Right-of-way cobble*

Over the past two weeks or so, a new sign has appeared at the bottom end of ulica Dworcowa in Nowe Grobice. This thoroughfare (literally 'station street') runs parallel to the railway line, from Sułkowice station to the DK50, Warsaw's southern ring-road. The last 400m or so of the 1.2km-long road is unasphalted (the asphalt stretches only to the last house along ul. Dworcowa). And this part of the road rises along with the embankment built up on either side of the tracks as it approaches the road bridge. Over the past year, the embankment has been properly shored up against erosion, with geogrid and rock. The work was completed in the autumn.

Below: ATTENTION PRIVATE PROPERTY ENTRY PROHIBITED HIGH EMBANKMENT

I call bullshit on that. This isn't private property - it's a right of way (see further down). And numerous footprints and bicycle tracks in the soft ground suggests that local folk are ignoring this.

The word wstęp - as opposed to wjazd - means all forms of entry. Wjazd would only be a prohibition on vehicular access.

Below: here's ul. Dworcowa, Sułkowice in the distance (and you can just about make out where the asphalt starts). You can also see the embankment to the left.

Left: update from one week later (Saturday 18 Feb) - this sign has appeared at the other end of this stretch, by the asphalt. Taken literally, it would prohibit access to homes. But note - this is a warning triangle, not a prohibiting circular 'no entry' sign. One for the lawyers.

Below: this is as official a map as you can get in Poland - from the gmina (municipality or commune) of Chynów. The DK50, here named ul. Grójecka, cuts through this section, the railway cuts under it, to the right of the railway runs ul. Dworcowa. All the way down to the main road. Right of way is evident - clear and unambiguous. 

Click to enlarge (the red circle marks the location of the offending sign).

I am assuming that PKP PLK (the railway infrastructure operator) has placed the sign, as a bit of dupokrycie ('arse-covering') and spychotechnika ('buck-passing') measure - should someone fall down the embankment, it's not their fault. So rather in their bureaucratic mind-set, the fact that the alternative for local pedestrians and cyclists are sent on a detour that involves an extra kilometre is not something they've considered. It's not just the distance - it's the fact that it's bloody dangerous. The alternative involves a kilometre of main road (up to the traffic lights) with no pavement, below. Photo taken on a Sunday where heavy-goods vehicle movement is (technically) prohibited. This stretch of road is infinitely more dangerous for a pedestrian than the trackside path.

Below: same stretch of road on a Saturday; truck after truck after truck. How can walking alongside such traffic be less dangerous than using the path by the railway embankment? PKP PLK doesn't care - it's somebody else's issue. It has ever been thus. Safety is not a joined-up issue.

Left: Pedestrians cross over the Warsaw-Radom line along the DK50 viaduct, rebuilt last year. There's a proper barrier to protect them against road traffic on one side and a barrier to stop them falling onto the tracks on the other. But before the barrier begins, there's that embankment entirely exposed. But again, if a pedestrian comes off the footpath and tumbles down here - it's not PKP PLK's responsibility.

I can only imagine that the people responsible for placing that sign know damn well that it will be roundly ignored by the locals. It cannot be enforced - unless the railway authorities place SOKist patrols here. Should I accost one, I'll give them an earful.

What PKP PLK should do of course is to extend a footpath/cyclepath along the last 400m of ul. Dworcowa (pavement or asphalt, with a barrier along one side if they don't think users are careful enough not to go over the edge). A sign banning people from walking or cycling along an existing road has no place here and is unacceptable.

UPDATE 11 April 2023: The authorities backed down. The sign by the main road was taken down; the sign at the other end of ul. Torowa was spray-painted over in black (presumably by residents).

* Cobble - cobblestone = moan. "Havin' a cobble about something." Cockney rhyming slang.

This time last year:
Sunshine, I need the sunshine

This time seven years ago:
Consciousness outside the body

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

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

This time 11 years ago:
Feeling at home on the ice

This time 12 years ago:
Wetlands in (a milder) winter

This time 15 years ago:
Railway miscellany

From station to destination, on foot

I have written about this before – whoever designs PKP stations pays scant regard to the needs of passengers who use them. One major fault of many Polish railway station is the lack of pedestrian access via more than one entrance. Platforms can be long – up to 12 carriages long – and for passengers seeking to reach a destination located at the wrong end of the platform, a single entrance can mean a detour of many hundreds of metres.

A glaring example of is can be found at Poznań Wschodni station. There is only one entrance/exit, to be found at the extreme eastern end of the platforms. The result for local passengers is that destinations lying to the west of the station are difficult to reach directly.

I alighted from the back of my train from Poznań Główny, and, seeing the huge difference in distances, I consciously chose to risk trespassing on the railway line. So I walked 400m, crossing two tracks (checking of course if anything was coming along a long, straight stretch – it wasn’t), then reaching an access road linking the goods yard to the main road (my destination). In total, this walk was far shorter. The legitimate route would have been 1.5km, a full 1,100m longer, taking 13 minutes extra to walk under a baking sun. Who’s going to do that, when a short trespass can save almost a quarter of an hour!?!

The safety argument I'd put thus: the chances of being hit by a car as opposed to a train are an order of magnitude or two higher. (Compare number of pedestrians killed by cars and by trains each year.) If you know what you are doing, look and listen before crossing the track, you will be safe.

The designers who plan station layouts strive to achieve cost-cuttings which frustrate the passenger. This can lead to people taking risks, as happens daily at W-wa Służewiec, where office workers jump like lemmings onto the tracks to cross to the tram loop and save a long detour involving several flights of steps. Often they can see their tram about to depart and so are less mindful of the need to take care while doing so.

At Czachówek Południowy station, the lack of a completed underpass has resulted in passengers and station staff taking matters into their own hands, and the construction of a provisional exit at the southern end of the station has been built from piles of old wooden sleepers left over from the modernisation work.

If passengers can cross here, why not elsewhere? As long as barriers, warning signs etc exist, crossing a railway line is inherently far safer than crossing a road.

But there is hope. The recently-completed upgrade of line from W-wa Zachodnia Peron 8 has seen the provision of a long footpath alongside the tracks that gets passengers to destinations north of the platforms without having to take a massive detour. However, I suspect that the city hall had something to do with this investment, ensuring that rail passengers have easy pedestrian access to Expo XXI on ul. Prądzyńskiego.

Foreign exchange: don't get diddled!
[for the saps who paid £250 for €200 at the airport]

This time four years ago:
Defining my Sublime Aesthetic

This time six years ago:
Porth Ceiriad on the Llyn Peninsula

This time eight years ago:
Jeziorki sunset, late July

This time nine years ago:
Jeziorki sunset, after the storm

This time 12 years ago:
Rural suburbias - the ideal place to live?

Eat Polish apples, drink Polish cider

So Putin's pulled down the shutters on Polish food imports - this will hurt those Polish producers and middlemen who thought they could prosper by feeding The Bear. The embargo will reverberate across the Polish economy - GDP growth is likely to slow by a few tenths of a percentage point (outturn for 2014 more likely to be 2.9% than 3.3%), while inflation will fall - maybe even into deflationary territory - as a result of oversupply on the Polish market.

The #JedzJabłka ('eat apples') campaign across the social media is gaining traction; if you want to hit back at Putin, buy Polish apples. Poland is the world's number one exporter of apples and number two producer of apples. Outside in our garden, the apple tree is groaning with apples that come September will start falling to the ground in abundance.

As Poland begins coming to terms with an apple mountain of unprecedented proportions, media pundits have taken up my call for a massive expansion of Polish cider-making, which requires above all a change in absurd excise rules that class cider over 5% as a fruit wine, rather than as a beer equivalent. [I wrote about this last month.]

The absurdity came to a head the other day when Celtic, a Scottish foot-ball club, visited Warsaw to play against Legia, a Polish foot-ball club. Celtic is sponsored by Magners, a cider brand unavailable in Poland, containing 4.5% alcohol by volume. Legia is sponsored by Królewskie, a well-known beer brand containing 5.8% alcohol by volume. Now, because Magners is a cider and the advertising of cider - even on the shirts of visiting foot-ballers is prohibited in Poland - the Celtic players had to change their shirts to ones not bearing the brand. Beer adverts, on the other hand, are fine. And because Poles like the taste, brewers get round the ban by simply adding apple juice to beer (Redds, Warka Radler, Lech etc). This is the type of regulatory madness must be stamped out with extreme prejudice.

If Poland is to soak up the apples that Putin won't buy, it needs to be able to add value to them - by pressing them in local cider-presses and fermenting the resulting juice into high-quality cider. And advertise that cider in the same way that beer is advertised. And exported in quantity to the free world.

In the meanwhile, Polish cider sales are booming. From nearly zero in 2012, Polish consumers drank 2m litres of cider in 2013; this year sales are expected to reach 10m litres (By way of reference, British consumers drank 1,000m litres of cider last year - the UK being the world's no. 1 cider producer and consumer of cider.) And things are looking good at Auchan - the price of Weston's Old Rosie has come down from 17zł to 10zł a half-litre bottle - a benchmark of cider excellence.

Below: Polish cider (Cydr Lubelski) and Polish apples. I bought this cider because it was the only Polish brand available in Auchan today - there was Warka Perry and lots of fruity concoctions from the Baltics - plus of course Weston's Old Rosie and Weston's Vintage.

Mr Finance Minister please - get rid of the requirement for an excise band over the bottle, reduce the excise duty on all ciders to the same level as beer, and scrap the ban on cider advertising. And do so quickly, before Putin's embargo can do any lasting harm to Poland's agricultural economy. Below: the banderola, or excise band. You'll find this on cigarettes and vodka - but why-oh-why on cider? This is plain nuts.

Poland has such a huge potential when it comes to cider. It just needs the ministries to deregulate and liberalise. The market will do the rest.

Additional reading - in Polish
Countdown to Putin's fruit embargo
and
Poles are eating 'Freedom Apples' (and drinking cider in solidarity)
and (thanks for the link Paddy)
Cider ad ban likely to be scrapped

This time last year:
Hottest week ever (37C - that's 9C more than it was today)

This time two years ago:
Progress along the second line of the Warsaw Metro (still no sign of its impending completion as I write)

This time three years ago:
Doric arches, ul. Targowa

This time four years ago:
A place in the country, everyone's ideal

This time seven years ago:
I must go down to the sea again

The second Summer of Cider

Wow - cider is becoming big news in Poland. Last week in Auchan, looking for the cider among all the beers where it used to be, I saw none. "So much for continuity of supply," I thought before spinning round and seeing that amount of shelf space being used for displaying cider had doubled yet again. "Hello - what's this? It's Weston's Old Rosie! And this - what's this one? Why, it's Henry Weston's 2013 Vintage Oak-Aged Herefordshire Cider. And of course Polish ciders - a novelty only last year - Miłosławski, Cydr Lubelski, Warka Cider, Green Mill, Joker.

Cider - as opposed to apple-juice flavoured beer (YEEUCHH!!!) has caught on in Poland at a pace most fast-moving consumer goods companies daren't imagine. Back in January 2013, the Ministry of Finance reduced the excise duty on ciders below 5% alcohol by volume to something approximating the duty on beer (stronger ciders are still being treated as wine, excise-wise). This gave Poland's fruit wine manufacturers like Ambra and Warwin the opportunity to shift their client base from rural alcoholics to urban hipsters. At around the same time, a change in the law was made to encourage the production of artisan ciders by Polish apple-growers, though limiting production to 10,000 litres of farm-produced cider per year. The new law is so complicated in practice that out of Poland's 60,000 apple growers, only two have taken advantage of the new opportunity.

The main problem is the banderola, or excise band. By law, this has to be glued over the bottle top as proof that excise duty has been paid. A 7.8% beer is exempt from the banderola, a 4.5% cider isn't. ABSURDITY! The small, craft-cider makers have to sell their own cider, duty paid, in huge containers, to bottling plants that can affix the banderola, and then buy back their own product, now bottled and banded, for further sale. And a further absurdity is that while it is perfectly legal to advertise a 5.2% beer on a billboard or on TV, it is illegal to advertise a 4.5% cider. Can a government spokesperson explain WHY?

If the Polish government were to liberalise these foolish regulations, cider-making in Poland could take off. Scores of local craft cider makers would spring up, making (as they do in England), fine single-apple variety ciders, creating local employment and developing new skills and new markets. Poland - the world's second biggest apple exporter, and Europe's biggest apple grower, instead of shipping tanker-loads of apple-juice concentrate to England where it is converted to cider, could be making cider here instead. If only the Ministry of Finance* would treat cider exactly as it treats beer.

Please feel free to turn this into a social media campaign!

So then - Mr Dembo's Cider Sensations for the Summer of 2014...

From Poland - Cydr Ignaców. One of the 10,000-litre limited craft ciders. Splendidly balanced, semi-dry, semi-still, this is rated as the best cider made in Poland, made by enthusiasts in Ignaców, some 15km south-west of Grójec, right in the heart of Poland's apple country. Last year's vintage is available (5% abv) in small, 275ml bottles. One to savour. Already becoming available in the UK.

Next up we have Jabcok Maurera (left). Jabcok (pron. 'YUBtsok') is a slang expression for cheap apple wine; a nice touch of self-deprecating humour on this quality product selling for 13zł. I found this one in an organic restaurant in Służewiec Przemysłowy (on ul. Postępu). This one, like Weston's Old Rosie, is cloudy; naturally-occurring carbon dioxide adds slight fizz. Stronger at 7.7%, a fine cider that captures the taste of rural cider-making in England. Maurer is from southern Małopolska, not too far from juice-maker Tymbark.

Turning to English ciders available in Poland - I must say that Old Rosie (not cheap at 17 złotys for 500cl) is excellent. One of the very best I've ever tried. Other Great British ciders you can find in Poland include Sheppy's Single Variety range (Oakwood, Dabinett and Kingston Black are three I tried; all are excellent and as different from one another as a Merlot is from a Shiraz). The Westons' ciders are imported by Kamron s.c.(www.kamron.pl), the Sheppys' ciders by BRN Services (www.ciderhill.pl).

If none of these are available, I go for Cydr Miłosławski, failing that Warka's Cider and Perry are generally available, as is Cydr Lubelski. Both Warka and Lubelski are extending their brands - Warka has launched 'Double' cider and perry (both 8.5%), while Lubelski has broadened its range of one with a honey-sweetened cider.

If Poland's restrictive regulations and excise duties on cider were to be brought into line with those for beer, Poland has the potential a) to become a big importer of excellent English ciders, and b) learn how to made excellent cider for domestic pleasure plus export to all points north, east and south!

* I learn it's not the Ministry of Finance that's against liberalising cider sales further - it's the Ministry of Health, leaned on heavily by PARPA (the state agency for solving alcoholic problems) that says not one step further in the direction of making any alcoholic drink more accessible or socially acceptable.

This time last year:
North Wales in the sun

This time two years ago:
Back at Penrhos

This time four years ago:
A farewell to Dobra

Call it what it is: Okęcie

Flying home to Warsaw yesterday, it occurred to me that there's still a huge gap between the official and the vernacular. Despite the fact that over 13 years having elapsed since Okęcie was officially re-named 'Warsaw Chopin Airport', hardly anyone not employed by Polskie Porty Lotnicze (Polish Airports) actually refers to the place as anything other than 'Okęcie' [pron. Ock-ENCH-yeh].

"Okęcie, OK!"

Taxi drivers, local residents, Poles from other towns and cities still say 'Okęcie' rather than 'Lotnisko Chopina' (the genitive form). And they insist on 'Okęcie' with a vengeance. Look up 'Warsaw Chopin Airport' on Wikipedia and you'll find the following words in the article's second paragraph: "Despite the official change, "Okecie" ("Lotnisko Okęcie") remains in popular and industry use, including air traffic and aerodrome references."

Actually, in 2001, Okęcie was re-named Międzynarodowy Port Lotniczy imienia Fryderyka Chopina, (official translation: Frederic Chopin International Airport; literal translation International Aviation Port in the name of Fryderyk's Chopin). This was a name so clunky it had to be changed to Lotnisko Chopina w Warszawie (official translation: Warsaw Chopin Airport; literal translation Airport of Chopin in Warsaw) in January 2010 in the hope of gaining in popularity - it did not.

Celebrating its 80th birthday last year, the airport's administration had to keep quiet about the fact that the airport's official name does not enjoy widespread use, or that for 67 of those 80 years it was officially called something else. Maybe its to do with Mr Chopin being the son of a bloody foreign migrant with a difficult-to-pronounce surname.

In general, the names of few airports named after people have gained traction. Flying to John Lennon? Er, no, Liverpool, actually. Naming airports after people is so un-British. Tel Aviv - Ben who? Toronto -Enough already! Few Poles can say who Kraków's airport is named after (Shame on you!). Two exceptions - Paris CdG, and above all New York's JFK. Globally recognised. Given that Fryderyk Chopin's middle name was Franciszek, maybe 'Warsaw FFC' might catch on? (Or not.)

Helping to make things difficult is the naming convention. In Polish, the genitive form is used - Lotnisko Chopina is literally 'Airport of Chopin' or 'Chopin's Airport'. Adding the extra 'a' to a name that is globally familiar can be disconcerting to foreigners in Warsaw for the first time and seeing the name spelt differently on signposts and stations.

How does one pronounce it? The British pronounce 'Chopin' in a manner approximating to the French way - SHOW-pan. Or Show-PAN if you fancy yourself as an intellectual. But then add the 'a' at the end and you get - what? 'SHOW-pannah', 'Show-PIE-ner' or 'Show-pan-AY'? And how do Poles pronounce 'Chopina'? - Shoh-PEN-uh... This is all very confusing when you're in a hurry to catch your plane. The railways do their bit too. The English language announcement at W-wa Śródmieście talks of the 'train to the Warsaw SHOW-pen airport arriving at Platform 3'.

I'm in a bind over this one. I can understand the authorities' reluctance to backpedal, but Poles are sticking to Okęcie. Maybe rename it after another famous Polish composer? Certainly Wojciech Kilar would not make the shortlist. Or simply rename the composer of the Etude Revolutionaire or Nocturne in E flat major 'Fryderyk Okęcie'. Which I've started doing.

This time last year:
Three stations in need of repair

This time two years ago
Late evening, Śródmieście

This time three years ago:
Ranking a better life

This time five years ago:
Paysages de Varsovie

This time six years ago:
Spring walk, twilight time

Protecting Poland's railways - or not

Regular travellers on Poland's railway network will have observed the railway guard - Straż Ochrony Kolei - a strange institution - neither police force nor military formation, and you may have wondered - what are these guys doing? Are they protecting the travelling public? Making the railways feel more secure?

I don't really know. To me, it's another Polish institution long overdue for reform, in need of real purpose, a jobs-for-the-boys machine. Trains should feel safe - in general they do (with one exception I'll return to). But I posit that they feel safe because of a general improvement in social trust since communist days, rather than because 3,100 SOKists hang around the network.

Are these guys here to prevent graffiti being sprayed on trains stabled overnight in depots? Or to prevent overhead power lines from being stolen? Or to prevent terrorist attacks on Polish railways? I don't rightly know. From SOK's website, it's hard to fathom what this body is all about.

Below: reminds me of the communist-era joke: why do milicjanci hang around in threes? One who can read, one who can write, and one to keep an eye on the dangerous intellectuals. Back in Cold War days, this force existed to protect the Red Army's railway supply routes safe from NATO paratroopers - and Polish saboteurs. Today, this threat has disappeared, yet these guys still act as though it were 1952. But in hi-vis vests.

Below: why is it that drinking and smoking is tolerated on Polish suburban lines? Each three-carriage unit has a guard's compartment at the front and rear. A six-carriage set will have four such compartments, three of which (not occupied by the guard) form mobile drinking dens for Pan Heniek and Pan Ziutek returning home from work in Warsaw to Radom, Żyrardów or some other distant dormitory at the edge of Warsaw's gravitational pull. In these compartments, smoking and drinking are de rigeur, despite clear notices to the contrary. Smoke wafts into ordinary passenger carriages, the atmosphere is often boisterously aggressive, kurwa this, kurwa that, kurwa. Guards and ticket collectors rarely venture in. This is an everyday occurrence. Where are the SOKists?

The Polish parliament was all set to reform this outdated institution, reducing the number of its ranks and making it fit for purpose for today's needs. That was five years ago - since then - no change. I suspect another PSL sinecure. What's needed is a professional body that will genuinely assess risks to the network and to the traveller and act accordingly. Until the smokers and drinkers are removed from the no-smoking, no-drinking suburban trains (or else the law is amended to permit smoking and drinking in designated compartments), I will not take SOK seriously.

UPDATE FROM 2022: The behaviour above has all but disappeared, mainly due to the introduction of new rolling stock without enclosed compartments at the ends of the multiple units.

This time last year:
The end of winter? So early?

This time two years ago:
How much education for the nation?

This time three years ago:
To the Catch - short story

This time four years ago:
Eternal Warsaw

This time six years ago:
From the family archives

What a waste, what a waste...

Here we are then, at the southern stump of the S79. The bit of the contract beyond the turn-off for the S2 and Poznań.

One day, after the next lot of EU funds has been earmarked for specific infrastructure; and those funds have been converted into specific projects; and those projects have been put out to public tender; and the optimum bidder (hopefully the best, no longer the cheapest) has been chosen; and that company finally connects Węzeł W-wa Południe to the next junction to the south... THAT day, dear reader, the lights can be turned on... but that day may well be in eight years' time.

Left: the lightbulbs are all in place. Left to weather eight winters, I doubt many will be in working order when the S79 finally extends southwards.

In the meanwhile, the contractor who completed the S2/S79 (Austrian firm Porr) has installed all the lighting, including the section that will remain unused until the S79 is finally extended southwards.


In total, there must be hundreds of lamps, bulbs and standards, all in rust-free, pristine condition - except there's no need to switch them on for many years. This includes the ones lighting the carriageway from the S2 to the S79 (south); from south of the point where the slip-road from the S79 to the S2 swings off westward (both carriageways); and from the end of the contract along the slip-road onto the S2 (east). All delivered in perfect working order. But will they be in perfect working order when they are actually needed? At the very least, the bulbs should all be taken out and safely stored until that day.

Who insisted that all this work be done now? What were they thinking?

Red tape and travel

To Kraków, to speak at yet another conference about PPP. I'm being paid by the organiser, by way of EU funds, so to reclaim my travel costs there and back, I need to present not just a ticket, but a VAT receipt (faktura VAT). Now, when queuing for a railway ticket, there's nothing more annoying when you're in a hurry to catch your train, to find the guy in front of you asking for a faktura VAT to go with his ticket. You know it will take an age.

So thinking of my fellow travellers behind me in the queue, I chose to buy my tickets from the main booking hall at Dworzeć Centralny (a.k.a. W-wa Centralna, or, as the English voice-over man on Warsaw buses and trams helpfully says, 'Shentroo wailway shtayshen'). Here, rather than a single queue as there are to the ticket windows in the underground passages beneath Centralna, there are two queues each serving six windows. The system is efficient and quick. The 16-person ahead queue of me evaporates in just eight minutes, with five of the six windows open.

It's my turn; I step forward. A sign at the window asks me to a) inform the ticket clerk if I wish to pay by credit card and b) inform the ticket clerk that I require a faktura VAT before ordering my ticket. Nice and clear. So now I make my request. "Ticket to Kraków Główny, InterCity, second class, departing Warsaw today at 16:30; return from Kraków to Warsaw, TLK, tomorrow at 20:04." And, of course, my faktura VAT. I cast an anxious eye around me, but the other four windows are functioning fine, no one can accuse me of being a zawalidroga (lit. road-blocker).

The lady behind the window is quick and efficient. Using an eraser-tipped pencil, she taps in the details of the conference organiser (company name, address, tax number) onto her computer screen.

And now, the fun starts. I have ordered four pieces of paper – my ticket there, a seat reservation, my return ticket and another seat reservation. Each one of these four pieces of paper requires THREE copies of the faktura VAT. One for my purposes (which I'll pass on to the conference organiser), one for the railway, and one for the tax-man. So that's 16 pieces of paper to print – from an ink-jet printer.

In my mind's ear, I can still here its eternal 'drrrrrrrrrrrr-drrrrrrr-drrrrrrr-drrrrrrrr-drrrr-drrrrr' as twelve individual faktury VAT are being printed. The ticket lady piles up the papers – these for me, these for her, these for the tax-man. Finally, she hands my tickets and faktury VAT, files away the others – I look at the clock – a nine whole minutes have elapsed since I stepped up to the window. Nine minutes of her time, nine minutes of my time. Is there no better way?

I look over the paperwork in my hand. Of the eight bits of paper I get (two tickets, two reservations, four faktury VAT), one is for the reservation of my seat for the TLK train back to Warsaw. It is to document 37 groszes' worth of taxation (seven pence), for a service for which I'm charged five zlotys (just under one pound). Seven pence, documented physically, on paper, three times. How many more human hands and eyes and brains will have to check those three faktury VAT? At the offices of my conference organisers, within PKP, and by platoons of bookkeepers and tax-men, in Kraków, in Warsaw and in Brussels. Activity that adds no value. Deep pools of economic inefficiency.

Surely, in today's world of iPhones and tablets, WiFi, NFC and RFID, PayPass, PayPal and online banking – surely, there is a more efficient way of collecting and accounting for taxes paid? In my previous job, in a multinational company that published hundreds of classified advertising papers and websites around the world, the corporate HQ people could not believe that here in Poland out of 87 people employed by the firm, 31 of them worked in accounts. In countries like Sweden or Holland, where turnover was several times higher, the accounts staff numbered three or four people. In Poland, where VAT is still calculated and paid in full each month by all but the smallest businesses, it is still about the manual checking of hundreds of millions of faktury VAT, many of which are for tiddly amounts of money that wouldn't merit any paperwork whatsoever in other OECD countries.

Poland has one of the most expensive and inefficient tax systems in the EU in terms of revenues collected. Is it just about the protection of armies of bookkeepers' jobs, whose soul-destroying task is to account for evidence that tiny sums have all been duly collected? Or is it an inability of middle-ranking bureaucrats to move with the times and actively seek out and implement more efficient ways of doing things? Or is it to do with low levels of social trust? That without the policing mechanism of faktury VAT, Mr Dembinski would be hanging around railway stations, dipping into dustbins to retrieve discarded train tickets, then presenting them as his own, while meanwhile making his way to Kraków on foot, so as to diddle the conference organisers (who would then be unknowingly be diddling the tax-man)?

It is time for Jacek Rostowski, Poland's UK-born and -educated finance minister to apply some big scissors to this grotesque paper-printing and accounting machine that adds no value to the Polish economy. Time to apply the Toyota method – identify the muda (activity that adds no value) to the process and cut the costs of tax collection, with a target to get them at least to the EU average.

A campaign to streamline Poland's antiquated tax-collection system should be supported by every citizen and each political party - the only people who would lose would be the armies of faktura counters - but for the rest of the economy, it would be a dead weight removed from the nation's neck.

This time last year:
An end to an Entitlement way of thinking

This time two years ago:
West Ealing - drab and sad suburb

This time three years ago:
To Poznań by train

This time five years ago:
Late autumn drive-time

Polish State takes a welcome step back

Pushing the trolley around Auchan this morning, I had a very pleasant surprise. Heading off to buy some decent Cabernet-Shiraz, Carmenere or Pinot Noirs, I discovered that the barriers surrounding the alcohol department and the separate cash tills had disappeared. A large sign above the aisles of wine said that as of 1 July 2011, the Law of 26 October 1982 on Upbringing in Sobriety and Counteracting Alcoholism has been amended (again) so that supermarkets no longer need to operate separate tills for drink.

Hurrah! Three cheers! I remember when the previous amendment was introduced by the AWS government in the late '90s (an interesting administration - proto-PiS and proto-Platforma somehow working together) ushering in this peculiar restriction. The idea that somehow making everyone pay separately for alcohol would reduce alcoholism rates was peculiarly absurd.

The upshot was that for 12 years or so, to buy a bottle or two of wine I'd have to stand in a separate queue, usually just behind a couple who were buying a trolleyful of drink to celebrate their child's first communion. Meanwhile, Pan Heniek, hardened alcoholic, would be saying to Pan Ziutek, "Well, Ziutku, I would have bought a małpka of vodka for immediate consumption outside the shop, but this separate cash-till business has completely put me off the whole idea". Palpable nonsense, eh, readers?

It's hugely convenient to able to place the wine bottles on the same check-out conveyor belt as the rest of my groceries, rather than having to pay at a separate till, bag up the wine and get the goods and receipt re-inspected at the main check-out. This change in the law will save me at least 10 minutes a week (and far more before Christmas Day, Easter Sunday and the eves of those Holy Days of Obligation such as Zesłanie Duch Świętego that result in store closure).

And another step forward for liberty and convenience that took place on 1 July was that beer can now be served on trains. I've written before about this particular absurdity (here and here). On international trains running through Poland, beer, wine, champagne and spirits are freely available - but trains inside Poland have had a ban on all forms of alcohol since the law was tightened up in the late '90s. The last tightening of the law took years to effect. At first, alcohol-free beers were on display but with a nod and a wink the usual-strength sort would appear 'z pod lady' (from under the counter). After a few years however, the restaurant staff on trains would sadly say that there really is no beer on sale on the train.

While by no means would I advocating getting smashed senseless on trains, a gentle state of mild intoxication does help those slow kilometres pass by, engendering creative thoughts and giving rise to a more mellow frame of mind while travelling.

Step by step, though like PKP, far too slowly, the Polish State is becoming more normal, helping to make Poland an easier and pleasanter place to live.

This time last year:
Twin turboprop cargo

This time two years ago:
To Czachówek by train for the Polish countryside

This time three years ago:
Here's looking at you, kid

This time four years ago:
Stormy summer night

Regulations, absurdities

"Hang on a minute! I've only got as far as Paragraph 5 Point 2! Stop hooting at me! I must acquaint myself with the Park + Ride Regulations before driving in! WAIT why don't you? "Wyłącza się odpowiedzialność Miasta Stolicy Warszawy z tytułu szkód komunikacyjnych i parkingowych dotyczących pojazdów i osób korzystających z Parkingu" ... Is that good or bad... Better call my lawyer. Where's his number... STOP BEEPING AT ME! ...Need to get to grips with Paragraph 10 Point 1. The one that says it costs 100 zlotys a go to park here - bit steep, eh? It's only 30 zlotys to park right outside my office... But WAIT! Keep your hair on man! Paragraph 10 Point 2 states that if I have a valid ZTM ticket I don't have to fork out a stoover for parking here... What do you mean by 'valid' - Paragraph 10 Point 2 Section 1 says 'został zkasowany...' But not a single-journey or a 20-minute ticket? No, one that's good for at least 24 hours that's been valididated ... well that's clear now STOP GETTING IMPATIENT WITH ME MISTER, ALRIGHT?! I've still got three paragraphs to read before I move any further! OK SO THERE'S NOW NINE CARS QUEUING BEHIND YOU SO WHAT? Paragraph 12 subsection G clearly forbids me from vacuum-cleaning the upholstery of my car while in the car park and LOOK! Paragraph 14 prohibits drivers queuing up to enter the car park from punching in the nose or indeed anywhere else someone who's stopped to read the regulations. And don't even think of leaving your ice-cream van or mobile chip-shop here. Clearly stated in Paragraph 4, Point 1, Section 5) Item d). And don't park overnight, because the P+R is open from 04:00am to 02:30am.

This time last year:
Optimal means of commuting?

This time two years ago:
Sunshine and rain