Traitors and useful idiots

The sight of apartment blocks, schools, hospitals and administrative buildings being hit by Russian rockets, bombs and shells has revealed to the world the truth about Putin. It is a truth that those living in his immediate neighbourhood have known for a long time. He is the manifestation of evil in human form; a Hitler, a Stalin, a Pol Pot. An inhuman madman for whom massive loss of innocent life has no meaning. Protests around the world, but particularly across Europe, show that Russia has lost any residual soft power it might have enjoyed. And yet, and yet...

Unrestrained by the intellectual straightjacket of Marxism-Leninism, Putin's propaganda war aimed at the West this past decade has been infinitely more successful than the USSR's. Back then, the useful idiots were exclusively the far left. I remember at the time of Martial Law in Poland, an organisation in the UK called the Spartacist League was actually protesting against the Solidarity trade union movement, on the basis that "an imperfect workers' state is better than no workers' state". Nutters. The British Communists were partially funded through the bulk purchase by the Soviet Union of the Morning Star, the newspaper aligned with the Communist Party of Britain. The paper, then and now is so ideologically turgid that its readership is insignificant. 

The Morning Star website today leads not with the slaughter of innocent Ukrainian civilians but with global climate change. All the British far left can do is numbly repeat the mantra "NATO and the EU should not have been encroaching on Russia".  And funnily enough, this is also the mantra of the British far right. 

The far left are the useful idiots - so hidebound in their anti-imperialist ideology that they fail to see Putin as the arch-imperialist. This is because Putin says he is against NATO, as are they - because they see NATO through an ideological prism, and not as a bulwark protecting Central and Eastern Europe from the return of the Russian imperial boot. Putin doesn't need to pay them to parrot his propaganda - they just do so.

Now look at this semi-literate tweet from George Galloway. Paid Kremlin assets or useful idiot? He names names. Nigel Farage, Christopher Hitchens, Tucker Carlson and Rod Liddle - which of these have taken Putin's shilling, and which simply believe the Kremlin's narrative?

Venal politicians, easily bought by smooth-talking Russians in the West are as culpable as hidebound ideologists. Britain's shabby response to sanctioning Russian oligarch and their assets in the UK suggests fear and shame regarding the ease with which their donations filled party coffers. And their resulting hesitancy to take a firmer stance on Putin's malevolence.

The links between Russia and the Brexit campaign were clear to see to all those who wanted to see, and all those who understood Russia. Putin needed to fragment the West, splinter its institutions. Those who bought into the lie that the EU was 'antidemocratic' need to ask themselves how democratic it is to have one man with a nuclear trigger holding our planet to ransom. Many who voted for Brexit were swayed by arguments coming from Putin's troll farms, polluting Britain's social media, or from figures directly financed by Moscow [when this is all over, I hope the Kremlin's archives will be opened so we can see proof of which figures].

Putin's courting of the West's far right and far left (the latter being cheaper to buy) had been successful for the past 22 years. But now that he has revealed his true nature in a way that's impossible to cover up with lies about 'Ukrainian fascists', 'genocide in Donbas', 'NATO provoked the bear' or 'Eastern Europeans have no right to self-determination', he has cut off that support. It will be interesting to see how the presidential campaigns of Marine Le Pen or Viktor Orban go.

When this is all over, the bought-up politicians and the useful idiots will be called to account. When this is all over, the far left and far right will not have an easy time. And that will be good for us all. In the meantime, let us pray in a focused, metaphysical way, to the Good God for a swift end to the spilling of innocent blood in Ukraine.

Lent starts tomorrow, I shall be blogging about the spiritual and metaphysical; for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, follow me on Twitter (Michael Dembinski@policies4poland).

This time last year:
Chance and luck - can you will the outcome?

This time two years ago:
Define your Deity

This time four years ago:
The Mysteries of Quantum Physics

This time fiver years ago:
Lent starts tomorrow

This time six years ago:
Coincidence and survival

This time nine years ago
The Book of Revelations

This time ten years ago:
Strong late-winter sunshine

This time 11 years ago:
Best pics from February 2011

This time 12 years ago:
Kensington

This time 14 years ago:
End of the line

War

 "What was it like, the atmosphere of those last few days in August 1939, before German tanks and bombers poured into Poland?" I would ask my father. 

"We were resigned to it - wars happen. War broke out in August 1914, then the Bolsheviks invaded in 1920," he replied. Indeed, looking at European history, wars, invasions, uprisings, revolutions, civil wars would punctuate short periods of peace with monotonous regularity.

I was born in the penumbra of war, 13 years after my father and his Home Army comrades were put on trains bound for PoW camps in Germany at the end of the Warsaw Uprising. My mother's experiences as a child deported to a labour camp in northern Russia had an effect on my upbringing. Polish scouts in London, led by men who had fought at Tobruk and Monte Cassino, was paramilitary in nature; we'd drill Polish army drill, sing Polish army songs, and learn fieldcraft.

The Cold War threat of nuclear annihilation was ever-present; I was too young to sense the fear engendered by the Cuban Missile Crisis. Czechoslovakia - the crushing of the Prague Spring - was sad, but at least there was no risk of spill-over. The Protect and Survive era of the mid-1980s, was chilling - there were a few close calls, though we didn't know it at the time. 

The dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 heralded what many believed was the End of History - the Evil Empire had crumbled, free-market democracy had triumphed.

The arc of history was tracking upward. Life was getting better. Technology was bringing us new gadgets, opening new horizons and creating a new way of digital living. Had Europe managed to rid itself of the curse of war for good? Serbia, Bosnia - Srebrenica, the bombing of Belgrade - briefly brought back the ghosts of past horrors. But by the middle of the first decade of the new century, with Poland and nine other former Soviet Bloc members inside NATO and the EU, all looked well, even while Putin consolidated his rule over the Russian Federation.

Then we passed a tipping point - and another - and another - and another. Georgia, Litvinenko, Crimea, Syria, Skripal... Obama said 'reset'. The Germans wanted Nordstream 2. And many venal Western politicians were bought by the Kremlin. What have we learnt? Apparently nothing. 

I had been expecting the Russian attack to start at 04:00 on 22 February (22, my father's unlucky number). It didn't happen. The world breathed a sigh of relief - and then 48 hours later it kicked off. 

Today, the world knows what any country once under the Russian heel knows - giving way to Putin only provokes him to further aggression. "You may not think you are at war with Russia - but Russia is at war with you." Until now, Putin has never overtly crossed the West's red lines. He merely pushed the red line ever further and further and further; the West imposed sanctions here and there - but nothing that would halt Putin in his obsessive quest to reconquer lands he sees as lost to Russia as the USSR collapsed.

This time, the world is seeing a European city in flames, Europeans fleeing tanks and bombs - something not seen on this scale since the last weeks of World War 2. The sight of columns of women and children walking towards the Polish border remind me of how my father, his mother and two brothers walked east from Warsaw as German bombs rained down on the Polish capital, panzers approaching from the north and west. My father was 16 then; he died in 2019; few people alive today remember at first hand the horrors of WW2.

Russian oligarch's money has corrupted the British establishment. Parliamentarians, lawyers, accountants, PR firms, estate agents, thought that they could 'civilise' the nouveau-riche Russians, co-opting them as they once had co-opted oil-rich sheikhs and American tycoons. But Putin's oligarchs have strings attached. You are not permitted to be an oligarch in Britain unless you kick back to Putin, and do his bidding. This includes buying up venal British politicians. Don't do as you're told and you wind up as one of the 14 or so Russians who have died in London under mysterious circumstances.

Putin is the quintessential evil KGB villain, brought up in the dark arts of maskirovka, playing by the playbook he grew up with. The playbook of the NKVD - the Holodor, the Great Terror, the Gulag, Katyń. Surrounded by a coterie of yes-men and women, no one dares tell him how futile is his quest to rebuild the USSR. Economically, it has no chance of success. Robbing the country so brazenly is possible only if the people are repressed by brutality. There is no escape - entrepreneurs are shaken down, and so their ranks are thinned out; the same people who would have the resourcefulness to start small businesses in the West just take the view that the risk is too great. Better be an official and live by shaking down citizens - traffic cops, hospital administrators, health & safety inspectors, granters of planning permissions, tax inspectors, university admissions officer. Run this way, the Russian economy could never lift off and hold its own in the modern world.

Failing to turn Russia into a genuinely modern economy, all Putin can do is to wreck the socio-economic systems of other countries. Had Russia made the right policy and political choices, it could have been a powerhouse, driven by foreign investment and innovation. As it is, ordinary Russian look longingly across at former Soviet republics in the EU - the freedom, the quality of life, sanctity of private property based on the rule of law, prospects for the future. This is a threat to Putin; repression can only go so far. 

Trump's election and Brexit were both supported massively by Russia - using all forms of 'active measures'; financially, through their 'useful idiots', and by an online onslaught using social media, the West's soft underbelly. As bombs rain down on Kyiv, the main proponents of Brexit are today acting as the Kremlin's apologists  in the UK - 'the West's fault for poking the bear' (N. Farage). [As an aside, can you imagine an organisation called Conservative Friends of Germany active in Westminster in the late 1930s?]

This time last year:
Yes, there is such a thing as Original Sin

This time three years ago:
London's Smithfield Market

This time four years ago:
Mid-winter in late February

This time five years ago:
Ten years of digital photography

This time six years ago:
Between atheism and creationism

This time seven years ago:
A peek into the Afterlife

This time eight years ago:
The new dupes of Moscow

This time nine years ago:
Late-winter commuting, Jeziorki

This time ten years ago:
My Nikon D80 five years on

This time 11 years ago:
My Nikon D80 four years on

This time 12 years ago:
Nikon D80 two years on

This time 13 years ago:
Nikon D80 one year on

A Blustery Day

"Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes" - King Lear, Act 3 Scene 2. Dreadful winds howling all night long - I dreamt of July 1952 and the UFOs over Washington D.C., wondering whether they would descend this very night over the Kremlin... 

Saturday morning, after last night's false flags (gas-pipe explosion in Donetsk), Putin is maintaining high levels of terror over Ukraine. I can imagine the dread of its citizens, facing uncertainty that involves air-raids, artillery shelling and fire-fights.

Time to get some fresh air, time for a long walk amid the gales. I open the front door to hear the sound of flapping plastic sheets - a greenhouse has been ripped apart across the road, over 170m away, but upwind and very loud. Out by the ponds, below, more broken birches and high water (summer 2020 revealed the muddy bottom of a dried-out pond, now it's close to breaking its banks).

My intention was to do a long walk in the direction of Raszyn, but the wind was too strong. Walking along ulica Kinetyczna, I could see the planes coming into land at Warsaw's Okęcie airport from over Ursynów (Runway 29 rather than the more usual Runway 33). At least five I saw aborted their approach, throttled up their engines and did a go-round rather than dice with strong gusts near ground level. Below: the LOT Polish Airlines Embraer ERJ-195 comes into land behind a taxiing Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

I decided to turn back at Jaworowa (below), and instead of walking on to Raszyn and catching the bus home from there, I would turn back and walk all the way home, powered by a strong tailwind.

This (below) is the road between Jaworowa and Dawidy; a demarcated cycle path makes it safer for pedestrians. Gusts of wind, however, could still feel dangerous in the face of oncoming traffic.

Onward to Dawidy, a village just outside of Warsaw, where one can find blocks of flats - quite unusual. Dawidy is different in character to Dawidy Bankowe.

In Dawidy, I can see the scale of the wind damage. A fire engine and a crew of electricians were dealing with the aftermath of fallen trees and power lines.

I climb to the top of a large man-made hill of soil just off ul. Sporna. Time for lunch - sandwiches, a banana and a well-deserved bottle of IPA. From the top of this hill I have some great views overlooking the airport. And for a while, the sun popped out from behind the clouds. Below: another taxiing Dreamliner, the S2 expressway in the foreground.

Another sight from the top of this hill (standing about six metres above the ground) - a family of deer, foraging in the sodden fields between Dawidy and the S2. The closest I've ever seen deer to Warsaw!

Just to put them into perspective, here they are again, the white tails visible in the foreground, with the S2, the Palace of Culture to the left and the office developments of Służew all in view, and a Dreamliner coming into land.

Looking the other way, I could see that wind damage was being mended. Below: a fire crew dealing with a electric power pole that had been blown over onto the roof of a house. Note the new viaduct over the S7 extension in the background.

Below: fixing a hole where the rain gets in, and an unusual approach to rooftop access. 

Below: back in Jeziorki, the railway behind me, the S7 ahead - and no, this is not a pond - it is a flooded field. The Action warehouse in Zamienie and the new viaduct on the horizon.

Below: speeding south to Radom, a Koleje Mazowieckie Newag Impuls between W-wa Dawidy and W-wa Jeziorki stations.

This time last year:
Would the Universe exist if you were not there?

This time six years ago:
Dreams and visions of past lives

This time seven years ago:
Monist or dualist: which are you?

This time eight years ago:
Grim prospects for Ukraine

This time nine years ago:
Wrocław's new airport terminal

This time ten years ago:
A study in symmetry: Kabaty Metro station

This time 11 years ago:
To the Devil with it all - a short story

This time 12 years ago:
Waiting for the meltdown

This time 14 years ago:
Flat tyre

February made me shiver

After three glorious days, the clouds have rushed in from the west, driven by strong winds. Four days without rain - then buckets start to fall, horizontally. Looking out of the bathroom window, I see the netting on the neighbours' new fence ripped off and a fire hose laid out across and land to pump surface water off the sodden land, which is trying to grow a crop. Brief excursions yesterday and on Tuesday, but today only a few metres across the garden to the compost bin. 

I feel as though venturing out further would be risky for my immune system; it's a definite low. An early night last night, followed by a massive ten and half hours of sleep (22:00 to 08:30) has kept at bay whatever I feel was creeping up on me; another such night is in order. And it's hard to motivate myself to exercise.

Koleje Mazowiecki is sending messages several times a day informing me about difficulties on the Warsaw-Radom line. I feel sorry for commuters waiting on rain-lashed platforms staring in their apps at icons of trains halted indefinitely at some remote halt between Warka and Dobieszyn.

Meanwhile, I am feeling jittery as a result of the situation going on in Putin's head. A thug, a bully, an evil, soul-less animal, threatening millions of people with death. Things could kick off at any moment, and if they don't, it's still going to be on absolute knife's edge until Putin's last dying breath. He'll be ratcheting up the tension whenever he wants to - marching his troops up to the borders, keeping them there, making noises to unsettle and dismay peaceful populations. The sight of American and British military aircraft in the skies of Central and Eastern Europe, flying in military supplies, keeping watch on the Russian military build up gives me a certain degree of reassurance - much more that the waffle from German or French diplomatic missions to the Kremlin. As V. I. Lenin said: "If you push in the bayonet and feel mush - keep pushing. But if you push in the bayonet and feel steel - stop." Making concessions to a psychopath makes no sense. In the Prisoner's Dilemma, cooperating with an opponent who hurts you makes no sense - you respond with force. Putin knows this and is pushing the West to effect a split in the alliance.

Gas is his weapon; Gazprom 'a gas company with tanks.' My gas bill: end of 2021, price per kilowatt-hour: 1.01zł. Early 2022, price per kilowatt-hour: 2.01zł. Next gas bill likely to be in the order of 3,600zł (around £670). More reasons to be cheerful.

The Polish government is still behaving in an irrational way. Polski Ład (the Polish deal) - the government's flagship tax reform programme - has gone awry, it is deeply unpopular even with the electorate it is trying to buy. The government is also winding up the European Commission on rule of law. Poland could end up being many billions of euro out of pocket if the government doesn't back down.

Spring is still a long way off. Another six weeks until April comes; assuming it's a nice one (latest snow-on-ground from my 25 years' experience in Warsaw was 4 May back in 2011). The days are getting longer; the sun goes down an hour and half later than the year's earliest sunset. Gone is the snow cover, the ice on the ponds - winters are getting milder and milder. Winds are getting stronger, winter storms more frequent. And yet people don't seem to see it and aren't changing their ways; driving their idle arses a few miles in their SUVs to their offices in town. To paraphrase the Dead Kennedys, it's not so much 'Give me convenience or give me death', it's 'Give me convenience or kill off the entire planet and everyone on it'. 

Covid is still here - the new cases are on their way down from the peak of the fifth wave (the fifth! I predicted a mere three waves when the pandemic began); deaths, however, refuse to follow. Poland is still seeing around 250 people a day dying from the disease.

Lent is around the corner - starting on Ash Wednesday, 3 March. I look forward to this time of cleansing and spiritual introspection; I just hope it will not be marred by a bloody war, an invasion of a peaceful country neighbouring Poland. Or by Covid. Or by the stupid Polish government telling Brussels to shove all its money destined for infrastructure and green transformation.

Reasons to be cheerful? Not many right now.

This time last year:
Starting my 30th Lent

This time two years ago:
Grey February dusk; buzzing Warsaw

This time three years ago:
Skierniewice-Łuków line modernisation announced

This four years ago:
Entropy and anti-entropy in a constant-ruled universe

This five three years ago:
Truth, spin, bullshit and lies

This time six year:
How much spirituality do we need?

This time nine years ago:
The Chosen Ones

This time ten years ago:
Fixies in the snow

This time 13 years ago:
Just the ticket

A Historic Day for Zgorzała and Zamienie

Came the day; came the hour - at a minute past ten the barrier blocking off the new road was removed, and drivers were beckoned towards the new viaduct carrying traffic over the S7 extension to Dawidy Bankowe.

Below: it's just coming up to ten and the commission that formally pronounces the new road open is in place; the bus stop is ready, all is good and the order is given to remove the barriers. 

Below: the final east-to-west crossing over the actual roadway of the S7 extension, about a minute before the barrier was removed and the road opened. Not this way for Warsaw or Kraków (yet); this way for Zamienie and Raszyn.

Below: the first car to legally drive down the new stretch of road was, of course, a black SUV.

 

Below: as the barriers are removed from the new road leading up to the new viaduct, the barriers are put up closing off ulica Dawidowska from traffic. 

Below: the first bus carries passengers across the new viaduct, a 715 headed for P+R Al. Krakowska.

Below: looking at the new viaduct from the Zamienie/Dawidy Bankowe end. There is a) a lack of pavement allowing pedestrians to cross safely from one side to the other; and yet b) no sign prohibiting pedestrians from crossing from side to the other. 

Below: what a sad sight - seeing the bus stops right outside your workplace disappear for ever. At 10am the crews came in to start dismantling Zamienie 01 and Zamienie 02 outside the Action warehouse.

From here, it's a choice of a half-kilometre walk to Zgorzała 01/02 or Starzyńskiego 01/02 in Dawidy Bankowe. As if life for a warehouse worker isn't tough enough as it is, an extra half-hour a day needs to be factored in for getting to and from work.

There's no pavement for pedestrians on the new viaduct; they are expected to cross at a dedicated footbridge with cycle path, at the other end of Zamienie. A lot more walking for local pedestrians.

Below: a footpath has been built to separate pedestrians from works traffic. I'm amazed that temporary footpaths can be built in days, and yet even something like this is better than the mud and fear that pedestrians have to contend with on ul. Karczunkowska.

Below: heading home on the first west-to-east bus to cross the new viaduct (a 715 heading for Ursynów). The driver is being briefed as to the re-routing by an employee of Pogotowie Komunikacji Miejskiej (which Google gives as 'municipal transport emergency service').

Below: OpenStreetMap is ready with the change...

Below: Google Maps is not ready. I have notified them...

It is still uncertain as to when the S7 extension will open. November 2022 the earliest, with single-lane operations on section B (between Lesznowola and Tarczyn), or September 2023 (the whole lot completed and opened in one go).

Weather notes: after a short spell of three clear days, the clouds began rolling in from the west; rain by tomorrow evening. Outlook thereafter - unsettled.

This time last year:
Future, past

This time two years ago:
Birds return to the frozen ponds

This time four years ago:
Bending the forces of physics with your will

This time six years ago:
Giving it up for Lent

This time eight years ago:
North-east of Warsaw West revisited

This time nine years ago:
Looking for answers

This time ten years ago:
Fresh powder in Warsaw's parks

This time 12 years ago:
Another Lent starts

This time 14 years ago:
Okęcie dusk

Sunshine, I need sunshine

The week has been dismal; three days of prolonged rain, three days without a walk. On Thursday, I walked back from Wierzbno after moderating a webinar - 10.4km, much of which was in the rain. Friday, like Wednesday and Tuesday, were total washouts. Great, then, was my joy as I opened the roller blinds this morning and saw a cloudless blue sky, for the first time in weeks. The overnight snow was melting. Time to get myself out, catch a train to Jakubowizna and get some fresh air - and sunshine.

 

Below: my garden, Jakubowizna, emerging from the overnight snow.

Below: moss-covered tree branch, snapped off in the wind - the greenness is as it was, untweaked in Photoshop.

Below: setting off for my walk - passing between the orchards. The dirt track is waterlogged.

Below: reaching into the zenith to catch an (increasingly rare) four-engined aircraft - this is Cargo Air Logic's Boeing 747-400F at 38,000ft over Mazovia.

Below: the canonical birches, where the orchards give way to the forest.

Below: the crossroads east of Jakubowizna, Machcin II. Look at the size of the puddles...

Below: the east end of Jakubowizna, that '50s USA vibe strong in the clear air, under the wires.

Below: the west end of Jakubowizna, half an hour before sunset. Note the moon.

Below: passing trains between Chynów and Krężel - that's the approaching lights of my train back to Jeziorki, the 16:31 from Chynów. Note the vintage military trucks on either side of the level crossing.

Less than half an hour after leaving Chynów, I'm back in W-wa Jeziorki

Below: quarter of an hour after sunset. Three cars sit in a muddy field that passes for the local Park+Ride

Bonus pics, Sunday 13 February...

Fruit Street * (ul. Owocowa); the land is prepared for new apples trees.

The railway line at the bottom of Fruit Street; a southbound InterCity train passes by at speed. Sitting in a train, looking out of the window, I'd wonder about the lives of the people I see in the passing landscapes. Looking at the passengers rushing by - what makes them journey between Warsaw and Kraków this Sunday?

Below: looking south towards the road leading to Warka. Note the waterlogged fields at the bottom

This time six years ago:
Consciousness outside the body

This time eight years ago:
Sustainability and the feminisation of business

This time nine years ago:
Lent kicks off (somewhat earlier than this year)

This time ten years ago:
Feeling at home on the ice

This time 11 years ago:
Wetlands in (a milder) winter

This time 14 years ago:
Railway miscellany

Ego, Consciousness and the Ladder of Authority

What do you make of leaders like Boris Johnson or Donald Trump? I see a vacuous rampant ego; a narcissistic bully, without a moral compass. Yet I also see an almost total detachment from the calm, quiet workings of consciousness. Consciousness that should be at the helm. From the spiritual perspective, they are empty vessels.

"Nobody has done more for Christianity or for evangelicals or for religion itself than I have" - Donald Trump, 1 October 2021.

Can a group of people - a company, a nation - accomplish great things in the absence of an ego-driven leader? "When the best leader's work is done, the people say: 'We did it ourselves'." - Lao Tzu. True leadership should be invisible. 

Biology provides the entitlement to give commands to others. We are hierarchic creatures; the Ladder of Authority stretches from the pinnacle of the pyramid to the bottom of its broad base. Over the millennia - and in particular over the past two centuries - the idea that might is right has given way to a more enlightened notion that a leader's key characteristic in a complex world should be intelligence.

 But democracy is a two-edged sword; the poorly educated can look at a Trump or a Johnson and think "he is smart", and on that basis put their X in the box. Because they don't know what 'intelligent' looks like, a blustering ego shouting  "vote for me, I'm clever, I know what I'm doing" louder than more modest candidates, have an edge in the democratic process. The more monstrous the ego, the less intelligent their supporters. 

In a work or personal situation, it's easy to walk away from toxic people. They are no good to have around. It is said 'you join a firm, but leave a manager'. But how can you walk away from an elected leader that's clearly no good for your country or for you? The United States got itself together and pushed Trump out of the White House, the only president to lose two successive popular votes. The UK has to wait until December 2024 for a chance to remove from office the worst prime minister it has ever had (unless the Conservative Party remove Johnson before then, seeing him as a liability).

The notion of 'the hierarchy' vs 'the network' is more relevant than ever in a complex world. Our greatest challenge is dealing with climate change - which will require huge sacrifices in life style among the world's well-off. This in turn requires leadership by example - not flying private jets to get up north for a photo opportunity.

The free world will be distracted from this task by simultaneously dealing with two despots - Putin and Xi Jinping, who are using strident nationalism to bolster support. This does not look like it will end well.

Can the world's conscious community work together to steer us to a better direction? Meditations against ego-led despotism? 

This time last year:
Trains and snowy days

This time two years ago:
"I wake up at five and queue for bread and soup"

This time three years ago:
Getting over this year's flu

This time four years ago:
War and the absence of war

This time six years ago:
Sensitivity to spiritual evolution

This time seven years ago:
75th anniversary of Stalin's deportations of Poles

This time eight years ago:
Peak Car (in western Europe at least)

This time eight years ago:
Pavement for Karczunkowska NOW!
[I still have to walk through mud or snow dodge speeding drivers!]

This time ten years ago:
Until the Vistula freezes over 

This time 11 years ago:
Of sunshine, birdsong and wet socks

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons

Yesterday I wrote about the the immobile (nieruchomość) and the moveable (meble); today I want to talk about fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and me. I kick off with the quote from T.S. Eliot's J. Alfred Prufrock that often passes through my head as I spoon the ground coffee into the espresso machine for another morning's cup of Lavazza.

It's not just spoons of coffee in which I tend to measure out my life. Sheets of toilet tissue (unbleached, uncoloured, unperfumed), bananas, teabags, handfuls of shampoo - consumption is what we do. The recycle bins - yellow and blue - filling up slowly, space optimised within, waiting in the garage until the day, once a month, when the local binfluencers start putting theirs out into the street.

Bread and cheese, fruit and veg, these are bought and consumed fresh within a couple of days, without triggering any existential thoughts. But a box of 100 teabags lasts long enough for its steady depletion to be noticed, like a calendar ticking down the days - as does the refill tin of ground coffee, getting emptier day by day until it needs to be filled up every two weeks or so. 

I watch the toilet roll slowly shrinking, unwinding down to the last sheet, after which a waddle downstairs to the store cupboard is required. How many more days will this roll last? Another one for me is bars of soap - Biały Jeleń brand oatmeal soap; as one bar gets smaller, I open a new bar and press the old one into to it, so over time there's a pyramid with the newest, biggest bar at the bottom and a tiny remaining slither of the oldest bar at the apex, and two or three intermediately sized ones in between. And then there are magnesium tablets, 500mg. One a night to stave off cramp and promote vivid and memorable dreams. I watch the blisters empty, card after card - and then another stroll to the pharmacy is called for.

We convert food into energy - physical energy and thought. We are living embodiments of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, flying forward on Time's Arrow from past to future, measurable by entropy. 

Day by day, my exercise and diet spreadsheet swells; another row of digits - portions of fresh fruit and vegetables, units of alcohol, paces walked, push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, sets of weights, plank time, squats and back extensions; conversion of food into muscular effort.

We convert money into food into energy - we convert our labour into money which we then convert into food and then into the energy and thought that is the labour that we sell to convert into money. And so it goes, in monthly cycles, into retirement - by which time we hope to be able to count on having saved enough money to be able to remove labour from the equation.

My parents - mindful of their wartime experiences - hated wasting food. My father, as an engineer, was contemptuous of waste. He was ever a conscious shopper, spending money wisely and thinking through the consequences of his purchases. A side effect was a gradual accretion of things he could not bear to throw away because they might one day come in handy (his grandsons have yet to get around to clearing out his garage!)

Saving the planet means consuming less. Conscious consumption - thinking through your purchases, big and small. Cutting waste, eking out those consumables to make them last as long as possible. Fewer coffee spoons, a smaller coffee cup, same strength but in smaller volumes. Thinner slices of bread (12mm rather than 13mm on the Lidl in-store bakery slicing machine). One more slice per loaf.

Every little counts. Until the last syllable of recorded time. Until the last cell of the spreadsheet has been filled in.

This time six years ago:
Make do and mend

This time eight years ago:
The A-Z of my online world

This time ten years ago:
Life and Death in the Shadow of the El - A short story, part I

This time 11 years ago:
Transwersalka in midwinter

This time 12 years ago:
Work starts on the S79/S2 (completed autumn 2013)

This time 14 years ago:
Crazy customised Skoda

Twenty years in Jeziorki

On 6 February 2002, I returned from a day-trip to Kraków with the children to our brand new house. We had just moved in that day, some two and half years after buying the land and having the house built. It was not yet ready - for the first few weeks, the builders were still living downstairs finishing the kitchen and bathroom.

Twenty years... the longest under one roof ever. Here's where I have lived - with the exception of my student days at Warwick University (and off-campus in Coventry), I have lived around ten miles (16km) from the centre of a European capital city.

• Croft Gardens, Hanwell - 12 years 7 months
• Cleveland Road, West Ealing - 6 years 5 months
• [Warwick University, on campus and off - 3 years 9 months]
• Cleveland Road, West Ealing - 2 years 4 months
• Ribchester Avenue, Perivale - 14 years 9 months
• ul. Gajdy, Pyry - 4 years 6 months
• ul. Trombity, Jeziorki - 20 years today [including three summers in Jakubowizna]

This milestone is spiritually significant; for me, it shows the depths of roots, and my attachment to place. Five-eighths of my life in the UK, three-eighths of it in Poland. In my dreams, the two become blended; Pitshanger Park with Warsaw's skyline beyond, the other night, or taking a bus from Ealing to Jeziorki with my dad, via Acton and Shepherd's Bush. I'm from here and I like it here.

Below: photos from above - spring 2011, summer 2021. Note photovoltaic panels on the roof, one car less.

After 20 years in Jeziorki, the house feels comfortable. There was a small remont in 2017, mainly focused on the attic (much thicker insulation). Kitchen appliances - fridge, freezer (Bosch) and clothes dryer (Miele) still OK, washing machine (Bosch) replaced by an LG two years ago, and Bosch dishwasher replaced by another Bosch at Christmas. The new appliances are far more economical on energy than the old ones. The central heating boiler (Junkers) is due for replacement soon. No other problems to report. Furniture - most of the Ribchester Ave stuff has gone (with the exception of the sofa bed, beautifully refurbished in cream leather by Verson of Nowa Iwicnza). Kitchen chairs, scratched to pieces by cats, will remain (as any replacements are also likely to be scratched to pieces by cats).

The garden's still lovely, the moles still at bay.

Jeziorki itself has changed over 20 years but not radically; no major housing developments - either small estates of up to 12-15 houses, or individual detached-house builds. We now have town sewers (since 2013) but still lack a pavement along ulica Karczunkowska. Public transport is decidedly better, but the rapid expansion of Warsaw's exurbs, beyond the city's borders, mean traffic jams are just as bad as they were.

The planned development of some 2,500 flats under the government's Mieszkanie Plus scheme seems to have come to nought; I worry that its scheme to build a massive airport a third of the way between Warsaw and Łódź in Baranów might mean that Okęcie is closed, and with it the reason for the special zoning of Jeziorki (no buildings over 12m high) will disappear. Still, this is in the far future, and this government's track record on major infrastructure projects is poor. I hope that in 20 years' time, Jeziorki will be as green as it is today.

This time last year:
Winter walk around Jakubowizna

This time two years ago:

Holidays delight me not

This time three years ago: 

Smolna, Tamka, Skarpa in B&W

This time five years ago:
15 years under one roof

This time seven years ago:
Białystok: Ipswich of the East 

This time eight years ago:
Sadness at the death of Tadeusz Mosz 

This time nine years ago:
Interpreting vs. translating vs. explaining

This time ten years ago:
More than just an Iluzjon 

This time 11 years ago:
Oldschool photochallenge

This time 12 years ago:
Warsaw's wonderful nooks and crannies

This time 14 years ago:
Viaduct to the airport at ul. Poleczki almost ready

Another canonical dream fits the picture

Dream-logging is an excellent exercise. Now starting the 14th month thereof. After six nights sleeping with my head towards the north, I could tell that my dreams were becoming less vivid, less memorable. Going to bed too late also has a negative impact on dream quality. Last night then, I reversed polarity and went to sleep at 22:00, my pillow at the southern end of the bed. And bingo.

I wake at 02:20 to record the following dream... "It is 1930s America. I am around 17, 18 years old. I have an old Model T Ford that I have restored to working order, and I have an idea. I might not be legally allowed to drive it on the roads, but within the borders of the National Park - I would. I could make money driving visitors from the gate to the start of the trail, I could make money delivering goods within the park. There's a knock at the front door that disturbs my planning. I peek through the window – three of my classmates have come for me – it's not good. I work out my strategy. Get aggressive with the small, weak one. The middle one - punch him in the face when he's not expecting it. The big, strong one – he'll respect me for that move and back off. The three of them will retreat... I open the door and wake up."

An interesting dream that fits into a pattern of what I would call 'past-life' dreams. These line up the three classical unities of time, place and action; there is no disjunctive cognition (bizarre, out-of place objects or people). The dream runs realistically, convincingly. 

So here they are - my canonical past-life dreams, dreamt over several decades of my life - the dreams that Freud called the 'Big Dreams'.

The Dust Bowl dream: 1930s; Kentucky? My mother and I can see what looks like a mile-high wall of dust on the horizon, advancing inexorably towards our small farm house. She gets me to help her fold the table cloth and the bedding and put them into a secure trunk, closing all the window and shutters. Our dog is in the corner, whining in fear. My father had recently passed.

The State Fair dreams: 1930s: Kentucky? I'm looking across a huge field from a gate, knowing that in a few days, the field will be full of tents and stands and attractions, barkers and hucksters - the State Fair! In another one, I'm outside an attraction. A throng of people pressing forward to get in. There's a girl in front of me, a year or two older. I'm pushed forward against her – I feel a rising erection. She can feel it – without looking round at me, she starts wiggling her ass up and down - amazing! I never get to see her face, but it's an amazing moment for a young teenager like me. Also (I had three 'State Fair' dreams, in another, I was tasting 'wheat-flavoured' ice cream from a stand promoting U.S. Wheat).

The Restored Truck dream: I'm a teenager on the farm. There's a WW1-era Mack Bulldog, grey in colour, in a neighbour's barn. I manage to fix the engine and get it back to life, a sense of immense satisfaction at my mechanical skills as it finally turns over and starts, a throaty roar amid a cloud of dense smoke. I drive it in a circle around the field outside.

The Bonded Warehouse dream: my teenage gang breaks into a bonded warehouse to steal liquor and cigarettes. On our way out, the security guard at the gate wakes up - I almost kill the dozy fat old man by banging his head repeatedly on the ground before my friends drag me away, fearful of being caught as accessories to murder.

The Racetrack dream. The year is 1939 or 1940; America (Kentucky? Ohio? West Virginia? Maryland? Pennsylvania?), a racetrack. Horse racing. I was standing alone, on the outside, not allowed in, as a minor, almost grown-up, but missing a year or two. Betting and alcohol. The grandstands were in a modern  building; turnstile entry. A noisy crowd milling around outside. Getting dark, the track and the plaza around the entrance and parking lot were floodlit with harsh lighting. Billboards, lit from above. The wet ground littered with discarded betting slips. I'd manage to get me a bottle of beer – Rolling Rock. But I wasn't going to get allowed in – and I knew it. So I just stood there, sipping beer, between the grandstand. Lots of people entering and leaving the racetrack. Starting to rain; getting cold.

The Call-Up dream: It's 7 June 1944, the day after D-Day. I'm in the back of a 6x6 truck along with a group of young men, in military uniform, though bearing no insignia yet. We're heading south for a camp for our basic training. I have just left my girlfriend, her name is Kelly Kamen, she is of Russian-Jewish parentage. A haircut is due.

The Silver Aircraft dream: It's summer 1945, I am wading ashore towards a Pacific island at low tide shortly after the Marines have taken it from the Japanese. I am in a long line of men carrying wooden crates from a landing vessel to the beach. Inside are engine parts, other supplies for repairing planes. In the deep blue sky, I can see formations of shiny silver bombers heading for Japan at high altitude.

The Return Home dream: October 1945. Our ship berths in San Diego, back from the Pacific War. The men want to go home. My mother died while I was away; I'm in no rush. A group of us decide to hit a brothel in Mexicali before splitting up and going home. We go – it's night, I take up with a woman who's wearing a pink rubber swim-suit.

The Zig Zag dream: I wake in a wooden hotel, called 'Zig Zag', in a town called 'Zig Zag'. Blood is dripping from the ceiling. I go to investigate the room upstairs and find a decapitated body. I have no recollection of the night before, and I flee, fearing I might have done this while drunk. [Next morning I googled it and found the Zig Zag Inn in Zig Zag, Oregon]

The Floatplane Theft dream: mid-1950s; it's night, lakes; parked up by a wooden jetty is a Cessna floatplane; I have the desire to steal it. I am trained to fly aircraft; having slipped the mooring rope, I break into the cabin; the door's not even locked. But having no flashlight, I can't find the magneto switch that I need to flip to begin the process of starting the engine. I slink off, disappointed.

The 'Mr. Martin' dream: I am hovering about seven or eight feet over my body in a modern-looking hospital, a long three-story white building set among pines. It's about 3am. A nurse stands at the foot of my bed, looking at a clipboard, and thinking: "Mr. Martin, you will not live until the morning." I'm thinking that it's tactless of her to think such a thought.

Over the years, a pattern is emerging, one that fits my past-life flashbacks that come to me when I'm wide awake; moments of congruence - anomalous memories of qualia from another time and another place. It's not a particularly strong phenomenon, but one I've noted since childhood – certainly from around the age of four or five. These exomnesia (or xenomnesia) events snap back with a joyous precision and clarity. I have several on average a month, of varying intensity and duration (though most short – cutting at the moment I start to reflect upon them).

You may not be convinced, but I am; the flashbacks are pleasant and familiar, and offer intimations of lives past. The dreams – some pleasant, some not – that dovetail in spacetime with the flashbacks, while offering something more than just qualia memories – actual events.

Experiencing this phenomenon all my life suggests how a life yet to come may manifest itself. The future boy who feels a strange connection with the second half of the 20th century in London and the first half of the 21st century in Warsaw. Stronger than before, more understanding, more enlightened – the soul moving into a new container on its eternal journey from Zero to One.

This time two years ago:
Knowing what 'good' looks like

This three years ago:
Sewer system extended up Trombity

This time four years ago:
What Happened at the Railway Inn (Part II)

This time seven years ago:
Demand and inequality in the global economy

This time eight years ago:
Sorry, takie mamy koleje

This time nine years ago:
Visit to Warsaw's Jewish Cemetery

This time ten years ago:
Under Rondo Dmowskiego 

This time 11 years ago:
My Most favourite bridge

This time 12 years ago:
Street lighting under the snow

This time 13 years ago:
Ul. Poloneza - archival video before the S2 was built

This time 14 years ago:
Aerial juxtaposition over Jeziorki