Act!

My morning ritual begins with a coffee (after making my bed and doing some pull-ups). Having received a bag of coffee beans last month, I decided to buy a manual coffee grinder - a quality German-made stainless steel model with ceramic grinding teeth. It takes a lot of effort - 130 turns of the crank to get enough freshly ground coffee to fill my Bialetti coffee pot. But it's worth it. The taste is markedly superior to the stuff that comes ready ground. A bit like the difference in taste between buying ground pepper and grinding whole peppercorns fresh from a pepper mill.

So - having made my coffee, I'm finally sitting there enjoying it, staring out of the window, looking at the forest next door. As I do so, one word floats into my mind, out of nowhere. Like a feather floating down to go 'bang' as it lands:

ACT!

How should I interpret this? I, Dembinski, should take to the stage? "We do it wrong, being so majestical/To offer it the show of violence; For it is, as the air, invulnerable..." 

Or simply that I should just get on with it? Stop scrolling down Twitter, clean up the kitchen, go for a walk, think, write?

My biggest driver in life is my personal quest for understanding the nature of the Cosmos and our place in it; consciousness; purpose; spiritual evolution. Reading, listening, discussing - above all thinking. The longer I live, the greater is my understanding - hence my desire to live into a long and healthy old age. As with each of the last nine Januaries, the New Year has spurred physical activity; last week saw me do more of every set of seven exercises than I did the first week of 2022, so that's good.

TIME FOR SOME MORE PRESS-UPS!

Questions that are troubling me: Should I travel, like, go on holiday? I have become set in my ways - I've not had a proper two-weeks-off-fly-somewhere-style vacation since 2014. These days I feel increasingly guilty about my carbon footprint, especially when flying. Will visiting somewhere new elevate my life, bring me new insights into the human condition? 

If I have a calling, I believe it is to proselytise a simpler, slower, way of life, creating less pollution, being grateful for what we have rather than striving for continually more material possessions. For one's own psychological and spiritual good and for the good of the planet. This would mean I should reach out more with this message - communicating to more and more people; our technological age gives me far more tools and channels for this than ever.

My annual cycle has Lent as a pinnacle of activity, with daily blog posts of an entirely spiritual nature delivered daily for the past two years. Looking back over the lifetime of the blog, I can see how, over the years, my thinking has sharpened. Life is becoming clearer as I become more mature, wiser.

Still working after all these years?

I feel I have attained an optimal form of work. To quote the latest trend in HR - not so much work/life balance, but work/life blend. I'll take a couple of hours off for a walk during the working day, putting off work until the evening - or weekend. Summer holidays, as I wrote, I've not been taking. So I'm there in post doing what's needed during the quiet months of July and August.

Work comfortably, with people you like, in a job you like, at your pace. And keep on going way past retirement age. My father worked until four months shy of his 70th birthday to become a grandfather. And thereafter, lived another 26 years. 

Doing is better than not doing; doing too much is dangerous. Stress can kill. No stress leads to early death. Getting the balance right is crucial. Thanks to Moni for flagging this up in this excellent Guardian article. The key is in this sentence: "Research indicates that low-level stress from moderate exercise or work can enhance our cognitive and physical abilities in later life." Digging deeper: "Both mild-to-moderate physical and mental stress stimulate the production of chemicals in the blood called interleukins, activating the immune system and making it more able to fight off infections."

I sometimes find I'm asking myself who'll take over my job from me. I think the answer is becoming clearer - artificial intelligence (AI). Translation was but the start - these days, it wouldn't occur to me to translate anything from Polish into English from scratch - I'll just copy-paste into Google Translate or DeepL, and then work on editing the results of machine translation into something that reads like good English. Two months ago, we saw the launch of Open AI's Chat GPT. I've used it already for a business application (helping me write a recruitment ad) and can see that over time this is going to become as much as tool for business as is Google Search or Wikipedia. More on this in a forthcoming post.

Humanity is at a crossroads - as ever; I fear, however, that we are striding unthinkingly towards a dystopia at an accelerating pace. We can get this right - climate change, the AI revolution and the social changes it will unleash, and the worrying tendency of unhinged individuals to push the planet the wrong way. Yes, we all need to act - but first, we need to think.

This time last year:
The vicious circle of an ever-spreading city

This time two years ago:
New sewers, new estate

This time three years ago:

The ultra-rich - deserving, or not

This time seven years ago:
Globalisation and its part in PiS's return to power

This time eight years ago:
UK overtakes France as the world's fifth-largest economy

This time 12 years ago:
Wetlands winter meltdown

This time 13 years ago:
Winter's walk to work

This time 14 years ago:
Winter drivetime, Jeziorki North

Letters to the Postman

A film adaptation by Felix Dembinski of Robert Aickman's Letters to the Postman; set in a timeless rural England, atmospheric, emotionally absorbing and conveying the slightest mysterious hint of the supernatural. Unhurried, observed, observant, observational - steeped in a realistic nostalgia for a time less technologically connected than our own, when the Post Office was what connected people, letters and parcels, and the Royal Mail's formidable infrastructure to ensure delivery of missives into the remotest of communities.

The film deals with themes of erosion and decay, nature moving inexorably to wipe clean traces left by mankind's works. The wind, the tides, the rains - against which are played out the microcosmic dramas of the human heart, the hopes and longings that defy a hard reality. [Click below to watch on YouTube.]

    

A crucial element is the monument to 'the last man who knew everything', polymath Thomas Young (1773-1829), who not only deciphered the Rosetta Stone, but whose double-slit experiment prompted the question of whether light was a wave or a particle, and opened the door to quantum mechanics. "When a subject occupies your mind long enough, it manifests itself in the most unlikely places".  Is light a wave or a particle? 

A quiet, engaging film that deserves a wide audience (and repeated viewings - each time you delve into it, new layers of meaning emerge).

 

This time last year:
Progress at Warsaw West station
[One year on, it's still a bloody mess!]

This time four years ago:
From West London to South Warsaw

This time seven years ago:
Anger and hate have no place in political discourse
[Blimey! How times have changed. Bonk the vatniks!]

This time nine years ago:
Is Conservatism rural or urban in nature?

This time ten years ago:
Poland's roads get slightly less deadly

This time 11 years ago:
It's expensive being rich in Warsaw 

This time 13 years:
Winter commuting in colour and black & white

This time 14 years ago:
Zamienie in winter

This time 15 years ago:
Really cold (-12C at night)

[This evening as I write it's +6C]

The search for perfection...

 ... is a waste of time and effort. It is ultimately depressing, as perfection turns out to be ever just out of reach. I have long rejected perfectionism (if ever I espoused it), considering a much better approach to life be a philosophy of continual improvement - the upward spiral. It is also one where taking a downward step, by accident or design, is not the end of the world. Take the knocks, stand up again, and keep going. If you are guided by a never-to-be-satisfied drive for perfection, you might find the knocks too hard to bear.

Out consumerist lifestyle is very much to blame for the rising tide of clinical depression across the developed world. We are being sold a dream wherever we look; TV and radio ads, billboards, glossy magazines, banners of websites. And over time, our inability to match up to the lifestyle shown to us in the adverts we're exposed to reduces our sense of self-worth. 

Rather than being ourselves, we aim for a target that is unattainable. Perfection. Our personal self-image - how we try to project ourselves to others - is a good example. We are told (women in particular) that perfection is just one trip to the shops away. Young consumers are easy prey; as we age and our external appearance starts to diverge from that which the billboards promote as perfection, we can more readily see the fallacy of that illusion.

We are damaging ourselves. We are damaging our planet (see yesterday's post!). We need to dial back expectations so they match our reality, rather than trying to move our reality in line with society's expectations of us. To quote Jacek Koba, "happiness is an expectation-to-reality ratio of 1:1".

Turning into an unwashed slob who rises at midday to eat junk food is not the answer to those who reject perfectionism.

The answer is constant improvement - and the starting point is knowing where you really want to be - and not where society says you should strive to be. Conscious constant improvement.

Social media is full of vacuous influencers touting their perfect lifestyles as something to aim for. All you need is to buy this, this and this - and you have joined their club. It is clearly not so - we see it - and yet so many of us buy into it.

My approach to constant improvement is based on getting better at life with each passing year. More meaningful output. Starting with the health and fitness: my daily exercise routine is not intended to turn me into Mr Physique. It is, however, intended to prolong my active life by strengthening core muscles, in particular in the spine, ensuring I don't spend my last years bent double as my father was. This does not come easily; daily plank and stretching exercise help keep those muscles strong and my backbone flexible. The aim is not to be able to show off by doing a zillion press-ups in public, the aim is merely to know that I am still strong enough to do sets of 15 to 20 proper ones at a time.

A strong body is a useful base for my consciousness, which moves across the face of the planet, mindful of my carbon footprint. Getting those qualia experiences is important to me. I have no great need to travel; all those bucket lists on social media (e.g. 'How Many Of These 60 Cities Have You Visited?') leave me saying - "not interested". I really don't care. And I won't scroll down to see who has ticked off more. 

I have become more focused and self-disciplined over the past year. A daily to-do list on paper (not on the laptop!) is key; I am also taking more notes of ideas as they come, though not nearly enough. Still, I know I will never write the Great Polish Novel (in English), but maintaining this blog will do (nagging question to myself - "is it improving though?"). Fewer posts on the blog last year compared to 2021, but as happened in 2014 when it kicked off the first time in Ukraine, I find that much of my online time is again spent battling Kremlin disinformation.

Attaining a peaceful state of mind is important, being materially comfortable (yet seeking not luxury) a good point to stop chasing the materialist dream. I have enough, for which I am grateful. In the New Year - and well beyond! - I hope to improve. To share more.

This time last year:
Grabów, Krasnowola and Jeziorki Północne

This time five years ago:
1929-1939; 2008-2018?

This time seven years ago:
Track works between W-wa Okęcie and W-wa Dawidy

This time nine years ago:
The benefits of extending the human lifespan 

This time 12 years ago:
New Year's stocktaking

This time last 13 years ago:
A walk in the wild winter woods

This time 14 years ago:
Now that's what I call winter vol. 12

This time 15 years ago:
When the day starts getting longer

Hottest New Year Day ever in Warsaw

Climate-change deniers anger me. They are threatening the survival of their DNA - as well as yours or mine. Today, 1 January 2023, has seen the temperature record for Warsaw tumble - and by how much!

Wikipedia had the record high temperature for Warsaw as being 13.8C. Today, the weather station in central Warsaw recorded a high of 18.9C (the station in Reguły, on the other side of Warsaw Okęcie airport from Jeziorki, showed a high of 19.1C). This is 5C hotter than the previous record, which fell in 1993. Since then, we've had eight Januaries that have seen double-digit highs; however, 19.1C is really something. Seven years ago, the daytime high was -6C (see below - I was walking on thick pond ice then!)

On the one hand, it shows that climate change is real, it's here, it's happening. Extreme weather events don't have to be hurricanes or deluges - just unseasonably warm days like today. Putin must be cursing - Poland won't freeze without his wretched gas. Warmer days, less heating needed, less CO₂ emitted - there must be an upside. 

Another personal upside is being able to take a motorbike out on New Year's Day - this just doesn't normally happen! [A short ride, 8km; the bike burns 3 litres of fuel over 100km, so less than 250ml of petrol consumed and turned into CO₂ today - my first run since early October.]

I have just bought myself a digital thermometer for the działka, which is currently displaying an outside temperature of 10.8C at quarter to ten in the evening. Indoors, it's a balmy 21.7C, even with the heating turned down.

Anyway... You Can Always Depend on the Kindness of Strangers, cont'd. On yesterday's walk, I lost my reading glasses. I realised this as soon as I got home, but by then it was getting dark. I have two spare pairs on the działka, so not really a legal issue, and only 13zł at Rossmann, but I did like that pair, wire-framed, robust, elegant. Nicer than the black-plastic ones. So I set off this morning to retrace my steps - and guess what - I found them! Some kind passer-buy placed them where they could be found - and found they were. Thank you, stranger, whomsoever you may be!

12,000 paces walked today, plus a short motorbike ride around the manor. If it weren't for the eerie feeling that it's too darned hot for the time of year, all would be well! Below: canonical prospect in the midwinter warmth.

Below: selfie with shadow, between track and orchard. Too warm for a jumper - T-shirt, shirt and Harrington jacket, and perspiring. Almost summer heat.

Below: looking towards Nowe Grobice from ulica Słoneczna ('sunny street'), Chynów. Pareidolia time: in the centre of the frame, can you see a silver-grey tractor ploughing a furrow, or a fallen tree stump?

I was saddened to find a dead owl in my back garden. It was not dead long; I wondered whether the prolonged barrage of fireworks that went on for around 20 minutes last night might have been the cause or contributing factor of its demise. I watched after midnight from my rear patio, and was amazed at just how many fireworks were going off from all directions - from Jakubowizna to the south, Chynów to the west, Grobice and Sułkowice to the north-east and north-west. No respite for the wildlife. A few days ago, outside the Top Market in Chynów I witnessed the sight of a chap driving up to the makeshift firework stall in his stereotypical black BMW SUV. He walked up to the woman selling the fireworks and said to her: "Ma być dużo i tanio!" ("It must be many and cheap!"). The poor owl was properly buried.

This time last year
"communication/this is the gift you must not lose"

This time two years ago:
Wealth and inequality - an introduction

This time three years ago:
Gratitude for a peaceful 2018

This time four years ago:
Fighting laziness - a perennial resolution

This time five years ago:
A Year of Round Anniversaries

This time seven years ago:
Walking on frozen water
[Daytime high, 1 January 2016 was -6C]

This time eight years ago:
Fireworks herald 2015 in Jeziorki

This time nine years ago
Jeziorki welcomes 2014

This time ten years ago:
LOT's second Dreamliner over Jeziorki

This time 12 years ago:
New Year's coal train 

This time 14 years ago:
Welcome to 2009!

This time 15 years ago:
Happy 2008!

2022: A year in numbers

Well, I beat last year in every area (though in eating fresh fruit and veg a tie with 2021). So - here we are, my ninth year in a row of measuring exercise output and food & drink intake. The table below is limited to seven years, so 2014 and 2015 aren't here, but for the record, I was knocking back 33.4 units of alcohol a week on average in 2014, cut back to 28.0 in 2015, so the sub-14 units a week across this year is a halving from seven years ago, and down to what the NHS considers 'safe drinking'.  

Walking is still below 2019's record, though a pair of Nordic walking poles (thanks Andrew N!) has ensured a greater number of moderate-to-high-intensity walking minutes per day than ever before. Will be difficult to beat in 2023!

Gold-coloured background in table - best ever result. Every row represents results averaged out per day across the entire year. Walking - I covered 3,400km/2,100 miles on foot this year. 

Measurable and manageable
	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
Paces (daily average)	10.6k	11.0k	11.4k	12.0k	11.1k	11.2k	11.6k
Moderate to high  intensity (mins)	N/A	N/A	N/A	24	30	35	44
Alcohol drunk (units/week)	25.0	20.8	19.7	18.5	15.5	14.1	13.7
Dry days over course of year	155	186	196	198	208	231	234
Days with zero physical training	148	83	27	17	11	22	9
Press-ups/day	N/A	25	60	90	83	20	23
Pull-ups/day	N/A	2	7	5	11	11	12
Sit-ups/day	71	N/A	N/A	N/A	16	19	25
Sets of weights exercises/day	N/A	2.1	2.2	2.3	2.4	1.1	1.6
Squats/day	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	28	40
Plank time (min: sec/day average)	N/A	N/A	N/A	3:40	4:11	4:21	4:58
Portions fresh fruit & veg/day	5.0	5.2	5.3	5.4	6.1	6.4	6.4

Days without a minimum of three sets of exercise have fallen to a mere nine across the course of the year. 

Thanks to Dr A. for tweaking my squats - my arms now (attempt anyway!) to point vertically up towards the ceiling, rather than just swinging around, which makes balance harder and is good for stretching the back. Since beating last year's pull-ups record, I have taken to doing the more challenging ones (full pull-up rather than just from the position in which my arms parallel to floor, a half-pull-up). It will be very hard to beat 12 of these a day across 2023, given my current max on this form of exercise is five (I managed six just the once). 

Press-ups - continued focus on quality rather than quantity. Each one right to the floor, then up until arms lock, back straight. Plank - typically two lots of three minutes.

So - here I am, 65 years old, convinced that daily exercise routines are part of the key to longevity. Along with good genes and good luck - and a strongly positive mental attitude, driven by gratitude and never taking good health for granted. I hope I can keep this going! Another daily routine here is prayer while brushing my teeth - praying for the health of all those around me, and thankfulness for what I have.

All the very best to all my regular readers for 2023.

This time last year:
2021: A year in numbers

This time two years ago:

2020 - a year in numbers

This time three years ago
2019 - a year in numbers

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

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

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

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

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

This time eight years ago:
Economic predictions for 2014

This time ten years ago:
Economic predictions for 2013

This time 11 years ago:
Economic predictions for 2012

This time 13 years ago:
Classic cars, West Ealing

This time 13 years ago:
Jeziorki 2009, another view

This time 14 years ago:
Jeziorki 2008, another view

This time 15 years ago:
Final thoughts for 2007

The Long Review of 2022 (Pt. IV)

Having covered Europe, the UK and the world, now a look at my home turf - Jeziorki and Jakubowizna. Here's it's all about investment and progress.

Jeziorki first. The S7 extension (section A) opened from the end of the S79 down to Lesznowola in the summer. A mere six and half kilometres of it. Section B of the extension (Lesznowola - Tarczyn) is expected to open in 2023. It will mean that the S7 will stretch from Warsaw down towards Kraków as far as the border of Małopolska province

The S7 opening has had the entirely expected effect of dumping a mass of traffic down ulica Karczunkowska. Where once cars came in small strings of five or six, reflecting a traffic-light change on the junction with ul. Puławska, there are now endless torrents using this pavement-free road as a connection to Węzeł Zamienie. The new traffic volume means that using this road as a pedestrian when the adjoining fields are covered with snow or are muddy bogs has become almost impossible. We learnt the news this year that finally, a pavement for ul. Karczunkowska has been approved by the local authority. It will be ready in... 2026. 

One huge improvement is the opening (at last!) of bus lanes along ul. Puławska. It means that a bus ride from Metro Wilanowska to Kaczunkowska now takes 25 minutes at peak times, rather than the 40+ minutes it would have taken before. Added to this is my newly acquired Senior's Warsaw Card, a mere 50zł (£9.35) for the whole year, which gives me access to all buses, trams, Metro, Koleje Mazowieckie, SKM and WKD trains right out to the borders of Zone 2. Not only can I flop onto any bus anywhere, but I can get to Zalesie Górne on Koleje Mazowieckie trains for free, and pay the 5.72zł over-60s discount fare from Zalesie Górne to Chynów, cutting the price of a round trip into central Warsaw to a mere 11.44zł (£2.15). 

With all the new stations including Warka Miasto opened and all the existing stations modernised, the Warsaw-Radom railway line is almost up to speed - the final touch will be the GSM-R mobile communication system for trains; when that's operational, trains will be allowed to speed up to a maximum of 160km/h on the line (current maximum permissible velocity is 120km/h). This, however, is not expected until 2024. Still, things are moving faster - the quickest train between W-wa Jeziorki to Chynów now takes 24 minutes, an improvement over the 31 minutes pre-modernisation.

But things will get worse before they get better... the modernisation of the Warsaw transversal railway line is about to get under way; Warsaw West (W-wa Zachodnia) is still unfinished with much inconvenience to come. Below: Platforms 3 and 4 at Zachodnia are currently disappearing. Platforms 5, 6, 7 and 8 are almost ready. Platform 2 (to the left) working hard right now, serving all east- and westbound local trains.

I get the feeling after 25 years in Poland that the whole country is a continuous work in progress that will never reach closure; something or other always has to be undergoing a remont.

Back to the S7 extension. Stretch B, from Lesznowola to Tarczyn will be open sometime in the first half of 2023, finally connecting Warsaw to Radom and Kielce by expressway, which comes to an end at the border of Małopolska province. And all the way down to Kraków within a few more years.

On the local front, little change in Jakubowizna, other than the bottom end of my street (the bit that's in Chynów) being officially named ulica Owocowa (lit. 'fruity street'), a no-through road sign on the stump of road parallel to the railway line running up the hill, and another medium-tension electricity pylon replaced by a more modern one. A new house is being built on my street, a single-story dwelling. Work started in the summer. Ulica Torowa outside Chynów station now has proper drainage and a new (first) layer of asphalt meaning no more edge-to-edge puddles when it rains. Sadly, the J&B Snack Bar closed for business this summer - the best burgers in the poviat; a new supermarket (a Dino) has opened at the far end of Chynów. Disappointing choice, but cheaper than Top Market.

And more and more orchards being fitted with anti-hailstone netting - a reaction to the increased frequency of extreme-weather events brought about by climate change! Temperature forecast for New Year's Day is +14C.

This time last year:
S2 tunnel under Ursynów opens

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

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

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

This time seven years ago:
Hybrid driving - the verdict

This time nine years ago:
Pitshanger Lane in the sun

This time 13 years ago:
Miserable, grey, wet London

This time 14 years ago:
Parrots in Ealing

This time 15 years ago:
Heathrow to Okęcie

The Long Review of 2022 (Pt. III)

Climate change is creeping up on us, still far too many are in denial, far too many are who do accept the science are complacent. Yesterday, 27 December, Warsaw's daytime high temperature was 10C, on Sunday 1 January it is forecast to be 13C. The creaking frosts of yesteryear are but a memory. 

At least we had several days of deep snow - coupled with the rains that have washed it away, the water-table should rise and there won't be a repeat of this spring's mild drought, which affected early fruit crops like strawberries and cherries. And the warm weather means less need to heat our houses.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has led to scores of millions of tonnes of extra carbon dioxide gas being emitted into our planet's atmosphere (by the autumn between 30 and 100 million tonnes according to various estimates). The year's UN climate-change summit, COP27, saw the establishment of a mechanism to pay for climate damage wreaked on poor countries by emissions caused by polluting countries - but there were no new targets set, no reckoning of emissions made over the past year. 

It's not getting better, it's getting worse. Extreme weather events will be getting more common. This year we saw Pakistan hit by major floods that had a third of the country under water, and right now, North America is being hammered by winter storms of exceptional ferocity. Floods, droughts (and with them forest fires) will plague the world, rich and poor, with increasing frequency. Poland is well located to avoid the worst heatwaves and flood events, which makes its people more complacent. Britain - frequently lashed by Atlantic gales - is readier to accept the new reality. 

But will people take action, or leave it to government and business to react?

Anyone doing one of those carbon-footprint calculators online will be shocked as to how much personal responsibility they should be taking. Climate change has dramatically altered my outlook on life and consumption. Despite not owning a car for 11 years, riding small-engined motorbikes rarely (only on sunny summer days, and then not far!), having 100% of my electricity usage covered by solar power, recycling all my waste (and composting any fruit and veg peels etc), working from home as often as possible, I'm STILL in a position whereby we'd need 2.5 Earths if everyone on the planet lived my lifestyle. But it's not the seven, eight or 13 Earths that many of my readers will require.

What more can I do? Eat less meat and dairy products is about the only thing with which I can make a big advance in terms of cutting my carbon footprint.

This year we passed the moment in human population when our population exceeded eight billion - just 11 years since it passed seven billion. When I was born, it was not yet three billion. However, there are clear signs that the curve is flattening. The nine billionth human being is expected in 2037 - 15 years from now, the ten billionth in 2057, in time for my hundredth birthday, 20 years after the last milestone.

As humanity is getting wealthier and wiser, family sizes will continue shrinking; China will be the third -most populous nation on earth after India and Nigeria by the end of this century. 

I believe that by the middle of the next century, the number of humans will stabilise at a sustainable five billion - will a richer, more longer-lived and fulfilled population - if all goes well.

We've become more used to reading doomsday scenarios. This year's NASA's successful DART mission to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid's moon to see how it can deflect its course suggests that with enough advance warning, mankind has proved that it is able to prevent a cataclysmic asteroid strike on our planet. 

Pandemics - we're not over it yet. This is our third Christmas with Covid, and its only now starting to impact China as it emerges from nearly three years of draconian lockdown. Here in Poland, it's clearly on the wane - but for how long? Today's seven-day rolling average of reported new cases is 459, and deaths at 6; this time last year it was 12,345 new cases and 406 deaths. This time two years ago it was 7,871 new cases and 246 deaths. Will we see a new mutation next year?

Nuclear war? Supervolcano? Don't know. Climate change remains the number one threat to us all, yet here we all are doing precious little about it. 

This time last year:
The Person Who Contemplates Not.

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

This time ten years ago:
Wise words about motoring

This time 11 years ago:
Hurry up and wait with WizzAir at Luton

The Long Review of 2022 (Pt. II)

For the land of my birth, 2022 was the Year of the Two Monarchs, the Three Premiers and the Four Chancellors. The death of Queen Elizabeth II was sudden and unexpected; but once the news had been digested, a process of acclimatisation began immediately. Getting used to saying 'the king' instead of 'the queen'; talking about 'His Majesty's Ambassador' instead of  'Her Majesty's Ambassador' when referring to the same person; realising that the monarch who had ruled since before my birth was no longer on the throne. 

A change of prime minister is something that happens far more often than a change of monarch - in my lifetime one monarch per 64 years, compared to one premier every four-and-half years. But to see three prime ministers in one year - and that's a year without a general election - has been unprecedented.

Brexit is the underlying cause; the liar Johnson was finally thrown out of No 10 by his own party, to be replaced by the hapless Liz Truss, a weak and wavering human being, unsure of whether she was against the monarchy or for it, which party she was in, or if she was in favour of remaining in the EU or a Brexiteer. Her innate weakness was seized upon by the 'ultras' in the Tory party who wanted someone pliant in No 10 who they could manipulate to push their radical agenda - lowering taxes for the wealthiest in society. Together with her chancellor of the exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, she terrified the markets with a combination of cash hand-outs (to help cope with the energy crisis) and tax cuts. Kwarteng's budget resulted in the pound falling to $1.03 and almost £20 billion being spent over the next four weeks by the Bank of England on a bail-out to save the value of pensions.

Truss was out after 45 days - an absolute record, "a shorter shelf-life than a lettuce", also ousted by her own party. She was replaced by Rishi Sunak, the first British prime minister that I don't viscerally object to since pre-referendum Cameron. I found myself hurling abuse at the TV set or monitor whenever May, Johnson or Truss spoke about Brexit - but somehow Sunak doesn't fire up the same emotions in me. Yet his stunning wealth (richer than King Charles III, richer than Trump) makes him out of touch with people's everyday concerns - and it shows at every PR stunt that has him interfacing with reality (buying fuel in a petrol station, serving homeless people at Christmas).

The upshot of all political turmoil is tragic for me; the country that was once the world's number one soft power, an exemplar of good governance and common-sense solutions, has in just a few years become a global laughing stock. Once upon a time, "examples of British best practice" were usually worth following or at least making note of. A mere six and half years it took to turn this situation around diametrically.

Brexit is damaging the UK economy way beyond what one would expect from cyclical downturns - even those exacerbated by a European war and a global pandemic. Britain's growth next year (-0.4%) and into 2024 (+0.2%) is forecast to be among the lowest among the OECD group of the world's richest nations. It's clear that life in the UK for the average citizen is worse today than it was in 2019, before Covid, before the UK left the single European market, and before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. All those three factors need to be taken together, yet other European economies affected by the pandemic and the war are faring better - not having cut themselves off from the world's richest trading bloc.

I do not feel the chill winds of the British economy directly - only in the way Brexit impinges on my freedom of movement and increasing financial restrictions, inability to send gifts to the UK without them being intercepted by customs for duty payment etc. However, at work I see this every day - the UK has cut off its nose to spite its face. Brexit is working asymmetrically - hurting British exporters much more than it's hurting Polish exporters. Why should any Polish firm bother importing goods from the UK and deal with 17 new onerous procedures when it can buy similar goods from Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Holland or Sweden? British corporates can pay for the necessary legal advice, accountancy services and logistics to ensure their goods continue to reach their EU customers - but Britain's small- and medium-sized exporters - selling pallet-loads rather than truckloads - are at a clear disadvantage.

Trading the other way, Britain has still not imposed border controls on food and products of plant or animal origin (postponed until 1 Jan 2024), nor changed from the CE conformity mark to the new UKCA standard (postponed to 1 Jan 2025). So British food producers have massively lost out in competitiveness to their EU-based rivals.

In the long term, Britain's return to the EU is inevitable - the only question is when it will happen. Mere demographics will make this so; of the 17.4 million who voted for Brexit, maybe around a million and half are dead, whilst no one born this century voted to leave the EU. Generation Z has had its prospects blighted by Brexit - freedom of movement, freedom to work and study across the EU, but above all the fact that the UK economy will be shrinking in size relative to where it could have been had it stayed in.

The next few years will see Britain eating humble pie. Its economy will be increasingly lagging behind those of EU member states - Poland's GDP per capita is expected to exceed the UK's  by 2035 (and if you strip out London by 2030). Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng wanted 'growth'. Growth is hard to achieve if there are around 1.2 million job vacancies in the economy. But then the referendum was about 'taking control of our borders' and stopping highly motivated workers from across the EU coming to the UK to pick fruit, work in bars, hotels and restaurants and look after Britons in their hospitals and care homes. So there you have it - low growth (and indeed, low unemployment), high inflation and far less choice in the shops.

I will return to the UK to celebrate the day it rejoins the EU - and not a day sooner. If you voted Leave and have not yet repented - you are my life-long foe.

This time last year:
Wintery gorgeousness and filthy air

This time two years ago:
Jakubowizna - moonrise kingdom

This time five years ago:

Rural sunlight, Derbyshire

This time eight years ago:
Derbyshire in the snow

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

This time 11 years:
Everybody's out on the road today

This time 12 years ago:
50% off and nothing to pay till June 2016