Billboard spirituality

This billboard, on ul. Widok (just off ul. Marszałkowska, near the Rotunda) intrigued me to the extent that I returned to photograph it. The slogan Odróżniaj radość od przyjemności i raduj się też w cierpieniu means "Distinguish joy from pleasure and rejoice too in suffering".

What does it mean? Is this a tease-and-reveal advertising campaign? After two weeks, we learn it's for a beer, a mobile phone network, a life insurance company or a chocolate-coated snack bar?

But no - this is for real. A genuine individual, reaching out with a genuine message - and...?

Not a whole lot.

Googling the slogan I found a Facebook page with five photos of this billboard, one video and four likes. The person who paid (a billboard in this location is not cheap) for this has also previously put up three more in the same convention. One, with the words Nie denerwuj się, Masz kontrolę nad sobą ("Don't get angry, you have control over yourself"), appeared on Al. Jerozolimskie near Blue City retail centre in February 2014. And one bearing the anti-consumptionist message Zwiększając dochód, nie zwiększaj swoich potrzeb ("Increasing your income, don't increase your needs"), appeared in July 2015.  One month later, a further billboard appeared. This one said Przygotuj listę różnych, codziennych intencji. Módl się i obserwuj efekty ("Prepare a list of different, everyday intentions. Pray and observe the effects").

So - four billboards, four Facebook pages. What have we learnt?

Well, I must say I like all four messages. They do tend to square with my personal spirituality. I was rather hoping that a reclusive billionaire from another planet, living in a room in the Novotel Centrum, is buying billboards with cash to promote a more mindful, ascetic and spiritual way of life among Varsovians.

The truth is less exotic - the author, on their Facebook page, mentions the Catholic Church and the Ten Commandments, so a traditional religious approach lies behind this mini-campaign.

The edict to distinguish joy from pleasure is Most sound. Short-term gratification as a substitute for moments of genuine spiritual uplifting - yes. Joy comes from pleasure well earned, truly deserved. A great human truth to ponder. Thank you, whosoever you be, for this message - it has stayed with me.

This time four years ago:
A post about a book about a film about a journey to a room

This time six years ago:
Mr Pheasant trumpets his presence

This time seven years ago:
Balancing on the Edge of Chaos

This time eight years ago:
Zamienie and the encroaching tide of Development

Białystok fails to impress

OK, so early February is not the best time of year to see any city, but Białystok must rank among the ugliest of Polish cities. I arrived yesterday, walked from the bus station to my hotel, the Branicki on ul. Zamenhofa (a nicely restored place). At half past six in the evening Białystok was dead; hardly anyone out on the streets, very little by way of cafes, bars or restaurants. Architecturally, the city lacks delights or surprises.

Below: view from my hotel window this morning. Absolutely nothing to write home about.

Below: shopping is not an exciting experience in Białystok, the Ipswich of the East.

Below: early '90s eyesores like this in Warsaw have long been torn down and replaced by something decent looking. File Dom Handlowy Wenus under Polisz Arkitekczer.

And this... Is no one in Białystok town hall responsible for the city's aesthetics? This is hideous! Down the hill from this monstrosity, a big loudspeaker was blaring tinny Disco polo out across the street last night, a cheap keyboard in minor key, synthetic drum beat and the most banal of lyrics. When I walked back this afternoon, the same loudspeaker was still blaring tinny Disco polo.

One bright spot - Al. Marszałka Piłsudskiego has fine examples of street art adorning the blank walls of some kamienicas. The street itself is devoid of retail space, but there's a good cycle path on either side of this main thoroughfare.

Below: according to Google Maps, this is Białystok's centrum - just off ul. Lipowa. Lack of a mediaeval centre makes this Białystok stand out negatively from the other big eastern cities, Lublin and Rzeszów. No charming starówka, or old town district.

But above all it's the advertising, a riot of badly-chosen typefaces on badly-selected background colours, shop signs and billboards that bothers me about Białystok (below).

I cast my mind back to an earlier visit to Białystok - October 2008 - six and half years ago, when I took the photo of the railways station (below)...

...and I returned to exactly the same spot today (below). What's changed? Well, PKP has managed to modernise exactly one platform. It's amazing how not hosting an international football championship has led to stasis.

Probably the city's most depressing building is the PKS bus station (below).

Bye bye Białystok, my bus back to Warsaw is due in an hour. Time for me to go.

But despite the ugliness, Białystok is not a despondent dead-end city where the only the good thing to come out of it is the road to Warsaw - like Radom. Yes, there were a few kantory (bureaux de change), mainly near the stations, offering competitive rates on euros (from Germany), pounds (from the UK) and dollars (from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine). But the retail category that caught my eye in terms of how just many Białystok has - were shops selling wedding dresses. Evidently the younger citizens of Białystok are still tying the knot in town.
This time last year:
Sadness at the death of Tadeusz Mosz

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

This time three years ago:
More than just an Iluzjon

This time four years ago:
Oldschool photochallenge

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

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

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

"Buy BEST Bacon from POLAND" - British ad from 1968

Looking through a book called Ealing, Hanwell & Greenford by Richard Essen, part of a series called Britain in Old Photographs, I came across this picture, below. It is remarkable for a number of reasons. The caption reads: "A bus on route 65A in Argyle Road, Ealing, on 16 November 1968. Its destination was the Copt Gilders estate near Chessington." The location not actually Argyle Road, but around the corner on Cleveland Road, a stone's throw from the house into which my family would move on 1 May 1970. For several years, I'd take the 65 or the 273 bus home from Ealing Broadway station on my way home from school.

What caught my eye in this photo was the advert on the side. "Buy BEST bacon - From POLAND" it says, with a picture of a slice of back bacon.

Wow. Amazing. This is 1968, you will understand. Władysław Gomułka is leading the Polish United Workers Party as communist Poland staggers from economic crisis to economic crisis, whilst, proszę Cię bardzo, Polish best bacon is being advertised in London. And note that this is back bacon - a slice of pork loin and pork belly held together with a strip of fat and rind. Back bacon is a traditional British cut, unknown in Poland to this day. And yet here it is, competing in a British market (outside of the European Economic Community at that time) with bacon from Britain, from commonwealth Canada or from fellow-EFTA member, Denmark.

Back in Poland, people are struggling to buy meat while the state-owned export agency Animex is busy promoting the sales of its PEK and Krakus brands in free-market Britain. Why advertise on the side of a 65? Could it be that the route runs through some of the densest populations of Poles in Britain - the roads off Cleveland Road were full of houses owned by Poles, as were the streets off the South Ealing Road? Was advertising that sophisticated in those days before the introduction of the postcode and highly-focused target groups?

In those days, there were only three Polish shops serving Ealing's large Polish community, one on Ealing Broadway ('Parada', still there), one on The Avenue near Gordon Road, and the other one on the corner of Northfields Avenue and Elers Road run by Pan Rozwadowski. A visit to either was a childhood treat, not least because of the chance to buy Krówki - Polish luxury cream fudge.

On another note, the bus in the photo is an AEC Regent (RT 2492, KXW 121, built in 1950) with route-number in a roof box. This bus was the predecessor of the more famous AEC Routemaster; the RT continued in service with London Transport until the late 1970s. On the 65 route, the Routemaster replaced the RT in 1975. [Information from this brilliant site.]

This time two years ago:
Work on the S2 continues
(over a year before it finally opened)

This time five years ago:
Sunset across the tracks, Nowa Iwiczna

This time six years ago:
The storm the forecasters missed

This time seven years ago:
Peacocks in the park

Poland's universal panacea

One of the things that puzzled me moving to Poland 17 years ago was the entirely different composition of the typical home first-aid cabinet. Conspicuous by their absence in Polish medicine chests are disinfectants such as TCP, Dettol, Savlon or Germolene. None of these British household-name products are seen stocking the parapharmaceutical shelves of hypermarkets or pharmacies in Poland. Amol liquid

Instead, the medicinal compound most efficacious in every case here is Amol - and it is just as unknown in the UK as TCP is in Poland. But so much more pleasant than TCP - in smell as well as taste. Rather than the phenolic stench of TCP, Amol possesses a fresh, mentholated scent; it contains cinnamon, peppermint, clove, citronella, melissa and lemon oil mixed with 67% alcohol. The alcohol content alone is good for knocking out viruses and bacteria, making this an effective hand santiser. And one that smells nice!

Example: sore throats can be viral or bacterial in cause. I advise pouring about 10ml of Amol in a cup and gargling the stuff undiluted. Do not swallow, unless you wish to get mildly intoxicated. Works well!

The smell of Amol makes me feel good - so much better than TCP's wretched chemical odours! In this lies Amol's efficacy - there's that placebo effect. You believe it will make you better - and that gives a good chance of it making you better (if clinical trials against placebos are anything to go against). The alcohol should kill off all but the hardiest of bacteria and viruses? Plus - you'll feel better and happier.

[Am I healthy because I’m happy? Or am I happy because I am healthy? Is my positive approach to life a result of the fact that I’m happy and healthy – or does the fact that I’m happy and healthy stem from my positive approach to life? Those who like to think of themselves as scientists, rationalists, would stick to the first answer. Yet many of us would instinctively say “well, there’s something to be said for the second”. Indeed, but is there a deeper, scientifically determinable mechanism at work? Am I really able to think myself into a state of healthiness and happiness? Research into the placebo effect (and its evil twin, the nocebo effect) suggests that this may indeed be the case. Again, let’s take the question a stage further. Belief in the power of belief. If you don’t believe that a positive outlook can improve your health or slow down disease – then the likelihood is it won’t. If you do believe in belief, then it will.]

The German term for Amol is Heilkräutergeist or spirit of medicinal herbs; it is meant to have been devised by Carmelite monks centuries ago - indeed some tell of it being used on the Crusades.

Amol cures everything from colds, headaches, muscle pains, insect bites, bloating and dyspepsia. And online, you'll find that it can be used to cure dozens of other maladies. Every babcia swears by it - Amol is the nearest thing you can get to a universal panacea.

I use it in the sauna; 15 to 20 drops onto the heated rocks; each one sizzles on contact evaporating instantly. Breathing in the vapour is very pleasant as it penetrates your respiratory system. [Avoid spilling it onto the electrical elements - it's flammable!] Getting a lungful of Amolated air feels great - invigorating - and as you sweat, all those bugs are hurrying for the nearest exit ie. pore.

After 17 years, I too have ceased to see the sense of TCP and prefer Amol for all petty ailments. Interestingly enough, this medicinal compound of German origin is now manufactured by a Japanese pharmaceutical company in Poland - Takeda Pharma (which acquired the previous manufacturer, Nycomed). Worth taking a look at the website www.amol.pl, which has some amusing ads in English, German and Polish going back to 1907.

Above: by appointment to His Holiness, Pope Pius X. Pre-WWI ad (Pius X died in 1914, the price is quoted in pfennigs) Then as now, universal panaceas have always sold well. Priced at 29.95 złotys for a 250ml bottle.

This time last year:
Of taxis, deflation, crisis and strikes

This time two years ago:
Lent starts again

This time three years ago:
Art Quiz

This time four years ago:
A month before Spring Equinox

This time five years ago:
The beauty of winter
[some of my finest winter photos]

Here today, gone tomorrow

It is rather surprising that a business offering investors a 13% return on their capital by investing in gold, then ploughing the money into an airline that could offer 99-złoty flights from Okęcie to several cities around Poland, did not get properly scrutinised by the Polish media. After all, Amber Gold and OLT Express billboards were everywhere...

On Tuesday I went for lunch with colleagues from work, and we noticed the OLT Express billboard, several stories high, on the side of a building on ul. Krucza was still there. As I'd left my camera in the office that lunchtime, I resolved to snap it for posterity on my way back to the Metro that evening. By five o'clock it had gone.

Yesterday morning, I passed an even bigger billboard, for Amber Gold, occupying two sides of a building on the corner of Al. Jerozolimskie, by Rondo ONZ. I resolved to photograph it at lunchtime, when the sun would illuminate both sides. Again, I was too late. So here's a photo taken on Monday morning showing just one panel of the billboard, the one facing Al. Jerozolimskie (below).

Below: and the same spot this morning, the Amber Gold advert had gone. The end of the month, and down go the ads that have not renewed their contracts.

I was puzzled for a while as to why the Konica Minolta ad remains atop this building. The firm, created out of the merger of Konica and Minolta in 2003, ceased making cameras in 2006, when Sony acquired the business. Why would this ad (illuminated at night) still be hear after six years? The reason is that (unlike OLT Express) Konica Minolta as a brand is alive and well - it's just that they no longer make cameras - just imaging technology (photocopiers, what have you).

Varsavianistas can take a peek on Google Maps, Google Streetview or Panoramio on Google Earth to see archive pics showing many billboards advertising recently defunct brands gracing Warsaw's streets. I sincerely hope their number will not swell in coming months and years.

This time last year:
The Twilight Rambler
[my first posting on 2 August]

more for Y u in Oran e

Bob guessed correctly. The cladding of the Novotel on Rondo Dmowskiego in orange was indeed an advert - for Orange. In retrospect, entirely predictable. When Telekompromitacja Polska was "privatised", it was sold to state-owned France Telecom, now masquerading under the groovy name "Orange".

The French like to do business with themselves. As soon as they got their mitts on TPSA, much of its fleet of cars and vans was swapped for Renaults, Citroens and Peugeots. TPSA no doubt banks with Societe Generale and uses French lawyers.

Novotel, of course, is a French-owned hotel chain, part of the Accor group. So no problems, then, reaching an agreement as to creating the largest billboard in town.

Below: the hotel's been turned into a huge ad, and in the foreground, on the patelnia in front of Metro Centrum, a huge orange cube advertising, well, telecoms services. The colour saturation of the hotel in the background toned down somewhat so as not to be overwhelmed by the cube in the foreground!

The brand 'TPSA' will soon be changed to Orange. No doubt we will still receive eye-watering monthly bills for poor-quality internet access and vanilla-flavoured telephony. Out here on the perimeter, there is no choice - TPSA or nothing. Whereas urban sophisticates can get telephone, internet (three times faster and more stable) and cable TV for less than we pay, we're stuck with a choice of one provider.

I don't mind poor service if I'm paying old-school money for it. I don't mind paying a lot for service if it's truly excellent. I object to paying a lot for service that's third rate.

UPDATE APRIL 2015:

Since then, the service has improved, the bills have fallen. Things are getting better. More bandwidth, fewer fails (nearly none, actually), and lower bills. Can't really complain any more.

This time last year:
Prophesies

This time two years ago:
Volcano shuts down aviation over NW Europe

This time three years ago:
Large, charismatic fowl

This time four years ago:
Antonov An-26 in the twilight of its career