid alongside the coal train line, saving a detour of 120 metres.
All in all, progress is far slower than planned. Here's a quote from Piaseczno News from just three weeks ago:
– Jeśli chodzi o wiadukt, to ma być on gotowy na przełomie III i IV kwartału tego roku. Utrzymane jest tam dobre tempo prac – podkreśla Karol Jakubowski z biura prasowego PKP PLK.. Widać już konstrukcję budowli. W tej chwili wykonywane są podtrzymujące wiadukt filary. Cały czas trwają także prace przy budowie zjazdów.
"As far as the viaduct is concerned, it is to be ready at the turn of the third and fourth quarter of this year. A good pace of work is maintained there," emphasises Karol Jakubowski from the press office of PKP PLK... "The construction of the building is already visible. At the moment, the pillars supporting the flyover are being built. The construction of the congresses is also in progress all the time." [Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator]
End of September? No. Way.
This time six years ago:
Russia's going home
This time 11 years ago:
Sun and zenith rising
Friday, 15 June 2018
Under the Sodium
Plato said: "it is to no purpose for a sober man to knock at the door of the muses,” and maybe he's right. For after two litres of Metropolis India Pale Ale (5.7% abv = 11.4 units), my journey home from W-wa Jeziorki station takes on mystical dimensions, immersed in the quantum reality of deserted suburban streets illuminated by sodium light that emit packets of orange photons.
Below: ul. Nawłocka looking towards ul. Trombity.
Below: ul. Nawłocka from the junction with ul. Karczunkowska
Below: ul. Trombity looking north towards the junction of ul. Dumki (in the distance)
Below: ul. Trombity looking south; fields to wheat to the left, beyond that, my window overlooking them. The digging up of the road for the new sewers have turned the road into a dusty, sandy track; the feel of 1930s America returns with a searing clarity.
Below: the deserted house on ul. Trombity. A letter from the local authorities suggests it may not be here very much longer...
Below: home, home again... outside, the night, the beating of insect wings.
Perhaps if I drank a bit more alcohol, I'd become more productive!
This time last year:
"Further progress? Hell yes!"
This time ten years ago:
The 1970s and the 2000s
Below: ul. Nawłocka looking towards ul. Trombity.
Below: ul. Nawłocka from the junction with ul. Karczunkowska
Below: ul. Trombity looking north towards the junction of ul. Dumki (in the distance)
Below: ul. Trombity looking south; fields to wheat to the left, beyond that, my window overlooking them. The digging up of the road for the new sewers have turned the road into a dusty, sandy track; the feel of 1930s America returns with a searing clarity.
Below: the deserted house on ul. Trombity. A letter from the local authorities suggests it may not be here very much longer...
Below: home, home again... outside, the night, the beating of insect wings.
Perhaps if I drank a bit more alcohol, I'd become more productive!
This time last year:
"Further progress? Hell yes!"
This time ten years ago:
The 1970s and the 2000s
Saturday, 9 June 2018
Warsaw-Radom
I live in Jeziorki, a stop on the Warsaw-Radom railway line just within Warsaw's administrative borders. My bedroom overlooks a functioning arable farm, growing rye or oats. My nearest station, W-wa Jeziorki, is 18km from W-wa Śródmieście, Warsaw's main station for suburban lines. Further south, at Kilometre 42 from W-wa Śródmieście lies Chynów, the nearest station for my działka in nearby Jakubowizna. Beyond Chynów is Warka, at Km 56; the line continues single-track over a bridge that crosses the Pilica river, then onward to Radom, 102km from Warsaw.
Radom (pop. 220,000), is a city that Progress has not smiled upon. Unlike any other Polish city I've visited, it has no charm, no character, no direction, no idea how it is to develop. Łódź, another city where communist-era industry vanished in just a couple of years, now has unemployment at half of Radom's level. Łódź knows where it's going - it has done wonders in attracting inward investment, it has made a name for itself as a creative centre, and the ongoing refurbishment of its centre make it a city that people want to visit. Graduates of its universities are increasingly opting to stay in Łódź to work there (as indeed has my daughter).
But Radom, which underwent a similar implosion as Kalashnikovs and typewriters became less sought-after items, failed to reinvent itself. As a result, one in eight adults in Radom are registered as jobless, whereas in Warsaw it's one in fifty. So people from Radom and surrounding districts travel to Warsaw to find work; they come in large numbers, taking the train. The fastest time for the journey is just over two hours; the slowest train takes nearly two and half. The early-morning trains (two an hour, starting at 03:35) are full of sleeping people heading for Warsaw's insatiable labour market.
Yesterday, I took the 14:30 train from W-wa Śródmieście to Radom, alighting at Chynów to see how work on my działka is coming along. To my surprise, this mid-afternoon train was almost full as it left central Warsaw. By the time it stopped to pick up passengers at W-wa Służewiec ('Mordor Południowy'), the aisles and gangways were packed with people standing. I expected that much of this traffic would get off at Piaseczno, a dormitory suburb 23km south of W-wa Śródmieście. But I was wrong - more people got on the train than got off it (it was by now quarter past three). Piaseczno itself draws in labour from the south.
It was a jolly crowd. The weekend was here, the working week done. Many of my fellow passengers had come to Warsaw or Piaseczno to sell strawberries or cherries, and returning home with dozens of empty punnets; they were talking about prices, wholesale and retail, about the mushroom season. Others were office cleaners or canteen staff, working the early shift.
There was much cheerful banter, and because there was a mixture of women and men, the language not too salty, nor did I see any drinking or smoking going on. This tends to occur in the back of the third and sixth carriages and front of the fourth carriage (of a six-car set, counting from the front), in the compartments for bicycles and oversized baggage. It is here that the inveterate smokers and drinkers congregate, to while away their two-hour plus journey home.
The drinking set tend to leave Warsaw later, mainly cash-in-hand builders from the many construction sites around the capital. Drinking on suburban electric trains puts me in mind of Venedikt Yerofeyev's 1970 prose-poem, Moscow-Petushki. However, the ready availability of vodka in małpi (100ml and 200ml bottles) and beers at 7%-9% abv means that Polish drunks do not have to make do with what Yerofeyev and his pals had to imbibe - cocktails of nail varnish, hair lacquer, brake fluid, insecticide and eau-de-cologne.
The time-honoured practice of the hard-drinking Radomites entering their compartment, shaking hands with all the other (male - for no females travel here) passengers - is coming to an end as the old EN57 rolling stock is being successively modernised. The refurbished EN57-AKM stock has no walls between that compartment and the rest of the carriage, which means that any smoke carries right through the train. CCTV cameras monitor passenger behaviour. The toilets are the only refuge for desperate smokers, but social pressure is slowly making this practice unacceptable.
Over the past six months or so, I have come to know the Radom line down as far as Chynów much better than before; the rhythm of life, the inexorable economic pull that Warsaw exerts beyond its outermost exurbs.
It's a hot afternoon, the train - an unmodernised EN57 set, has all its windows open in lieu of the air conditioning found on the newer EN57-AKM trains. It's pleasant. Less so in mid-winter, when the journey to town and home again takes place in darkness, passengers are carrying heavy coats and the temperature outside is well below zero.
A large woman, who had been dozing, asked whether we'd passed Warka yet, a landmark (half-way from Śródmieście to Radom). No, explained her neighbour, we're still half an hour from Warka. The journey is long.
Below: W-wa Wschodnia to Radom service calls at Chynów, 22 May 2018. Served by a six-car set, the front three being an early EN57 unit - the classic with three windows in front and the 'rippled' sides. There's still a handful of these on the Radom line, usually paired up with a newer units, like later, unmodernised EN57s with two windows in front and slab sides.
The lime-green, white and yellow livery looks resplendent against a cloudless sky.
This time three years ago:
Civilising Warsaw at the local level
This time four years ago:
Rustic retreat rained off
This time six years ago:
Thunderstorm over Jeziorki
This time seven years ago:
Getting lost on top of Łopień
This five nine years ago:
Regulatory absurdities in Poland
This time ten years ago:
Czachówek and Alignment
This time 11 years ago:
Joy, pain, sunshine, rain
Radom (pop. 220,000), is a city that Progress has not smiled upon. Unlike any other Polish city I've visited, it has no charm, no character, no direction, no idea how it is to develop. Łódź, another city where communist-era industry vanished in just a couple of years, now has unemployment at half of Radom's level. Łódź knows where it's going - it has done wonders in attracting inward investment, it has made a name for itself as a creative centre, and the ongoing refurbishment of its centre make it a city that people want to visit. Graduates of its universities are increasingly opting to stay in Łódź to work there (as indeed has my daughter).
But Radom, which underwent a similar implosion as Kalashnikovs and typewriters became less sought-after items, failed to reinvent itself. As a result, one in eight adults in Radom are registered as jobless, whereas in Warsaw it's one in fifty. So people from Radom and surrounding districts travel to Warsaw to find work; they come in large numbers, taking the train. The fastest time for the journey is just over two hours; the slowest train takes nearly two and half. The early-morning trains (two an hour, starting at 03:35) are full of sleeping people heading for Warsaw's insatiable labour market.
Yesterday, I took the 14:30 train from W-wa Śródmieście to Radom, alighting at Chynów to see how work on my działka is coming along. To my surprise, this mid-afternoon train was almost full as it left central Warsaw. By the time it stopped to pick up passengers at W-wa Służewiec ('Mordor Południowy'), the aisles and gangways were packed with people standing. I expected that much of this traffic would get off at Piaseczno, a dormitory suburb 23km south of W-wa Śródmieście. But I was wrong - more people got on the train than got off it (it was by now quarter past three). Piaseczno itself draws in labour from the south.
It was a jolly crowd. The weekend was here, the working week done. Many of my fellow passengers had come to Warsaw or Piaseczno to sell strawberries or cherries, and returning home with dozens of empty punnets; they were talking about prices, wholesale and retail, about the mushroom season. Others were office cleaners or canteen staff, working the early shift.
There was much cheerful banter, and because there was a mixture of women and men, the language not too salty, nor did I see any drinking or smoking going on. This tends to occur in the back of the third and sixth carriages and front of the fourth carriage (of a six-car set, counting from the front), in the compartments for bicycles and oversized baggage. It is here that the inveterate smokers and drinkers congregate, to while away their two-hour plus journey home.
The drinking set tend to leave Warsaw later, mainly cash-in-hand builders from the many construction sites around the capital. Drinking on suburban electric trains puts me in mind of Venedikt Yerofeyev's 1970 prose-poem, Moscow-Petushki. However, the ready availability of vodka in małpi (100ml and 200ml bottles) and beers at 7%-9% abv means that Polish drunks do not have to make do with what Yerofeyev and his pals had to imbibe - cocktails of nail varnish, hair lacquer, brake fluid, insecticide and eau-de-cologne.
The time-honoured practice of the hard-drinking Radomites entering their compartment, shaking hands with all the other (male - for no females travel here) passengers - is coming to an end as the old EN57 rolling stock is being successively modernised. The refurbished EN57-AKM stock has no walls between that compartment and the rest of the carriage, which means that any smoke carries right through the train. CCTV cameras monitor passenger behaviour. The toilets are the only refuge for desperate smokers, but social pressure is slowly making this practice unacceptable.
Over the past six months or so, I have come to know the Radom line down as far as Chynów much better than before; the rhythm of life, the inexorable economic pull that Warsaw exerts beyond its outermost exurbs.
It's a hot afternoon, the train - an unmodernised EN57 set, has all its windows open in lieu of the air conditioning found on the newer EN57-AKM trains. It's pleasant. Less so in mid-winter, when the journey to town and home again takes place in darkness, passengers are carrying heavy coats and the temperature outside is well below zero.
A large woman, who had been dozing, asked whether we'd passed Warka yet, a landmark (half-way from Śródmieście to Radom). No, explained her neighbour, we're still half an hour from Warka. The journey is long.
Below: W-wa Wschodnia to Radom service calls at Chynów, 22 May 2018. Served by a six-car set, the front three being an early EN57 unit - the classic with three windows in front and the 'rippled' sides. There's still a handful of these on the Radom line, usually paired up with a newer units, like later, unmodernised EN57s with two windows in front and slab sides.
The lime-green, white and yellow livery looks resplendent against a cloudless sky.
This time three years ago:
Civilising Warsaw at the local level
This time four years ago:
Rustic retreat rained off
This time six years ago:
Thunderstorm over Jeziorki
This time seven years ago:
Getting lost on top of Łopień
This five nine years ago:
Regulatory absurdities in Poland
This time ten years ago:
Czachówek and Alignment
This time 11 years ago:
Joy, pain, sunshine, rain
Friday, 8 June 2018
Perfect weather week in Warsaw
Oh how wonderful - so much blue sky, clear and fresh (on Tuesday and Wednesday). Perfect weather in Warsaw. Below: morning, Palace of Culture.
Below: dusk falls over Warsaw; the Palace of Culture seen from the south, looking up ul. Emilii Plater.
Left: the Palace of Culture across ul. Świętokrzyska, photo taken from the pavement outside my office.
Below: view from my office window looking down over ul. Świętokrzyska and Marszałkowska. Note the construction site just behind the top of the neighbouring building; this will be 22-storey Central Point tower, also known as CBD One (Central Business District). It will be the same height as the building on the opposite corner of the crossroads, the one over McDonald's. Note too the newly-opened Sezam building next to it facing Marszałkowska. The black dome further along Świętokrzyska belongs to the Polish post office; before the war my grandfather Tomasz Dembiński worked in the post office savings bank (PKO) in that very building.
Below: Sezam on the day before its somewhat low-key opening. A very nice piece of neo-modernist architecture, light and airy. It's just under four years ago that the old Sezam (see post about it here) closed for the last time and the old building was demolished.
Below: some balloons - and a new neon just like the old one. The store is open - nothing in the windows, no one inside. No doubt it will soon take off. Will visit. [Update - the store is at level -1, so you have to walk down the steps.]
Below: another former icon of the Warsaw retailing scene about to re-emerge after a major remont - though not as a shop - is the former Dom Handlowy Smyk (before that Centralny Dom Towarowy). The original 1951 modernist facade has been preserved, though the insides are all new. It will be office co-working space when reopened.
Below: Is this Rome? Are we in the Eternal City? No, this is the church of St Antony of Padua (the patron saint of lost things) on ul. Senatorska. Under this sky, we could indeed be in Padua.
And out in the countryside, the same Mediterranean klimat prevails. Below: Jakobowizna, a new house nears completion between the orchards
Below: Jakubowizna, where fruit seems to be exploding out of the earth. This will be a year of bumper crops, cheap produce and complaining farmers.
Weather set to continue sunny on Saturday, then storms will brew up on Sunday. Rain is needed after a hot, dry week.
This time two years ago:
Street art, Piotrków Trybunalski
This time five years ago:
Quality engineering from half a century ago
This time six years ago:
Fans fly in to Warsaw for Euro 2012
This time seven years ago:
Cara al Sol - part II
This time eight years ago:
Still struggling with the floodwaters
This time nine years ago:
European elections - and I buy used D40
The time ten years ago:
To the Vistula, by bike
This time 11 years ago:
Poppy profusion
Below: dusk falls over Warsaw; the Palace of Culture seen from the south, looking up ul. Emilii Plater.
Below: view from my office window looking down over ul. Świętokrzyska and Marszałkowska. Note the construction site just behind the top of the neighbouring building; this will be 22-storey Central Point tower, also known as CBD One (Central Business District). It will be the same height as the building on the opposite corner of the crossroads, the one over McDonald's. Note too the newly-opened Sezam building next to it facing Marszałkowska. The black dome further along Świętokrzyska belongs to the Polish post office; before the war my grandfather Tomasz Dembiński worked in the post office savings bank (PKO) in that very building.
Below: Sezam on the day before its somewhat low-key opening. A very nice piece of neo-modernist architecture, light and airy. It's just under four years ago that the old Sezam (see post about it here) closed for the last time and the old building was demolished.
Below: some balloons - and a new neon just like the old one. The store is open - nothing in the windows, no one inside. No doubt it will soon take off. Will visit. [Update - the store is at level -1, so you have to walk down the steps.]
Below: another former icon of the Warsaw retailing scene about to re-emerge after a major remont - though not as a shop - is the former Dom Handlowy Smyk (before that Centralny Dom Towarowy). The original 1951 modernist facade has been preserved, though the insides are all new. It will be office co-working space when reopened.
Below: Is this Rome? Are we in the Eternal City? No, this is the church of St Antony of Padua (the patron saint of lost things) on ul. Senatorska. Under this sky, we could indeed be in Padua.
And out in the countryside, the same Mediterranean klimat prevails. Below: Jakobowizna, a new house nears completion between the orchards
Below: Jakubowizna, where fruit seems to be exploding out of the earth. This will be a year of bumper crops, cheap produce and complaining farmers.
Weather set to continue sunny on Saturday, then storms will brew up on Sunday. Rain is needed after a hot, dry week.
This time two years ago:
Street art, Piotrków Trybunalski
This time five years ago:
Quality engineering from half a century ago
This time six years ago:
Fans fly in to Warsaw for Euro 2012
This time seven years ago:
Cara al Sol - part II
This time eight years ago:
Still struggling with the floodwaters
This time nine years ago:
European elections - and I buy used D40
The time ten years ago:
To the Vistula, by bike
This time 11 years ago:
Poppy profusion
Saturday, 2 June 2018
Memory and Me
You are your memory. Nothing shapes your being like what it is that you remember. That memory which plays tricks on us - and which becomes increasingly flaky as we age. Imagine this thought experiment; you wake up in a featureless room with no mirrors - and you have no recollection of how you got there or anything about your past. You know nothing about yourself - who you are, how you look. All you have is your powers of observation and your awareness of being conscious.
Do you exist? Of course you do. But are you... you? This makes you realise just to what extent you have been shaped by memory of past events - events receding away from you at an accelerating pace. At the age of ten, a year represents 10% of the total span of your life experience. At 50, a year's but 2%. If you're lucky enough to reach 100, that year will have reduced to just 1%. How much of any given year in your past will you have held on to?
The other day on Facebook, I read a post about the visit of Pope John Paul II to London, and a mass held in Crystal Palace in 1982 for Poles living in the UK. Was I there? Well, I remember remembering being there... but I have no actual recollection of any qualia from the day... I remember telling people, "Yeah, I was also there..." Was I? Like Schrodinger's cat, I'm currently in the situation of "yes I was there"/"no I wasn't there" until a conscious observer opens the box. [If you recall being there with me, please let me know!]
Today I discussed an event with my father that I clearly remember but he doesn't; the starter motor of my first car, a Morris Minor van, packed up; he helped me remove it from the car, take off the housing, pull out the armature windings, locate a broken copper wire and wind on new one. He does not remember the event. I remember the qualia; the feel of the weight of the starter motor, pulling back the housing to reveal the armatures, sitting in the garage on an old green revolving metal office chair, patiently winding the copper wire back onto the armatures, then replacing the housing and screwing the whole starter motor assembly back into the engine bay - and the immense satisfaction of it working.
Last summer, in Sopot I met Raymond, my best friend from primary school, and his wife Madeline. Ray and I talked for hours about our memories from half a century ago - it would make an interesting Venn diagram to show those events that both of us recalled, the ones he remembered and I didn't, and the ones that I remembered but he didn't. There was a fair amount of overlap (I remember) but also those odd ones where either he said "Wow! Really? Did that happen?" or where I said those same words.
Memory is selective. And yet it shapes who we are. We have a tendency to exaggerate, to story-tell, to create a bigger narrative around an event than it really merited - or talk down our own negative behaviour - on the basis of events dimly remembered, or worse - forgotten.
Memory of things that interested us in our childhood is the strongest. Ask me about British motor cars of the 1960s and '70s. How did the engine capacity of the BMC Mini grow over the years? 848cc, 998cc, 1098cc, 1275cc. Off the top of my head. No need to consult Wikipedia. Name the brands of Rootes Group cars in the1960s. Easy: Hillman, Singer, Sunbeam and Humber. These days if I want to remember something for good, it's a much bigger effort involving mnemonics. In my childhood, facts just tripped into the head and stayed there. Today memory requires effort, like doing press-ups.
Memory defines who we are. What we know defines who we are. Going back to that thought experiment I mentioned at the beginning of this post, if you are in that memory-free state and you learn that you are going to die within the next two hours - would that fact bother you, given that you have no frame of reference as to what your life was - or would you still want to postpone your death given that you have conscious awareness, your ability to observe the here-and-now, even though there was no past?
Cherish your memories. Especially those ones that come to you unbidden - those flashbacks to qualia - to those moments of absolute understanding and deep awareness. The texture of reality; the smell of diesel and sea salt on the deck of a ferry, the sound of its horn; the urgent ringing of a bell at a level crossing; snow crunching underfoot on a blue-sky frosty winter's morning; the smell of a fresh newspaper opened with a small espresso waiting on a copper table; the twinkling of stars seen from a mountainside on clear summer's night. Not so much events - when we pushed Steve T______ into the swimming pool on the biology field-trip or my hat coming off in a windy gust on ul. Puławska and ending up on a building site - but moments of pure awareness.
The collected memories of such moments makes us who we are. Rather than memories of events. And these profound memories link us to other humans, who have also felt them - not pleasure nor suffering - but moments of intense consciousness.
This time last year:
Sticks, carrots and nudge - a proposal
This time three years ago:
London vs. Warsaw pt 2: the demographic aspects
Do you exist? Of course you do. But are you... you? This makes you realise just to what extent you have been shaped by memory of past events - events receding away from you at an accelerating pace. At the age of ten, a year represents 10% of the total span of your life experience. At 50, a year's but 2%. If you're lucky enough to reach 100, that year will have reduced to just 1%. How much of any given year in your past will you have held on to?
The other day on Facebook, I read a post about the visit of Pope John Paul II to London, and a mass held in Crystal Palace in 1982 for Poles living in the UK. Was I there? Well, I remember remembering being there... but I have no actual recollection of any qualia from the day... I remember telling people, "Yeah, I was also there..." Was I? Like Schrodinger's cat, I'm currently in the situation of "yes I was there"/"no I wasn't there" until a conscious observer opens the box. [If you recall being there with me, please let me know!]
Today I discussed an event with my father that I clearly remember but he doesn't; the starter motor of my first car, a Morris Minor van, packed up; he helped me remove it from the car, take off the housing, pull out the armature windings, locate a broken copper wire and wind on new one. He does not remember the event. I remember the qualia; the feel of the weight of the starter motor, pulling back the housing to reveal the armatures, sitting in the garage on an old green revolving metal office chair, patiently winding the copper wire back onto the armatures, then replacing the housing and screwing the whole starter motor assembly back into the engine bay - and the immense satisfaction of it working.
Last summer, in Sopot I met Raymond, my best friend from primary school, and his wife Madeline. Ray and I talked for hours about our memories from half a century ago - it would make an interesting Venn diagram to show those events that both of us recalled, the ones he remembered and I didn't, and the ones that I remembered but he didn't. There was a fair amount of overlap (I remember) but also those odd ones where either he said "Wow! Really? Did that happen?" or where I said those same words.
Memory is selective. And yet it shapes who we are. We have a tendency to exaggerate, to story-tell, to create a bigger narrative around an event than it really merited - or talk down our own negative behaviour - on the basis of events dimly remembered, or worse - forgotten.
Memory of things that interested us in our childhood is the strongest. Ask me about British motor cars of the 1960s and '70s. How did the engine capacity of the BMC Mini grow over the years? 848cc, 998cc, 1098cc, 1275cc. Off the top of my head. No need to consult Wikipedia. Name the brands of Rootes Group cars in the1960s. Easy: Hillman, Singer, Sunbeam and Humber. These days if I want to remember something for good, it's a much bigger effort involving mnemonics. In my childhood, facts just tripped into the head and stayed there. Today memory requires effort, like doing press-ups.
Memory defines who we are. What we know defines who we are. Going back to that thought experiment I mentioned at the beginning of this post, if you are in that memory-free state and you learn that you are going to die within the next two hours - would that fact bother you, given that you have no frame of reference as to what your life was - or would you still want to postpone your death given that you have conscious awareness, your ability to observe the here-and-now, even though there was no past?
Cherish your memories. Especially those ones that come to you unbidden - those flashbacks to qualia - to those moments of absolute understanding and deep awareness. The texture of reality; the smell of diesel and sea salt on the deck of a ferry, the sound of its horn; the urgent ringing of a bell at a level crossing; snow crunching underfoot on a blue-sky frosty winter's morning; the smell of a fresh newspaper opened with a small espresso waiting on a copper table; the twinkling of stars seen from a mountainside on clear summer's night. Not so much events - when we pushed Steve T______ into the swimming pool on the biology field-trip or my hat coming off in a windy gust on ul. Puławska and ending up on a building site - but moments of pure awareness.
The collected memories of such moments makes us who we are. Rather than memories of events. And these profound memories link us to other humans, who have also felt them - not pleasure nor suffering - but moments of intense consciousness.
This time last year:
Sticks, carrots and nudge - a proposal
This time three years ago:
London vs. Warsaw pt 2: the demographic aspects
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