2023 - my tenth year in numbers

On New Year's Day 2014 I realised I was getting a bit fat around the middle and I should really be taking better care of myself physically. So I decided to keep a daily record of my exercise and diet in a spreadsheet. Today marks the tenth anniversary of doing this, which some might say smacks of being along the autism spectrum disorder - but so what? It works. Or at least - it has done until now (I don't wish to tempt fate by being complacent. Who knows what the future might bring?).

Walking

I was nicely on target to crack 2019's record when Covid confined me indoors for eleven days. So - better luck next year. Moderate-to-high intensity walking, according to my Huawei health app (the only thing I use my oldest phone for - disconnected now from the GSM network), is up to 50 minutes a day, double where it was in 2019. Nordic walking poles help here! Over the past ten years, I have walked over 20,200 miles (32,550 km) in total, averaging over 11,150 paces a day, every day, since 1 January 2014. According to Samsung's health app (connected to the network), I'm in the top 4% of all users.

Drinking

I have massively reduced by alcohol intake - in 2014, the first year of measuring, it was 33.4 units per week, so it must have been more than that in the days before I began to measure. This year, like last year, I managed to get below the NHS guideline limit of 14 units per week (2 units = 50ml of vodka at 40%, or 150ml of wine at 13.5%, or half a litre of beer at 4%). I achieved this by only drinking socially (family Zoom calls included). Zero alcohol for over two-thirds of year, which of course includes Lent. Two consecutive days a week with no alcohol, another rule.

Physical exercise

Sadly, the four days during which I was laid low with Covid meant that I'd not beat last year's record of nine days with no physical training. Illnesses excepted, these are often the result of business trips where early starts and late finishes precluded the possibility of any sets of exercises across the day. Still, in most categories, 2023 was the strongest-performing year to date. [Numbers highlighted in gold = record year.]

Measurable and manageable
	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Paces (daily average)	11.0k	11.4k	12.0k	11.1k	11.2k	11.6k	11.9k
Moderate to high  intensity (mins)	N/A	N/A	24	30	35	44	50
Alcohol drunk (units/week)	20.8	19.7	18.5	15.5	14.1	13.7	13.6
Dry days over course of year	186	196	198	208	231	234	249
Days with zero physical training	83	27	17	11	22	9	10
Press-ups/day	25	60	90	83	20	23	26
Pull-ups/day	2	7	5	11	11	12	6
Sit-ups/day	N/A	N/A	N/A	16	19	25	33
Sets of weights exercises/day	2.1	2.2	2.3	2.4	1.1	1.6	2.5
Squats/day	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	28	40	45
Sets of back extensions/day	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	0.3	1.3	2.8
Plank time (min: sec/day average)	N/A	N/A	3:40	4:11	4:21	4:58	5:55
Portions fresh fruit & veg/day	5.0	5.2	5.3	5.4	6.1	6.3	6.7

Exercises, described

Press-ups: focus on quality over quantity (hence much lower numbers than in earlier years). To qualify, the body must go down to the floor so the nose touches it; then up with arms fully locked at the elbows.

Pull-ups: again, proper sort, so fewer. From 'full-dangle' position, up to chin touching the bar, then down to full-dangle, then repeat. My record (only achieved twice this year) is eight in one go.

Sit-ups: feet wedged under the sink, knees bent, back flat on floor, then sit up, right elbow touching left knee, then down, back flat on floor, then sit up, with left elbow touching right knee.

Weights: with two x 5kg dumbbells, one set of each: 10 x lateral raises, 10 x internal rotator cuff, 10 x external rotator cuff, repeat that lot two or three times, plus 30 back-bends with dumbbells in hand. 

Squats: standing upright, heels raised, squat right down, stand up straight again, repeat (typically do this while kettle boils).

Back extensions: lying stomach-down on my ZemBord™; legs rise up behind back like a scorpion's sting, moving centre of gravity, causing me to rock forward until my nose touches the ground. Hands behind head. (More here about the apparatus and the exercise) One set = eight forwards and backwards.

Plank: holding myself up by forearms, toes on the ground, back absolutely straight. Record time eight minutes and 15 seconds; more usually, two lots of three minutes with a short break in between.

Portions of fresh fruit and veg: self explanatory. One portion = 80g. Daily staples: apple (or fresh-pressed apple juice); banana, cherry tomatoes, berries, spinach, beetroot, chickpeas or lentils or beans, parsnip, grapefruit and/or orange/tangerines.

So - tomorrow starts another year, and having set myself the goal of beating last year, and being a stronger and fitter man aged 67 than I was at 66, off we go, getting on with it… May it remain thus for a long time to come.


This time last year:
2022: A year in numbers

This time two years ago:
2021: A year in numbers

This time three years ago:

2020 - a year in numbers

This time four years ago
2019 - a year in numbers

This time five years ago:
2018- a year in numbers

This time six years ago:
2017 - a year in numbers

This time seven years ago:
2016 - a year in numbers

This time eight years ago:
2015 - a year in numbers

This time nine years ago:
Economic forecasts for 2014 - and 2015?

This time ten years ago:
Economic predictions for 2014

This time 11 years ago:
Economic predictions for 2013

This time 12 years ago:
Economic predictions for 2012

This time 13 years ago:
Classic cars, West Ealing

This time 14 years ago:
Jeziorki 2009, another view

This time 15 years ago:
Jeziorki 2008, another view

This time 16 years ago:
Final thoughts for 2007

An Alternative Theology

The following thought occurred to me as I strolled towards Sułkowice today.

God does not exist. 

God did exist. 

God will exist. 

Let me explain...

Once upon a time, believed by scientific consensus to have been 13.8 billion years ago, God, the Cosmos, had reached the Fullness, the Apogee, the Completeness, the Finality. The Cosmos was Perfect. Everything in the Universe had been Achieved. The Total Awareness of All; God in All, All in God; the Cosmos bathed in unalloyed Love. All that there is to be Known and Understood is finally Known and Understood. There is nothing more to strive for…

…And at that precise moment …the Big Bang occurs.

The omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, loving God is no more. All that's left within the rapidly expanding ball of plasma are the beginnings of what would become a myriad particles polarised into existence - a myriad consciousnesses - all striving, once more, toward God. God, having been the Completeness, now becomes the Purpose, the Reason, the Relevance. Having picked itself up, the Cosmos knows its direction, and moves towards the Light…  

Think of God as a Work in Progress. Suffering, tragedy and evil can now be explained not by an indifferent and uncaring God, but by one that is simply - as yet - incomplete.

Having reached One, the Cosmos has been reset once more to Zero, and a new journey from Zero to One is now under way.

We are, scientifically speaking, 13.8 billion years along that road; during that time, stars and galaxies have formed; matter has coalesced into a spectrum of elements from which sentient life has come to be, absorbing and benefiting from the cosmic background consciousness that unobservably permeates the entire observable universe. This is the substrate upon which our individual consciousnesses exist and develop.

Fragments of the Unity of God are to be found across the Cosmos, each one growing once more, reaching out, gaining in understanding and wisdom, uniting, forming, reforming, amalgamating; sometimes erring, sometimes blundering, but slowly and inexorably moving onward towards that Cosmic moment of unity, of completeness, when God finally becomes omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. For the shortest fraction of a second. Indeed, for the shortest possible unit of time, the Planck time (5.4 x 10^-44 seconds, the time it takes a photon to cover one Planck length, which is 1.6 x 10^-35 metres). I feel this scientific concept needs to be woven into an integral part of our spiritual understanding - the material world of matter in spacetime, and the spiritual world of mind, consciousness, soul - are one.

The journey from Zero to One is not being supervised by a supreme deity and arbiter; we are all in the journey from Zero to One individually and together, striving to reach God-ness. Each in their own way, but each towards the one goal. Spiritual evolution, towards the perfection that is God.

The fact that I can posit and publish such a thought without fear of the Holy Inquisition shows that we are nearer to One than we once were. Over time, our thinking will become more refined, more nuanced, closer to God - but there's an eternity still to go. 

I believe in God in the same way that I believe a caterpillar will one day reach its fulfilment and become a butterfly.

This time last year:
From the Long Review of 2022, Pt IV

This time two years ago:
S2 tunnel under Ursynów opens

This time three years ago:
The first year of Covid-19

This time four years ago:
Last night in Ealing, twenty-teens
[A strangely prophetic post, suitably dream-like in quality]

This time five years ago:
The Day the World Didn't End

This time eight years ago:
Hybrid driving - the verdict

This time ten years ago:
Pitshanger Lane in the sun

This time 14 years ago:
Miserable, grey, wet London

This time 15 years ago:
Parrots in Ealing

This time 16 years ago:
Heathrow to Okęcie

New bridge over the Czarna river

Not much new has appeared infrastructure-wise this year around Chynów; some fresh asphalt appeared around Dąbrowa Duża and Machcin, and there's a footpath between Chynów station and the village of Widok. The biggest project of 2023 around the gmina was the replacement of the road bridge over the Czarna river between Sułkowice and Ławki, south of Gabryelin. For much of the spring and summer, detours were in place, causing much local inconvenience. Although the new bridge was open to traffic earlier this autumn, something I could see from the train, today marked my first visit there on foot to record it.

Below: here it is, with the railway line beyond (between Sułkowice and Czachówek Południowy). Note the steps down to the the river level.

Below: from the river bank. Note the coppiced willow on the other side, so characteristic of Mazovia.

Below: looking south from the bridge towards Sułkowice station (just about visible in the far distance). The river level is high; will it freeze solid this winter? Traipsing out over the ice opens new perspectives, but it must be done with care - a deep frost for a week usually is sufficient. I would very much like to explore the wetlands on the other side of the railway line - but only if the ice is thick enough.

Looking at the bridge from the north as a tractor passes over it - local farm traffic, what this bridge was intended for.

Below: coming off the bridge, heading east towards the road to Sułkowice. New asphalt, at least on this side of the river. I suspect the roadworks across on the other side will mean some time next spring some more connectivity for local traffic, which at the moment is condemned to dirt tracks.

Left: ulica Południowa (lit. 'South Street'), though this is not (yet) actually Ławki, which begins across the river at a point where the borders of three gminy (municipalities) touch - Chynów, Góra Kalwaria and Prażmów. 

Ławki literally means 'little benches'. More about this area, and the old bridge, from February, here.

It's small-scale infrastructure projects such as this, which year after year after year improve the quality of rural life across Poland, connecting communities, making life easier. The alternative - decay and resignation, Russian style.

This time last year:
The Long Review of 2022 - Pt. III

This time two years ago:
The Person Who Contemplates Not.

This time five years ago:
2018 - a year in journeys

This time 11 years ago:
Wise words about motoring

This time 12 years ago:
Hurry up and wait with WizzAir at Luton

Back out in the open

After 11 days without a walk, cooped up indoors (comfortably, I must say), it was time to put on my parka and my Ukrainian army boots and set off for a stroll. Eleven days without a walk, but only four days with zero exercise (I felt well enough to do push-ups, squats, weights etc after day five).

Below: my favourite landscape, down the end of the road and round the corner. No apologies for repeated postings of photographs taken of this local feature.

Below: the BP station in Nowe Grobice is no more; over Christmas it has been rebranded as Transoil. I guess a re-opening in the new year with a new franchisee. Wonder whether the grocery shop (open 24/7) will improve... This is just a 3,000 pace/30 minute walk from the działka, so I am hoping for a local retail upgrade.

[Update, 6 February 2024 - the re-branded Transoil station is still not open.]

Below: sunset is now seven minutes later than the year's earliest; here's Chynów railway station on Boxing Day.

Today's stroll - I take in a sunset through the trees in Jakubowizna, below. Just a pinprick of light through the pine trees. Click to enlarge.

And at the other end of the village - moonrise!

Below: moon rising above the orchard at the end of my garden.

There is Certainty; there is Doubt. But there is also ennui, Weltschmertz, and gnuśność. Doubt I can cope with; but a virus-induced lack of get-up-and-go needs dealing with. 

"Jesus saith unto him, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk. 9 And immediately the man took up his bed, and walked." 

This time last year:
The UK's year of Two Monarchs, Three Premiers and Four Chancellors

This time two years ago:
Wintery gorgeousness and filthy air

This time three years ago:
Jakubowizna - moonrise kingdom

This time six years ago:

Rural sunlight, Derbyshire

This time nine years ago:
Derbyshire in the snow

This time ten years ago:
Is Britain over-golfed?

This time 12 years:
Everybody's out on the road today

This time 13 years ago:
50% off and nothing to pay till June 2016

My Covid experience

One thousand, three hundred and eighty-three days after the first case of Covid-19 is registered in Poland, I finally catch the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Or rather, the SARS-CoV-2 virus caught me. After more than three and half years, my luck ran out - probably the result of complacency (not wearing a mask despite evidence that infection rates were rising dramatically).  I took the Covid test twice, last Saturday (day four) and Thursday (day eight); both gave the two-line positive result.

Where did I get it? I somehow think that it was on board the local train from Zielona Góra to Zbąszynek, the Gęsiarz - crowded, lots of older people, lots of coughing and general air of malaise about the passengers.

Now, SARS - and I had forgotten this - means Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome; yet after ten days with the virus, I can say that in my case it was neither severe, nor was it acute, nor was it respiratory - I just felt muscle ache and fatigue with fever for the first four-five days; the rest of the time spent slowly recovering.

In the summer, I bought a pulse oximeter; testing my blood oxygen levels throughout this infection, at no point did the readings fall below 96%. Excellent result! A very slight cough, some very slight nasal congestion, no runny nose. The first few days had me shivering with cold (despite being in a warm kitchen and bedroom); I'd go to sleep with a t-shirt under my pyjamas and a woollen jumper on top. No significant fever dreams to report though. Flashbacks to February 1976, a heavy flu episode ahead of my university interviews. Just that it's taking such a long time to shake off...

Another interesting thing struck me. Nothing I have experienced over these days felt new or unusual to me - all symptoms were entirely familiar to me since childhood. Covid doesn't feel strange or novel.

Soundtrack to this bout of illness - Country Life by Roxy Music, released 49 years ago - at the time of its release, I took this to be another step away from the sublime peaks of Roxy Music and For Your Pleasure, vacuous pop tunes lacking the otherworldly strangeness that Brian Eno's input delivered. Over the years, however, I have acquired a liking for the second and third post-Eno Roxy LPs, considering Siren to have the edge. Stranded beats both though.

The first onsets of my symptoms coincided exactly with the health ministry's daily figures hitting their peak for the current wave of Covid-19 infections, with a seven-day rolling average of 2,649 cases announced on Thursday 14 December. Since then, the numbers have been retreating. Of course, this is merely the number of cases notified to the healthcare services that require intervention. Deaths peaked a week later (21 December) at 23 a day (seven-day rolling average), a far cry from the 600 deaths a day from mid-April 2021. Given the large numbers of family, friends and colleagues all under the weather with either Covid or regular flu, I can assume that the health ministry's data is out by three orders of magnitude and that right now, at least three million Poles are nursing Covid symptoms.

My biggest regret in all this is that I have had to stay indoors, so no walks for ten days, which means that having been on target for beating my 2019 record for walking, I'll be significantly down on my 12,200 paces/day ambition for 2023. And there were four days with zero exercise (on top of six earlier in the year, usually the result of work travel rather than laziness) when I felt most crap. So December has scuppered my plans to have made 2023 my healthiest year ever. In 2024, I will be another year older, so have I passed my physical peak?

This time two years ago:
Television times

This time three years ago:
New asphalt for Jeziorki - or Dawidy?

This time six years ago:
What did you do in the First World Cyber-War?

This time seven years ago:
Solstice sunset, Gogolińska

This time 12 years ago
Extreme fixie

This time 14 years ago:
Poland's worst railway station

This time 15 years ago:
Last Christmas before the Recession?

At the nadir

Covid Day Eight. The bastard virus will not go away. Latest test shows I'm still Covid positive.

Rysiek's died. Illness reigns. Family unwell. Half the office unwell. Darkness reigns - the darkest day. Solstice is at 04:28 (CET) tomorrow morning, when the sun is at its lowest declination here in the Northern Hemisphere. I've not seen sunlight for two and half weeks. Can't focus; can't hold a hopeful thought. War going Putin's way. Poland in disarray. The West in disarray. Trump in the White House next January? Nothing is going right. No inspiration, no ideas, nothing to bring joy or succour. 

Gloom outside, a leaden sky from which falls rain, and it will be dark by half past three anyway. Not left the house for eight days. I need a walk.

I'm not one for feeling sorry for myself - self-pity is an ugly trait, but I must be honest and say that I'm at my lowest ebb physiologically and psychologically for years. 

The Wheel of Fortune turns inexorably; the spiral is upward. Everything might look and feel shit right now, but life has taught me that cycles have an inevitability. It may not feel that way, but though today's shit, tomorrow will be better. Such is life.

This time last year:
Last good day of 2022

This time two years ago:
The Year of the Phenomenon

This time four years ago:
Sentimental stroll - streets of my childhood

This time five years agor
Streets of my childhood
[I did the same walk exactly a year earlier]

This time six years ago:
Jeziorki - swans and bonus shots

This time eight years ago:
A conspiracy to celebrate

This time nine years ago:
The Mythos and the Logos in Russia

This time ten years ago:
Going mobile - my first smartphone

This time 11 years ago:
The world was meant to end today 
[It may not have ended, but it was a tipping point in history.]

This time 12 years ago:
First snow - but proper snow?

The time 13 years ago: 
Dense, wet, rush hour snow

This time 14 years ago:
Evening photography, Powiśle

This time 15 years ago:
The shortest day of the year

This time 16 years ago:
Bye bye borders - Poland joins Schengen

Pain and questions of loss

Rysiek Szydło died last night; the cancer finally got him. Dreadful, dreadful news. Heart-breaking. Rysiek had battled all the way with fortitude, he had documented his journey via social media. His openness made clear to all of us luck enough to have had no such experience in life so far just how it felt - the pain and nausea of regular medical intervention, the worry, and - towards the end - the inevitability. The impending loss of loved ones.

When Rysiek announced that he had cancer, we all thought why? Why Rysiek of all people? He was one of the fittest people I knew, and I've known him from childhood. Cycled everywhere, vegetarian, non-smoker - so why Rysiek?

And metaphysically - why Rysiek? There was not an ounce of bad in him. The massive outpouring of grief on the news of his death is due to the large number of friends he had - no one could ever say one negative thing about him. So why Rysiek?

An exemplary human being, husband and father to three young children, deprived of him decades too early. Just before Christmas. And a contributor to society; Dr Richard Szydlo, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Immunology and Inflammation, Imperial College London. Medical research for the good of mankind, the day job.

Why? Any notion of cosmic fairness can be pitched into the mincer.

Yet another Błękitna Trójka harcerz departs. I make this the tenth death of a boy I knew from my Polish scouting days in West London. Below: Kolonia zuchowa, Stella-Plage, northern France, August 1969; Rysiek (back row, highlighted) then about the same age as his oldest son is now. 

Below: Happy times. Wales, late 1980s or early 1990s, with me on the left, Rysiek smiling as usual, and many friends – I can see Renata, Adam (swigging), Andrzej K, Nick (smoking), Andy S. Photo Ewa C-G.

Below: Rysiek's wedding, Oliwa Cathedral, Gdańsk, June 2012. Over 140 guests, 100 came over from the UK.

He leaves the most positive of memories with all of us who knew him, and all who knew him must also wrestling with the question of why Rysiek, why Rysiek of all people. I really don't know. I am deeply upset.

Memories. Cycling expeditions with Rysiek in the 1980s and '90s - Ridgeway, South Downs Way, Snowdon, Isle of Wight, Picos de Europa, Brecon Beacons and loads of weekend rides around the Chiltern Hills.

Left: Rysiek's infra-red photograph of Jeziorki, taken on 10 May 2010, an image rich in numinous, spiritual depth. The Return to Forever.

[More of Rysiek's infra-red photos of Jeziorki here.]

This time last year:
No true beauty without decay

This time last year:
James Webb Space Telescope launch

This time four years ago:

Driving the Silk Road reviewed 

This time six years ago:
Snapshots of Lublin dressed for Christmas

This time seven years ago:
The best of Warsaw's Christmas illuminations

This time eight years ago:
Changes on ul. Baletowa

This time nine years ago:
UK migration - don't blame the Poles

This time ten years ago:
Jacek Hugo Bader's White Fever: A Journey to the Frozen Heart of Siberia

This time 12 years ago 
Thoughts upon the death of the Dear Leader

This time 13 years ago:
Global warming or climate change?

UFO/UAP disclosure - current state, end-2023

It has been a momentous year in terms of UFO disclosure.

But before getting into recent events, let me start by examining the 'social contagion' scenario, which I'll admit holds some water... 

I'll skip decades of UFO history and begin with Robert Bigelow. The Nevada-based entrepreneur made hundreds of millions of dollars developing a chain of motels before moving into aerospace defence contracting. Bigelow has a deep interest in UFOs, as he does in in consciousness and its survival after death. Now, Bigelow was friends with Nevada senator Harry Reid, who went on to be Senate Majority (the later Minority) Leader. Bigelow persuaded Reid (who died in December 2021) to set up the first (officially recognised) UFO programme within the Pentagon since 1969. This was the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), initiated in 2007 by Reid when he was Senate Majority Leader. With a $22m budget, the AATIP contract was awarded to Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies. It was led by Luis (Lu) Elizondo, its task was to collect and classify encounters with UFOs made by the US military in a systematic manner. A further important figure here is Christopher Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. It was Elizondo and Mellon who secured the now-famous 'Tic Tac' video from the US Navy, recorded in 2004, which was published by the New York Times six years ago today. The story, by Leslie Kean, Ralph Blumenthal and Helene Cooper, also acknowledged the existence and budget of AATIP. The US Navy did not deny nor attempt to explain away the videos.

So - up to the start of 2023, the social contagion scenario might have been sufficient to knock the whole current UFO story on the head (accepting that the Tic Tac footage was no more that sensor error, parallax or other forms of optical distortion). From this nexus of contagion centred on Bigelow, Elizondo and Mellon, others like Harvard astronomy professor, Avi Loeb, or Stanford immunology professor, Garry Nolan, had just got in with the wrong crowd. 

But so much has happened this year to have pushed matters closer towards some form of disclosure.

None of what has happened would have happened without legislation starting with the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act passed in late 2021, which made it easier for whistleblowers to come forward to tell Congress what they know about UFOs (or, as the new term by then termed them, unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP) without fear of reprisal. On the basis of this whistleblower protection legislation, former intelligence officer and decorated serviceman, David Grusch, stepped forward in May of this year, to reveal to Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal, not only that the UFO phenomenon was real, but that the US had possession of craft and beings of non-human origin. This led directly to the historic Congressional hearing on 26 July 2023 of the US House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, entitled Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety and Government Transparency. 

Grusch's testimony, under oath, is compelling. It is hard to undermine; he is clearly a highly intelligent, articulate man who knows what he is talking about. All the debunkers could say by way od rebuttal was "he showed us no proof". And he also knows where to draw the line in terms of national security.

The Congressional hearing, at which Grusch was accompanied by Commander David Fravor, who encountered the Tic Tac-shaped UFO in 2004, and Lt Ryan Graves, another US Navy fighter pilot whose squadron had many UFO sightings in 2014/15, led to the Schumer-Rounds amendment to the 2024 NDAA.

The draft amendment, proposed by Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer - who had taken on Harry Reid's mantle - had bipartisan support, being jointly proposed by Republican Mike Rounds, as well as Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand. Sixty-four pages long, the original version of the amendment would have forced private aerospace contractors, who are said to hold craft and 'biologics' of non-human origin, to hand them over to Congressional oversight. Full text of the original draft, passed by the Senate, here. If enacted, the legislation would have compelled the National Archives to collect all federal government records on UFO sightings and make them available to the public. It would have forced government agencies, such as the Department of Defense, the CIA, the Department of Energy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency etc, to submit their UAP data to an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection, and it would have given the government powers of eminent domain over non-human craft and biologics held by private industry.

The draft amendment was passed by the Senate before moving to the House of Representatives, where it was effectively neutered. Influential voices with links to major aerospace facilities, such as Representatives Mike Turner (Dayton, Ohio, home to the Wright-Patterson Airforce Base) and Mike Rogers (whose largest campaign contributor was Lockheed Martin), helped water down the language in the legislation. Currently awaiting President Biden's signature, the 2024 NDAA no longer calls for an independent, Senate-confirmed review board with subpoena powers to be set up, nor for a professional staff to search out records, nor for meaningful resources with which to carry out such as task. Also missing is the 'eminent domain' clause, which means that the US government could legally take control of such non-human craft and beings as are in the hands of the defence contractors.

If you feel the need to dive in deeper, the original version is here (64 pages), and the emasculated current version is here (21 pages).

But still - if there's nothing to see - if there's no such thing as non-human craft zipping around our atmosphere while being recorded by the US military's myriad sensors, why did congressmen linked to aerospace contractors fight so hard to water down the legislation's wording? If there are no craft of non-human origin sitting on those contractors' premises - what's their problem?

We come round again to the notion of ontological shock and mankind being emotionally, intellectually, and indeed, spiritually ready to accept the fact that we are not alone as intelligent species in our solar system. The process of acclimatising humanity is one that should be gradual. 

I mentioned Garry Nolan. He is a founder of the Sol Foundation, which held its first conference last month. A presentation was made here by Lt Col. Karl Nell, former deputy chief of staff for strategic planning at the U.S. Army Reserve, about how disclosure should be handled over a ten-year time scale. He presented a phase-by-phase plan as to how acceptance by science and society would be reached, avoiding 'catastrophic disclosure'. This, I think is crucial. By January 2035, it will all be out in the open. How will you cope? I for one will have questions of a deeply spiritual and philosophical nature...

This time eight years ago:
A tiny bit of pavement for Karczunkowska

This time 11 years ago:
Welcome to the machine, Mr Kaczyński

This time 13 years ago:
'F' is for 'Franco', not 'Fascist' [Prescient post!]

This time 15 years ago:
Christmas lights: all in the best possible taste

This time 16 years ago:
Letter from Russia

A mind-blowing dream

I feel like I'm in my old bedroom in our house on Cleveland Road - but is it? It's bigger - the furniture is in the wrong place. My bed is pointing the wrong way. It's night, I'm woken by some sort of alarm going off in the house. My brother/my son (a common composite character from my dreams set in my earlier days) has inadvertently set if off. I jump out of bed. My father is in the corridor, tapping at the keyboard. Not only does he manage to switch it off, he also rectifies the intermittent fault that caused it. He walks into my room and explains in a calm and gentle voice that the alarm has been fixed. I look at my father's face; it is at least 20 years younger than how I remember him before his death. And I look around the room. Could this be that posh house on Edgehill Road that my parents couldn't quite afford back in 1970? 

In Your Dreams

I later learned that had my father only known that he'd be soon be getting a company car, my parents would have been able to afford it. Very nice. Big, quality, 1930s house. In my dream, I feel I have stepped into an alternative universe...

I ask my father about this paradox. Am I looking at a life that could have turned out that way? He looks at me, giving me a knowing smile, and nods. No, tak ("Well, yes"), he replies.

At that particular moment my father are both engulfed in a rapidly expanding ball of Cosmic love, exploding in white brilliance like a Big Bang. I feel the most profound sense of love for my father, I feel his profound sense of love for me, I feel the Cosmos radiating profound love in all directions and all dimensions.

The sensation is so powerful that it wakes me. I'm sitting bolt upright in my bed in Jakubowizna, gasping with emotion at what I had just experienced. And then something struck me as I replayed the scene in my mind. In the dream, my father's forehead was shiny and smooth - he was bald - as bald as me - in this version, no unruly grey fringe. I look at my phone. It's 02:00 am.

After pondering this dream - this amazing phenomenon, I glide back into a deep sleep.

In the morning, I recalled a dream that my father told me about; he had had it just weeks before his death... 

His brother Józio had survived the Warsaw Uprising and ended up living in London... except he didn't go to our church at the Polish Catholic Centre (POK) in West Ealing. He went to another church in another parish. One Sunday, Dziadzio drove his brother to that other church, dropped him off outside, then returned to POK. While he was driving back, he remembered that the clocks had gone back, and so Józio would be waiting outside that other church for an hour... In another parallel universe?

This time last year:
Utter, utter gorgeousness

This time two years ago:
Hoar frost and proper ice, Jeziorki

This time five years ago:
Alcohol, servant not master

This time eight years ago:

Classic car quiz, 2015

This time nine years ago:

Classic British Car Quiz, 2014

This time ten years ago:

The poet's gift - an exploration into Why One Writes

This time 11 years ago:

Advertising H&M on Warszawa Centralna station

This time 12 years ago:

Jeziorki in the snow

This time 16 years ago:

Staying Underground: Piccadilly Circus

Mixed impressions from Zielona Góra

I have mixed feelings about Zielona Góra, which with Gorzów Wielkopolski, is one of the twin capitals of the Lubuskie province. From the time of the administrative reform of 1999, Lubuskie and Opolskie made little sense to me, neither historically, geographically or logically. (About Opolskie I wrote here). It seemed the Polish legislators, who had been working on this reform for the best part of a decade, didn't want to return to the Stalin-era administrative split (14 voivodships), and party-political horse-trading ended up creating a further two. Opole was a sop to Poland's German minority. Living too far east to qualify for wholesale deportation, to this day around a fifth of the voivodship's population self-identifies as German (i.e. having German as their first language). So I can kind of see that.

But Lubuskie is weird. It has two capitals, Zielona Góra, where the elected provincial authority meets, and Gorzów Wielkopolski, seat of the centrally-appointed provincial governor. Note the name - Gorzów Wielkopolski, suggesting it's proper place is neighbouring Wielkopolska voivodship. Also, I'm sure many foreigners are confused by one province of Poland called Lubelskie in the east and another called Lubuskie in the west of the country. Lubelskie is named after Lublin (pop. 330,000) - Polish as far back as history records, a royal city of the Crown Kingdom of Poland. But Lubuskie is named after Lubusz or Lebus across the Oder River in Brandenburg. Lebus/Lubusz is a German town with a population 100 times smaller than Lublin's. So why Lubuskie province even exists is a mystery to me, unless the answer is indeed some sort of compromise that results from political horse-trading.

Anyway - Zielona Góra. Founded by the Piast dynasty in the 13th century, it became part of Habsburg Bohemia in the 16th century, taken by Prussia in the 18th century, incorporated into Germany with unification in 1870 - and so it stayed until it was ceded to Poland in 1945. The bulk of the city centre

Today Zielona Góra has a population of around 140,000, making it Poland's 24th-largest city; if you lump the Katowice metropolitan area as one vast agglomeration (which it is) then Zielona Góra rises to 19th place. It is bigger than its rival Gorzów Wielkopolski (pop. 120,000 / Poland's 30th largest or 22nd with all those Silesian cities rolled into one). Yet other than a successful special economic zone, home to Patak's, Rajah and Blue Dragon sauces manufactured there by Associated British Food, Zielona Góra is not a foreign investment hotspot. There are no high-rise modern office buildings in which business-process outsourcing and shared-service centres thrive. The population of Zielona Góra and indeed the entire region are mainly descendants of Poles who had been ethnically cleansed - deported from their homes in what was pre-war eastern Poland. So - as in Szczecin, though close to the German border, there are few people here who speak German - something that foreign investors don't understand.

Because Grünberg in Schlesien surrendered to the Red Army without a fight, the city was spared widespread destruction, leaving its centre more or less untouched. And so, there is plenty of historic architecture. Some has been tastefully restored. Some is dilapidated - falling down. Some has merely been patched up, hanging on, awaiting more thoroughgoing modernisation.

Let me start with the town hall and market square - nicely done, nicely maintained. Zielona Góra offers some interesting shops - ones that in most Polish cities have been done for by specialist e-retailers. 

Below: the actual town hall - the Urząd Miasta - from which Zielona Góra is run.

Below: just outside the main station stands the Hotel Retro*** - a wonderfully European structure. Interwar, I'd guess, a regular haunt of mitteleuropäisches commercial travellers with their suitcases full of samples and wares.

Below: the Nysa cinema on Aleja Niepodległości. In the foreground, a statue to local speedway legend, Andrzej Huszcza. Speedway is big in Zielona Góra - the local team being Falubaz (named after the now-defunct cotton-carding-machine manufacturer - LUbuska FAbryka BAwełnianych Zgrzeblarek).

Left: this is stereotypically German. Multi-story, individual, yet forming a contiguous body. These poniemieckie kamienice (post-German tenement houses), are solidly 19th century, without traces of fin-de-siècle Art Nouveau (or secesja) styling.

Below: today, as before the war, the region had some minor fame for viticulture. In this 19th century room in which we had our conference, the ceiling cornices show off the city's pride in growing grapes and making wine. It suggests that wine traders would have had a prominent position in local society.

The culture of the vine, connecting this region to Europe's pleasure-seeking south, rather than the dour, beer- and spirit-drinking north, is made much of in the city's marketing. Below: fragment of a fine mural near the old market.

Just as one of Wrocław's tourist draws is its army of brass gnomes dotted around the city centre, so Zielona Góra has adopted Bacchus - pot-bellied, spindly legged and garlanded, clutching a wine goblet and bunch of grapes. Brass figurines (such as the one on the left) are there to be tracked down and ticked off along the main tourist trail. This depiction of the Roman god (Dionysus in Greek mythology) suggests a rather down-to-earth relationship between Man and Alcohol.

Below: as in most cities, there's a right side and a wrong side of the tracks; in Grünberg in Schlesien/Zielona Góra, the right side lies to the south. And just to the north, ulica Towarowa ('Goods Street' or 'Cargo Street') is this building. The shop on the corner (open? closed?) is called 'Złoty Róg', which can mean 'Golden horn' or indeed 'Golden corner'. Orange VW van lends some much-needed colour to the scene.

Below: also on ul. Towarowa, a dental clinic. Judging by its location (facing the railway line) and its appearance, I'd guess this building originally fulfilled some function related to the transportation of goods. 

Left: uncovered pre-war German ghost signs are evidence that today's western Poland no longer has any hang-ups about history (I snapped some in Wrocław and Gliwice). Anfertignung von modern Küchen = Production of modern kitchens. Below: there are still eyesores like this in the city centre, suggesting a lack of profitable projects that could tempt developers.

Left: there are plentiful signs of rising civic pride. Unveiled this September, this sculpture, Generacje, by Oscar Zięta is about technology, generational change, and dreams come true. It is also about "research and development in the area of stainless-steel stabilisation". A shame I didn't see it on a sunny day!

Below: I double-take - a bus to Chynów? Why, that's 460km due east, via Leszno, Kalisz and Łęczyca... No, this Chynów is a suburb of Zielona Góra. However, take a look at the bus and the bus stop. A modern fleet, partially electrified, e-tickets available from your phone, proper electronic signage - a big plus in the city's favour.

Just outside the railway station is the clinic for railway workers (though the sign outside suggests that it's part of the national health fund). The top floor looks like a post-1945 addition.

It didn't take too long to get back to Warsaw. Half an hour on a local train, the Gęsiarz ('goose-herd') to Zbąszynek, and the Berlin-Warsaw main line, and now just over three hours back from there.

Despite the dismal December weather (a damp, overcast 10C) I enjoyed my visit to Zielona Góra - and as with Szczecin and Świnoujście, these cities are places that most Poles have never stepped foot in, but are certainly worth going to. Though I must say I was quite unimpressed by Gorzów Wielkopolski.

This time last year:
Kraków to Jakubowizna in the snow

This time two years ago:
Frustration for the local wozidupek community

This time three years ago:
Small local milestones, Chynów station

This time four years ago:

Brexit: what next?

This time six years ago:
Kick out against change - or accept it?

This time eight years ago:
Warwick University alumni meet in Warsaw

This time nine years ago:
Pluses and minuses of PKP InterCity

This time ten years ago:
When transportation breaks down

This time 15 years ago:
Full moon closest to Earth

The little railway town on the (old) border

On my way to Zielona Góra in western Poland, I change trains at Zbąszynek. I am greeted by unusual (for Poland) railway architecture, and discover some interesting history. Below: Zbąszynek station from Rondo Św. Katarzyny Aleksandryjskiej Patronki Kolejarzy.

Below: Zbąszynek station at platform level. This is not your usual former-German railway station. Clearly built in the 20th century, it has none of the Gothic-wood-glazed-tile-and-wrought-iron look that I usually associate with railway architecture across Lower Silesia or Pomerania, usually dating back to the 19th century. Note concrete lamp standards, for example, and the shape of the platform shelter roof - the breadth of the platform with a lawn inset with decorative bushes.

Below: the booking hall - sadly, no longer selling tickets in person as of the end of October 2020, just a couple of ticket machines. 

I have half an hour before my connecting train - just long enough to venture gingerly into Zbąszynek to have a nose around. It's not just the station - the entire town was built around the railway. The history is fascinating. 

Zbąszyn (formerly Bentschen), 6km down the line to the east, was a major German railway junction prior to World War I. As a result of the border changes following the Treaty of Versailles, Bentschen became part of Poland with an important border station, with many platforms and customs sheds. Through here steamed trains from the Soviet capital, through Poland and on to Berlin and Paris. Neu-Bentschen was built by the Germans in 1923-24 as a replacement for the old railway junction that Germany had lost, and it served as the border station (grenzbahnhof) on the German side.

It was necessary to house the railway workers and customs officials and their families - several hundred in all - in the new junction town, and so Neu-Bentschen became a settlement built for the needs of the new station. Designed along modernist principles of a model garden city by architect Friedrich Viel, Zbąszynek looks and feels highly atypical for Poland. This is town planning done right

Below: here is the railwaymen's house of culture, built in the late 1920s or early '30s - I sense quite a Home Counties vibe here, a bit of Welwyn Garden City. It's certainly a long way from the typical Germanic architecture of western Poland.

...and across the road, a narrow-gauge steam loco rusts away, neglected... Interesting to note that narrow-gauge never passed through this part of Poland (nor indeed, prior to 1945, of Germany).

Heading back to the station, I am struck by the symmetry of the architecture. Conspiracy theorists might bridle at the notion of fifteen-minute cities, but it's not a new idea; town planning goes back to Ancient Athens, revived by town planners and architects in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Everything for the Deutscher Eisenbahner within a short stroll of his modern haus.

Zbąszynek merited another visit on my return from Zielona Góra. With half an hour in hand before my connection on to Warsaw, I did another tour, taking another route to catch more of this little town's unique atmosphere. Below: the modernist church, built for railwaymen and their families. Bungalows across the cobbled street - not the usual multi-story tenement housing one associates with Silesia or Pomerania, to the left, the church of the Apostles Peter and Paul.

Below: are we in the Netherlands? Is this Delft? No, Neu-Bentschen, now Zbąszynek - quite a remarkable Polish town. Ulica Kościelna.

Below: snapped from across the street, rows of bungalows with dormer-windowed attic rooms.

Below: the town hall which, as the Alte Rathaus, served its builders briefly. The Red Army entered Neu-Bentschen just 22 years later, without fight for it, so architecturally Zbąszynek has been well preserved, with no post-war fillings-in (plomby) to replace buildings destroyed by war.

Below: Pre-war railway map of western Poland. Zbąszynek/Neu Bentschen is the large dot on the border; Zbąszyn is the smaller dot to its east.

Below: Zbąszynek serves as an important junction, with rails radiating north, east, south and west. The lines to the south of the station serve as a bypass route for freight trains.

Below: so farewell then, Zbąszynek. Waiting for the Berlin-Warsaw express to arrive; on Platform 3 Track 5 a local all-stations service to Poznań is about to depart. Note the width of the platform, punctuated by a lawn and bushes. The building on Platform 2 served as a customs hall, where passengers had to open their suitcases. An attractive station, but one that needs an upgrade to bring it into line with the facilities expected in modern PKP stations.

A charming and, I daresay, unique Polish town with an interesting back story. 

This time last year:
Jakubowizna to Kraków in the snow

This time three years ago:
Solar promise dashed

This time six years ago:
Meditations on West Ealing and Change.

This time eight years ago:
Warwick University alumni meet in Warsaw

This time nine years ago:
Pluses and minuses of PKP InterCity

This time ten years ago:
When transportation breaks down

This time 15 years ago:
Full moon closest to Earth