Krakowskie Przedmieście in the snow

My business day ended as it began, at the Hotel Bristol (below) on Krakowskie Przedmieście. This time for what was first of many pre-Christmas drinks receptions.

The Bristol looks quite splendid lit up at night amid all the snow, as indeed does the entrance to the University of Warsaw (below).

The Smolensk cross, that had been such a socially divisive issue for 154 days this year, has gone. Not a sign of it remains. There are no elderly protesters outside the presidential palace next door to the Bristol, handing out leaflets written in deranged tones about conspiracy and murder and Jews. A place once full of anger and discord is now at peace, blanketed by snow and illuminated by Christmas lights.

Old Town in first snow

On my way to a breakfast meeting at the Hotel Bristol this morning I made an early start so that I could snap some snaps of the Old Town in a mantle of first snow.

 

Above: ul. Freta, connecting the Old Town with the New Town. It's 8am and the place is nearly empty. Below: ul. Mostowa leading down to ul. Boleść and the Stara Prochownia (Old Gunpowder Store, now a theatre). Not a street for racing down!

 

Left: the steps leading down to the Trasa W-Z (the East-West Road that leads from the Trasa Armii Krajowej all the way to the Trasa Zmieniona). Below: Through the Barbakan gates and into the Old Town proper. In the Market Place a big effort is going on to clear the footpaths so that tourists can get around.

 

I'm wearing my M-65 field jacket for the second day. By late-March I will be heartily sick of wearing it day in, day out, but it is supremely practical and comfortable with its quilted lining; tried and tested in the most adverse of winter weather conditions.

 

Below: I reach my destination with 20 minutes to spare. This photo of snow piled up outside the Hotel Bristol (right) gives you some idea of how heavy was yesterday's snowfall. To get such massive heaps of snow last winter, we had to wait until February.

 

Below: Back to Powiśle and our office. A little game for my readers, the first of this winter - 'Guess the Car'. What's the make of the vehicle shrouded by a heavy blanket of snow? (Answers in late-March 2011.)

 

I'm so glad I'm living in Warsaw

Yes, it's that time of year again. I missed First Snow Winter 2010/11, returning to a lightly dusted Warsaw, but within hours of waking up, the snow kept on coming and coming on good.

That most glorious wintery feeling, the onset of dusk matched with falling snow, lights on in the distance, warmth of the room within, came on in the afternoon observed from my office.

E-mails from the UK indicated that wintry chaos had overcome large swathes of the nation, unused to heavy snowfalls ("and in November too!").

So what would it be like out on the streets of Warsaw tonight? Would Poland once again prove that several inches of snow is a mere trifle?

I left the office before six pm, not knowing whether to expect a) traffic paralysis or b) efficient snow management. Below: I step outside to be greeted by a proper wintery scene.

The wind's blowing the snow in my face, such a pleasant sensation coming out of the warm office. I'm getting those old familiar flashbacks to somewhere other than my childhood, Minnesota in the 1950s? Scandinavia in the 1950s? A phenomenon worthy of investigation. (The feeling passes once I'm up on the main road.)

Right: Along ul. Koźmińska, passing the AIG building on my way to the bus stop on Trasa Łazienkowska, snow swirling round.

At last! I've been waiting since March for some decent snow! Looking at my blog posts labels, I see that 'Winter' (95 posts) comes top, followed by 'Autumn' (53), 'Spring' (45) and 'Summer' (43). 'Snow' alone gets as many posts as 'Summer'.

On Trasa Łazienkowska - chaos (above). A crowd at the bus stop, traffic stationary. I decide straight away to walk the three bus stops to the Metro. Passing subsequent bus stops I can see that this is the right thing to do. Below: Plac na Rozdrożu (lit. 'Bifurcation of Ways Place').

Below: Trasa Łazienkowska as it cuts under ul. Marszałkowska. It seems that Praga-bound commuters were having a much worse time of it. Westbound, many people were inclined like me to walk it to the main north-south arteries, which seemed remarkably clear. Traffic along Al. Ujazdowskie and Marszałkowska was flowing more freely than usual.

And so to the Metro, the jewel in Warsaw's public transport system. Only the severest flooding ever manages to affect the service, which was running like clockwork this evening.

Out at Ursynów, into the Park+Ride for the car, only to find there's hardly any traffic at all along Al. KEN or ul Roentgena, Płaskowieckiej is no worse than usual (below), and ul. Puławska is exceptionally smooth for half past six (three lanes heading south at a steady 30 kmh, no mad driving or jams). Pop into the post office to pick up some mail - no queue whatsoever.

It's good to be back in Warsaw in time for winter!

How much education does society need?

The big story in the UK at the tail-end of last week was the students' protests against the government's plans to increase tuition fees from £3,290 to up to £9,000 a year. Will these protests be a vanguard of popular discontent at Cameron's cuts?

Currently, the average British student leaves university with £24,000 of debt - student loans that need to be repaid. If you were hard-working and dilligent enough to complete a degree in law, medicine, engineering or accountancy and finance - the chances are it will not take you too long to pay that debt off once you've settled into a career where annual salaries can quickly leap from £25,000 - £50,000 - £100,000 a year. But if you went to a second-rate university to do media studies, your prospects are landing a high-paying job (indeed nowadays, any job) are rather bleak. And that average student debt is likely to rise to £32,000+ once the new tuition fees come into force.

I can appreciate the concerns of both students and their parents. But as with healthcare, the real issue with tertiary education is not really about costs but about rationing demand. Back in the late 1970s when I was a student, only 8% of young Brits went on to university or polytechnic. Today, the figure approaches 50%. The question is - are 50% of the jobs in the UK economy at graduate level? It's a similar question in Poland, indeed more so, as Poland's educational system produces holders of masters' rather than batchelors' degrees. Do our economies really need so many graduates?

As tuition fees rise, the question young people and their parents must ask is - what is the economic value of a university degree? The economy is crying out for engineers and scientists, yet few pupils today are prepared to work hard in subjects such as maths and physics in order to get onto courses that would guarantee them a well-paid career.

And so in the UK and in Poland, all too many young people go into university to fill the gap between school and work, between being a child and being an adult; to learn something that's not necessarily practical, but teaches you how to think. And while you are propping up the student bar, you can try to figure out what to do to earn a crust. The world is a tough place to get by in without education, but with more and more people competing in the labour force with a decent degree, is the economy ready to accept so many graduates?

In the UK, employers are increasing looking for bright school leavers who understand this dilemma and are willing to sign on with a large employer (Marks and Spencers, PWC or National Rail, for example) as management trainees, on a salary, getting experience and training. Three years later, these young people will be without debt, a few rungs higher up the management ladder and possibly even some savings to recompense them for not going to university. Will we see this trend spreading to Poland?

To make matters more complicated, while English, Welsh and Northern Irish universities charges tuition fees, Scottish universities do not. The Scottish Assembly in its wisdom voted to cover tuition fees from taxes. Only students from the rest of the UK have to pay tuition fees. Students from the rest of the EU do not. On the one hand, this policy is helping to attract the brightest and best students from across the EU. On the other, it's not helping to attract and retain the best teaching staff, especially once England's higher tuition fees kick in.

So then - questions for policy makers. What percentage of school leavers in any country should go on to university? What incentives should there be (other than the market) for students to study 'harder' subjects that employers need? Should tuition fees be higher for say, mediaeval Japanese poetry studies than for mechanical engineering or medicine? Or the other way around? Should tuition fees reflect society's need for a given skill - or the supply of lecturers in that subject? With two children at pre-university age, these are crucial questions for me!

Useful info from the BBC about this subject here.

Drab, sad West Ealing

London, I think, suffers from its very size. It is just the centre of London, from Kensington in the west right across to the City in the east, that foreigners think of as 'London'. Kensington, Chelsea, Knightsbridge, Mayfair, Marylebone, Belgravia, Westminster, Soho, Covent Garden, Bloomsbury, Holborn and the City of London - each with its own separate character. This is London proper, districts known by tourists and well-informed people around the world who might not have visited it, but are familiar with the above names from newspapers, books or films.

But the rest of Greater London? Acton, Forest Gate, Greenford, Kenton, Hornsey, Yeading, Isleworth? How many foreigners who've never visited London are even aware of these places? Peckham, Perivale, Catford or Whitton? Do these places resonate with atmosphere, with spirit of place? I rather think not.

Spirit of place in an urban setting comes from historic buildings, interesting architecture, geographic location - hills, rivers - West Ealing has none of these.

Beyond Kensington to the west, London continues to sprawl out with housing only giving way to fields once you get beyond Hillingdon, 15 km to the west. Half way between London proper and the countryside, surrounded by all sides by dense, forgettable suburbia, is West Ealing. Generic terraced housing. This is where I grew up. And while the top end of West Ealing, where my parents live, by Cleveland Park, is pleasant enough, the bottom end, along the Uxbridge Road, is drab and depressing.

Noble old buildings from Edwardian times are being demolished to make room for flats; more and more people (and their cars) are moving into the area. Large houses that were once home to a single prosperous Edwardian family and its servants have been sub-divided into four or five flats. Back gardens are being sold off as building plots for yet more flats.

Most white faces you pass will be talking Polish. There are five Polish shops between Ealing Broadway and West Ealing, a Polish hairdresser, restaurants and even a furniture shop (Polskie Meble!).

But the rest of the shopping is dire. The profusion of pound-shops (everything for one pound) is no more; all those Pound Kingdoms, Pound Lands and Pound Duchies have gone, boarded up, unable to face the competitive pressure from the almighty Pound World, which resides where Woolworths once was, and where everything from gas turbines to hovercraft to streetlamps can be purchased for a pound. People shuffle around in a daze, gormlessly drifting from store to store. Walking around West Ealing today, I had the distinct impression of a country without direction or purpose.

Central London has immense character, but it is ringed by dull, drab and essentially similar suburbs that the well-to-do flee from, either for the extremely expensive sophistication of the centre or for beautiful villages in the English countryside, far away from the ghastliness of the suburbs.

The choice between rural Buckinghamshire and Knightsbridge is one that today can be made only by millionaires. The rest is England's squeezed middle.

And so I prefer living in Warsaw, thank you!

Seasonal splendour in Edinburgh

As I wrote from Edinburgh last year, Scotland's capital boasts over 4,500 listed buildings. Few are more sumptuous than The Dome, the former head office of the Commercial Bank of Scotland, and now a splendid restaurant.

Above: the gallery on the first floor overlooking the lobby. The building, with its neo-classical portico fronting on George St, dates back to 1844. "The figures on the portico represent Caledonia, flanked by Prudence, Agriculture, Commerce, Enterprise, Mechanical Science and Learning", it says on a handy sheet about the Dome's history.

A big thank-you to Peter and Krystyna for inviting me to lunch at the Dome, where we spoke enthusiastically about Poland's economic prospects for the coming 30 years - a period in which Peter, a financier, expects the country to catch up and indeed overtake western European economies. As I was in Scotland, I lunched on haggis, that 'wee, sleek, cowering, timorous beastie', shot earlier that week on a haggis hunt in the McSporran mountains.

Left: Christmas tree in the restaurant slowly changes colour. The Dome decked out in its Yuletide finery is a treat to the eye, very tastefully done. Of the three waiters serving us at our table, three were from Poland. Every table was occupied, the place bursting at the seams. Certainly this part of Edinburgh, the recession's well and truly over!

Edinburgh portraits

Good to be back in Edinburgh - shame it's only for less than 24 hours. Early flight in from London on Thursday, even earlier flight back on Friday, a business lunch and evening seminar in between, so precious little time for seeing the sights. And weather gorgeous - much sunshine.

Above: view from above Waverley station. Edinburgh's hilly location and grandiose architecture lend it an imposing, enchanted air. Turreted Victorian stone and winding cobbled streets, buildings of commerce and finance, hotels and guesthouses; The Mound and North Bank Place.

Left: battlements and turrets - the Balmoral Hotel, overlooking Waverley Station, and the North Bridge spanning the railway line. The five-star Balmoral fronts onto Princes St, Edinburgh's main shopping thoroughfare (and the northern end of the A1 road that runs to London). It's a favourite among wealthy Japanese tourists. Taxis dropping off passengers outside the Balmoral are greeted by Scotsmen in kilts and full Scottish regalia. To the left of the shot, the Nelson monument, at the foot of which, the Pivo Café.

Above: Scotland's capital is not far from the sea. The Firth of Forth, being the estuary of the River Forth, which flows eastwards into the North Sea. To the south of the city, there are the Pentland Hills. The atmosphere and location make Edinburgh number one choice for where Brits would most like to live and work.

Above: Edinburgh by night - looking down Thistle St. A magickal klimat, what the city's good at doing.

London notes

London never fails to make an impression, especially after a lengthy absence. I've not been over since April, mainly because of reasons to do with the economy - fewer companies willing to sponsor Poland-related business events in the UK.

Arriving early at Luton, I just make the bus from the airport to Luton Parkway station. I hand over 50p of the £1.50 bus fare and I'm scrabbling around in my wallet among the one, two and five zloty coins for a one-pound coin, which in the dim light I can't seem to find. The driver gives me the ticket and waves me into the bus anyway. It's more important that he gets the bus boarded than hold everyone up for a mere pound. How practical! I repay the social trust accorded to me by handing over that coin later once I'd found it.

Elsewhere, I see more examples of social trust and social harmony in action. At St Pancras station, a man in a wheelchair is asked by a member of staff (in obligatory high-visibility vest) "Can Oi 'elp yaouw, Sir?" I can't imagine surly PKP staff at Warszawa Centralna volunteering to help in such a kindly way.

The train to St Pancras is three and half minutes late. Over the station loudspeakers at Luton Parkway we hear abject, grovelling apologies for any inconvenience the delay might have caused. (Not a bit - I've have missed the train had it been on time!)

On the train, I'm sitting near four students discussing between themselves their accents ("My parents say I'm well-spoken," says one, who sounded upper lower-middle class to me. "Ah've got Black Coontreh vowels," says another). Accent is so important to Brits. With 80% of the indigenous population falling into the general category of 'middle class', it's crucial to distinguish between the wafer-thin sub-stratas therein. Quoting Carol Midgely from today's Times, 'Britain is socially immobile because its obsessed with class. It's not where you're going by where you are from." Not a problem that Poland has. As I wrote here, in Poland, accent is pretty much homogenous. It is a Pole's vocabulary that reveals much about his or her schooling, rather than it being accent that betrays the speaker's social and regional provenance.

St Pancras is as beautiful as ever, the East Midlands high-speed train that gets there non-stop in just under half and hour deposits me on the main concourse rather than in the underground Thameslink platform. Passing the glittering shops lining the lower concourse, I see something you just don't see in Poland - rich old people.

Sir John at St Pancras: my favourite poet

Entering the Underground, I see all the Tube lines are running a good service. And then a loudspeaker announcement. No service on the northern end of the Victoria Line - person under a train. And a minute later - no service on the northern end of the Bakerloo Line - another person under a train. A spate of Wednesday evening suicides is holding up North Londoners returning home tonight.

But the Piccadilly Line's still good. A westbound train is standing waiting for me, ready to whisk me on towards Ealing. Central London is still quite posh, as you can hear by the upper-middle clahss aircsents between South Ken and Baron's Court (though you'd not guess by looking at the speakers' egalitarian clothing). It's worth watching the first two scenes from the musical My Fair Lady to see that in this department, little has changed since the days of George Bernard Shaw - "An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him/The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him."
But by the time my train reaches Acton, I notice that I'm in the one-third minority of passengers in my carriage who are white (and I'd guess half of those are Polish). London's diversity makes the native English a minority in the land of their forefathers.

There's a ticket inspection between Acton Town and Ealing Common. The ticket inspector is backed up by a uniformed police officer (a volunteer Special Constable); this type of revenue protection measure would be unthinkable in Poland - what happened to the social trust and harmony I'd witnessed earlier? Indeed, I no longer recognise the land where I was born.