Late autumn drive-time

Leaving the office this evening, the car thermometer showed +1C. Wet snow tipping down - deszcz ze śniegiem - the worst weather Poland can dish out. With four weeks to go before winter solstice, four weeks of deteriorating daylight, it's gloom, gloom and more gloom. Traffic is heavy and extremely slow moving; some drivers have not yet put on winter tyres (summer tyres lose adhesion below +6C). The wet snow is unrelenting, yet does not settle. The thermometer steadfastly refuses to drop to zero. Above: Along Al. Generała Władysława Sikorskiego the traffic manages to hit double-digit speeds (that's in kilometers per hour). Just three months ago, I was cycling home this way at this time. It still was warm and bright.

Above: Waiting at the junction of ul. Puławska and Poleczki. The journey home from here can take as little as five minutes on a clear weekend evening; today a further half-hour would elapse before I'd reach home. Below: Waiting at the junction of ul. Puławska and Płaskowickiej. It's snowing ever more intensely, but it's still above freezing.

Thoughts on the True Nature of Dad Rock

This morning, while driving the children to school, we were listening to a selection of songs by Bruce Springsteen. My old university chum Nick Morris's sons dismiss Springsteen as 'Dad Rock'. Moni, Eddie and I debated what is and what isn't 'Dad Rock'.

A principle element in defining this genre is the complete and utter disdain in which Hip Young People Today hold it. So Iggy Pop, defiant at 60, is still held in regard, I Wanna be your Dog is not Dad. He's not mellow, never was. The Rolling Stones, similarly, seem to defy the stereotype of age, despite their gnarled appearance. Led Zep have pulled off the same trick.

A few weeks ago, Moni put forth the proposition that Pink Floyd is the arch-Dad Rock band. What dad doesn't enjoy listening to 'Dark Side of the Moon' or 'Wish You Were Here'? (not I for one - Pink Floyd have been going down hill since Syd Barrett left). Moni cleverly observed parallels between Waters and Gilmore and Lennon and McCartney (the pretentious hypocrite and the banal tunester). We indeed 'don't need no education'. And yes, Floyd - file under 'Dad'.

Springsteen? Yes and no. His blue-collar rockers ('Born to Run' - which David Brent bursts into after winning the pub quiz -'Sherry Darling' or 'Cadillac Ranch'), his more reflective ballads ('The River', 'Badlands', 'Independence Day') are becoming pipe-and-slippers material. But 'Nebraska', sparse, pessisimistic glimpses into the dark and lonely side of the human soul, is Bruce's Contribution to the Ages and shall never be tarnished with the stain of Daddism.

And so we turn to Dire Straits, the very quintessence of the genre. In 1986 I was stuck on a 24 hour ferry trip from Plymouth to Santander, without a cabin. Every now and then the public address system in the cafeteria (where I was trying to sleep) burst into Dire Straits' 'Walk of Life'. Dads started to strut funkily to this catchy tune; I felt depression sinking in. I nominate this particular piece as the all-time number one Dad Rock number. Phil Collins' 'Another Day in Paradise' comes close (and reeks of hypocrisy). And U2 too, adds Moni.

I count myself fortunate in having children that do not automatically dismiss everything I enjoy listening to as uncool; indeed they themselves have little regard for music that passes today for 'popular'. From Abba to the Sex Pistols, from TSOP to Kraftwerk, from Bowie to heavy rock, much of best-selling pop music of my era - centred around the 1970s - has stood the test of time, the only test that can sort out intrinsically good popular music from bad. Music which will be enjoyed and considered 'cool' by several generations. Precious little has happened in subsequent decades to match the creative outpourings of pop/rock/soul musicians in the '70s.

Currently topping my mp3 playlist: James Brown's full (14 mins 40 secs) version of 'Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothing'

"Shape up your bag/Don't worry about mine
My thang's together/An' doing fine"

Time to junk Christmas

Back from church. A week before Advent. Time to ditch the word "Christmas". It's become a mealy-mouthed euphemism. Here in Warsaw, so far, we are not yet assailed at every step by retailers trying to make fast-moving consumer goods move even faster. It will start, but in good time. (Last year, a certain Warsaw radio station played Wham!'s 'Last Christmas' 506 times. In November. No one kept count of how many times they played it in December. This year, no Polish broadcaster has repeated that mistake.)

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God, I recommend the term "Christ's Mass". A return to the religious feast's original Christian meaning. The Mass celebrating the Birth of Christ - Christ's Mass*. Pronouncing it this way distances you from the cack and dross that has come to mean the run-up to December 25th.

If you are a materialist consumer bent on an orgy of retail-therapy and booze and television to relieve the Northern Hemisphere's darkest time of year, I suggest you make that preference known by referring to the season as "Xmas" (pron. Ecksmuss). Don't offend the sensibilities of those that believe in Christ-as-God by using His name as an excuse for a getting pissed.

If you are not of the opinion that the Hope and Purpose of the Universe is focused singularly upon the personage of Jesus Christ, yet you possess deeper spiritual feelings, "Yule" is as good a way as any to traditionally describe the time around the winter solstice. The sun's appearance in the sky gets shorter and shorter - and when it becomes clear that it will not continue to do so until it finally disappears - it is indeed time for rejoicing. Four days after the shortest day.

So take your pick - Christ's Mass, Xmas, Yule or just 25th December. But please, give the bland "Christmas" a break this year - and don't even think about wishing me a happy "Holiday Season"!

[*Nearest to the Polish - Święto Bożego Narodzenia - lit. the Holy Day of God's Birth - has the right degree of reverence and is in no danger of becoming devalued by komercja]

On Recycling

As the weather's rubbish there's nothing else to write about but rubbish. Of the recycleable sort. Living in London, local government taxes (rates) are crippling. My parents pay the London Borough of Ealing £140 a month - they spend more on rates than on any other outgoing. Here in Jeziorki, we pay the equivalent of £30 a year in local government tax. But then we get hardly any local services (no town drains etc). A private company empties our septic tank and our bins. It charges us 8zł (about one and half quid) to empty a 120-litre wheelie bin of household waste. When we moved into our house, we were disposing of two such wheelie bins a week. Then I bought a composter for the garden, to recycle vegetable kitchen waste. Then I started crushing and storing aluminium cans for recycling. 

In May this year, Moni, inspired by school ecology lessons, persuaded us to start separating glass, plastic and paper. Every fortnight or so I drive to one of the local waste recycling points to dispose of the segregated waste. These have recently sprung up all over the place. There's one in Zgorzala, another in Nowy Podolszyn - most of the nearby villages have recycling points. The benefits are manifold. Less dumping of waste in to nearby forests for one (although this still happens, it now tends to be building waste from construction sites). 

For us, we've cut our monthly spend on rubbish removal from 64zł to 16zł - it now takes around two weeks to fill a single wheelie bin with stuff other than paper, glass, plastic, aluminium and vegetable waste. But the collection of the segregated waste leaves much to be desired. Collections are less frequent than they should be, the lazy and messy just dump their rubbish on the ground by the containers if they're full, often (especially at weekends), they are. I will take the trouble to drive on to the next collection point, but many don't. This leads to complaints from local residents, who have to put up with the mess from week to week. The picture above shows the collection point by the local shop on ul. Karczunkowska on a Sunday afternoon. Last week the plastics bins were overflowing, today plastics was OK, but paper was full. Gloom continues. We were about to go for a walk but it started to rain. Time to think about happier things; I still need cheering up. 

 UPDATE: June 2008 - the collection point on ul. Karczunkowska is shut down owing to local complaints at how people using it just dump unsorted rubbish all over the vicinity. A shame.

Another point of view

Our neighbour, Grazyna Wojciechowicz, sent me this sunrise photo, taken from her house earlier this autumn. The viewpoint is at right angles to that from my bedroom. The long building on the horizon is a Polish Security Printing Works factory (Polska Wytwórnia Papierów Wartościowych) on ul. Karczynkowska, which, inter alia, produces digital tachographs.

Kraks

Rather than take a taxi from the hotel where we had our meetings, we walked back to Kraków Główny station across the Rynek. It's always a pleasure to take this particular stroll; the city has a well-deserved reputation for atmospheric beauty. Late November should be well outside the tourist season - but it's not. Sightseers and visitors are still more plentiful now than in Wroclaw in July.

  Earlier in the day, after arriving in Kraków, I caught this shot of a railway worker shovelling snow off the station roof. This reminded me of the tragedy in Katowice in January 2006, when, owing to the weight of snow on top, the roof of the international exhibition hall collapsed killing 65 people inside. Since then, owners of public buildings are taking no chances.

   

Escapism

"I was talking to a cat the other night. He said what everybody’s looking for is, what everybody’s looking for today, they’re looking for ‘escape-ism.’ " James Brown's nocturnal feline conversation hit on a Great Universal Truth. Escapism is one of mankind's defining inventions. JB is singing about drugs and alcohol, and how you need to steer clear of 'escapism' to stay real. A serious message to the brothers. Yet there's also the petty escapism. Vanilla distractions. Activities in which humans indulge to take their minds off everyday cares and woes. Watching TV, movies, shopping, music, reading fiction, surfing the web. And we do all indulge, to some degree.

Personally, my preferred form of escapism is travel. Transcendental, hypnotic views of The Road (while driving, the landscape unfolds directly in front of you), or, if on a train, the scenery viewed at a 90 degree angle.

Today's journey - a business trip to Krakow - transported me by train from dreary Warsaw to the winter wonderland of rural Malopolska, with the sun shining through the morning mists on landscape white with snow and hoar-frost (szadź)

Winter has arrived early in southern Poland in mid-November. It's been like this for over a week now. From the window, this could be Minnesota in the 1940s or '50s. The steady bu-DUM bu-DUM, bu-DUM bu-DUM of the train puts me at ease, opens my mind to alternative realities.

These photos are my first (of many this winter, I hope) shots of hoar-frost covered trees this winter. Szadź is a beautiful thing, forming when fog freezes overnight on trees.

Not In My Back Yard

Ul. Poleczki, which I consider to the northern border of my patch, offers this picture of what happens when the March of Progress ends up in one's back yard. Yesterday we learned that Pan Winkler's field behind our house has been granted planning permission for 12 detached houses. OK, it's not a telecoms centre (see above). Another such centre sprouted up behind the back garden of the house we rented on ul. Gajdy, so we've experienced having a building site in our immediate neighbourhood. Plus, the rural view from my bedroom window will disappear. "I remember when this was all fields" I will someday say to my grandchildren and they won't believe me.

Weather-wise, the last two weeks have been dull and gloomy. Temperatures between 0C and +3C, not cold enough to be crisp and frosty, but cold nonetheless. Three weeks after the clocks changed, we're back to waking up in darkness. And it gets dark around 4.00pm. The sun, when it makes a rare appearance, does so while I'm at work. This leads to what Poles label 'zle samopoczucie'. The standard remedy is to take magnez (magnesium). I need cheering up. My soul is heavy.