Crazy motor, mister!

A regular landmark on ul. Górnośląska just around the corner from my office is this far-out groovemobile, a tribute to one man's struggle against communist-era conformity. A Skoda 110 (built some time between 1969 and 1977) stretched front and rear with plenty of stick-on doodads.

  Above: Rear view. This hot-rod would have set the cat among the pigeons and wowed the ladies as it charged down the Wisłostrada. Z drogi śledzie, bo król jedzie! This vehicle has already made it onto Top Gear's website. Black-on-white number plate with Polish flag suggests it was last registered some time between May 2000 and April 2006.

February gloom

It's half past four on a wet day in early February. No sign of frost or snow or winter, yet it is unremittingly gloomy when there's no sunshine. This afternoon I was addressing a conference of regional development agencies in a place called Dębe, some 35 kilometers north east of Warsaw. After the event, driving back, I was struck by an overwhelming wish for it to be spring already.

More Old School Warsaw

I had time to kill before a morning meeting yesterday, so I strolled around Dolny Mokotów. The scene above instantly grabbed me as totally old school communist Warsaw - drably at odds with the new office blocks and Galeria Mokotów shopping mall just across the way (below). There's nothing here that would look out of place in 1978; the Trabant 601 with its white-on-black number plates, the metal bin painted pre-faded orange, drainpipe in pre-faded blue. When Eddie saw this pic he suggested that I try to replicate the effect of communist-era photography. He dug out an old album of Warsaw from 1968 (Warszawa Miasto i Ludzie) and we played around in Photoshop trying to tweak the pic so it matched the photos in the old album. To get that Orwochrom look, I increased saturation of yellows and cyans, and ran the picture through a grain filter. Really, I could have done with a period Praktica camera and Pancolar 50mm f1.9 lens.

That's it, tumbler empty, Lent's kicked off

The time is 00:00. The day is Ash Wednesday. The asceticism starts here. And no Rock'n'Roll. Jazz, R&B, Soul, Pop or music other than Arvo Part's Misere and Henryk Górecki's Third Symphony. Or film. Or TV. Deny yourself... everything.

Lent begins at midnight

For the seventeenth year in a row, I shall be engaging in Lenten fasting. The purpose - strengthening Will, cleansing the Body, purifying the Soul. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. Until Easter Sunday (which this year falls on 23 March), I shall not partake of many foods and beverages that I regularly enjoy. I continue the fast across all six Sundays in Lent.

Here's the total list:

• Alcohol (alcohol free beer - rather than merely low-alcohol beer - is OK)
• Caffeine (including black, green, white and jasmine teas). Fruit infusions are OK
• Salt snacks (crisps, salted peanuts, tortilla chips, etc.
• Salt (additional to what is naturally found in foodstuffs). The salt shaker is eschewed.
• Chocolate and confectionary (other than chewing gum)
• Biscuits and cakes
• Butter (to be replaced by Flora Pro-Activ)
• Fast foods of all types (chips, burgers, pizza etc, etc)

Those above are the ones I've forsaken each Lent for the past 16 years. Additionally, last year I also gave up:

• Meat and poultry

This year, I shall be going totally vegan, giving up:

• Cheese and other dairy products
• Fish, seafood.

That's it. Hard task for a bon viveur such as me, but do-able. I'm not going to get obsessive about checking whether a soup is made on meat or poultry stock or whether something contains traces of animal product. But I will be carefully sticking to the above proscriptions.

What will I be eating/drinking?

• Fruit
• Vegetables
• Soy-based products
• Fruit juices
• Fruit teas (caffeine free)
• Vegetable soups
• Bread and crispbreads
• Still mineral water
• ...Er, that's it.

For the record; I've just weighed myself; I weigh 75kg (11st 11lbs). This gives me a Body Mass Index of 23.7, as I'm 178cm (5ft 10ins) tall. A BMI of 23.7 is well within the 'normal range' (18.5 to 25). My girth at the waist is exactly 100cm (39 1/4"). Too much - I shall start doing sit-ups again. Not too many at first - will build up slowly. Blood pressure (last taken a few minutes before setting off for the airport, and a bit stressed) was 142/93, pulse 102. All too high; interesting to see if cutting out salt from my diet will lead to a reduction. I also get my blood cholesterol measured during Lent. Last year it was 194, an entirely acceptable count (below 200 is "desirable level corresponding to lower risk for heart disease").

Towards the tail-end of Yuletide or Xmas, I find myself yearning for the start of Lent. I associate it with the onset of spring. Doing Lent annually creates a natural pattern of the year, lean weeks, fat months. Both Moni and Eddie were conceived during Lent.

Viaduct to the airport

Yesterday Eddie and I went down to see the progress on the new viaduct that will open up a direct road route from Ursynów to Okęcie airport. As you see, the viaduct is ready - some finishing is needed - landscaping, traffic lights. Yet before it can open, ul. Poleczki, which links the viaduct with ul. Puławska and Ursynów beyond, has to be widened. Here progress is slower. The new viaduct will bring the airport some 10 minutes (20 minutes in peak times) closer to us.

The viaduct itself crosses no few than 14 (count 'em!) railway lines - the two mainline tracks down to Radom, Kielce and Kraków, nine tracks for the coal sidings and two more for the sand/aggregates sidings and one which eventually leads into the Warsaw Metro.

Above: View from the viaduct. Four coal-hauling electric locos stand in the sidings while a W-wa Wschodnia-bound osóbka heads towards W-wa Okęcie. The new viaduct is an excellent vantage point for both train anoraks and plane spottaz.

Below: Google Earth's current map doesn't yet show the new infrastructure. Viaduct and extensions of ul. Wirażowa shown in yellow.

Looking up over Jeziorki

A beautiful cloudless day over Jeziorki. Halfway down ul. Trombity, a pigeon loft takes exercise. By chance, a northbound Boeing 747 passes overhead at 35,000 ft. The juxtaposition of flight - white birds, white contrail - against a clear blue sky is quite stunning.

Warsaw's inadequate airport

"On bihaf ow LOT Połlysz Erlajnz, aj łud lajk tu łelkam ju tu Fryderyk Szopę Internaszonal Erport. Lokal tajm iz tłenty tu ten..." Sorry - Fryderyk Szopę what? No one - and I mean no one - calls Okęcie Airport by this name, despite it being now nearly seven years since it was ceremoniously renamed. Freddy Fright-Wig International it most certainly is not. Taxi drivers, local newspapers, employees or residents of the surrounding areas are all unanimous in sticking to the airport's old name, which dates back to before the second world war. Another case of Rondo Babka syndrome*.

The picture above, taken on my arrival in Warsaw last night, shows two buses waiting to take passengers to the terminal. The buses take us to arrivals in Terminal One for passport checks, then we walk through to Terminal Two, to pick up our baggage. Terminal Two is still unfinished, nearly two years after it was meant to have been completed (latest deadline - March 2008). Taxi drivers hate picking up passengers from the new terminal, as over-zealous police officers keep moving them on.

Since we moved to this part of Warsaw ten years ago, passenger numbers flying from Okęcie have trebled (from over three million to just over nine million), yet there's still only one road, ul. Żwirki i Wigury that leads in and out of the airport. And the same two bus routes that ever linked Warsaw to the airport - the 175 and 188 (and one night bus). A second road from the airport to Ursynów is being built; this awaits completion of the viaduct over the railway line and the widening of ul. Poloneza. This project is now three months overdue and counting. And Okęcie must be the only airport in the civilised world that cannot be accessed by rail (underground, main line or tram).

* Roundabout in northern Warsaw, officially renamed "Rondo Zgrupowania Armii Krajowej 'Radosław' ", universally still known by its old name, "Rondo Babka". While renaming streets once named after communist traitors was popular back in the 1990s, change for change's sake in the 21st century is a different issue.