Classic car miscelleny - London and Warsaw

Above: Austin A35, on Weymouth St, London W1. Built in 1957, with a one litre engine, this is pretty much the '50s equivalent of my Nissan. I hope the Micra will soldier on into the 2040s! If so, it should by then have half a million miles on the clock.

Above: A 1921 Ford Model T Touring on Marylebone High Street, London W1. First one I've seen in my life! 15 million built, so few left. It's 87 years old! Interestingly, there's 35 years between the production of the Model T and the two Austins shown, and 35 years between the Austins and my 1993 Nissan Micra.

Above: A 1957 Austin Princess Mk III (as featured in Tessa and Adam's wedding last week) at the Park Łazienkowski. Immaculate inside and out; note yellow Polish 'zabytkowe' (heritage) plates. Who'd have thought, as this vehicle rolled off the same Longbridge, Birmingham production line as the A35 (top) more than half a century ago, that it'd end up doing weddings in Warsaw!

(Above) A 2-door Volvo 122 Amazon, parked around the corner from the Polish parliament. A lovely design, quite timeless. This car was in production for 14 years, from 1956 to 1970. This model would be from the mid '60s, judging from the grille design and wheel trim.

Sublime skies Jeziorki twilight

Today's evening walk resulted in some sublime moments, witnessing the dusk sky, those colours, the mood, the summer scents of a million sweet flowers exhaling. A happy-sad mood, the temporary nature of beauty, a singular moment in an endless cycle of light and dark, as the world turns at the edge of night - the colour of the summer sky half an hour after sunset. The soul must yearn.

Above right: the view along ul. Trombity. Below: the view along ul. Achillesa towards the railway tracks.

Here's looking at you, kid

The UK is the most closely monitored country on earth. London is the UK's most closely monitored city. London Underground is London's most closely monitored real estate. I counted eight CCTV cameras in the short tunnel from the concourse on Piccadilly Circus station to Regents Street South.

Why? Because social trust is breaking down. Freedom is being traded for security. Since leaving London 11 years ago, this is one of those "I no longer recognise the land where I was born" moments; these robotic eyes and arms keeping vigilant watch on knife-wielding teenagers, terrorists, paedophiles and religious fanatics - and on you, and I; members of law-abiding society that the Government no longer seems to trust.

Ironically, today Poland feels freer than the UK. Funny that, eh? Who'd have said that 20 years ago?

Mapa mundi, Piccadilly Circus

In the circular underground concourse of Piccadilly tube station (serving the Piccadilly and Bakerloo lines), I came across this lovely period piece; a map of the world showing the time as the planet spins. Looking at the borders, this is a post-war work, fascinating for cartographers, geographers and political historians. In the photograph below, I've just focused on Europe - from the Atlantic to the Urals (and yes, there's Chelyabinsk!). Click to enlarge image. "Gdansk" is also "Danzig", though "Wrocław" is just that. Germany is represented by just Hamburg, Berlin and Munich (no Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Dresden, Leipzig or Stuttgart). But then just look at Russia! Places that were no more than glorified Gulags - Syktyvkar, Vologda or Ukhta - getting namechecks, while Glasgow or Manchester don't. Says something about filling blank spaces on maps, it also says something about the Soviet sympathies abounding in post-war Britain.

Remember "L" is for "Labour", "L" is for "Lice".

Towers of London

When in London, look up. The city is a chronological onion, with layers of history covered by subsequent layers of history covered my modern tat. Look at it at ground level and all you see are T-shirt vendors, fast food outlets, bus stops, rucksacked crowds, free newspaper distributors and shoe shops. Look up and you can see London in its majesty. Right: The Rising Sun pub on Tottenham Court Road. 'What flights of Victorian fancy', wrote Sir John Betjeman (my favourite poet); this ornate pub frontage was built in 1897. The pub window today advertises Czech and Belgian beers to passers-by. London's become Europe, but Queen Victoria's Empire is still visible, a few floors up.

London's Underground is also a multi-layered spectacle. From the early 'cut-and-cover' lines (Metropolitan - the world's first underground railway, 1863), through the early deep tube lines, privately built and operated before being nationalised, the 1930s extentions into the far suburbs, to the latest projects - the Jubilee Line, Docklands Light Railway, the whole system is aesthetically held together by corporate design of the highest order. Left: Goodge Street Station (Northern Line) with its red tiled arched facade. The station dates back to 1907; the flats above it were built later (compare to this photo from 1925). London is certainly a city shaped by the railways running through it, under it and into it.

Sir John Betjeman is often credited as the man who saved St Pancras from the fate that befell Euston Station; a great Victorian terminus that 1960s developers tore down and replaced with rubbish. St Pancras survived that ignominy and has since been reborn as the rail gateway to Europe. From St Pancras one can catch trains to Paris, Brussels, and yes, Luton Airport (more on this anon). Above: The facade of the Midlands Grand Hotel, undergoing refurbishment. Thank God it's still here. This is the essence of Victorian London, the view of Sir John's "pigeon-haunted turrets" from the Pentonville Road in John O'Connor's 1884 painting is one that's stayed with me since childhood.

A propos of Sir John; while en route from Luton Airport via St Pancras for a meeting at the Polish Embassy on Monday morning, I passed this blackboard advertising the Betjeman Arms pub on the station premises. Time prevented a visit, but surely, Sir John, who "loathed beer and liked wine", and never a fan of corporate pubs, would not have approved.

And what of Euston? All that's left is the pair of entrance gates, reminescent of Warsaw's Rogatki. The famous old arch was torn down in an act of mindless architectural vandalism. Hopefully, when the ghastly 1960s replacement is itself replaced, the Euston Arch will return. If you click to enlarge, you'll see the destinations of the London and North West Railway carved into the panels on the corners.

Two more London towers; one is BT Tower (left), formerly Telecom Tower, originally the Post Office (GPO) Tower. This building was opened in the late 1960s; I visited it as a schoolboy shortly after it opened, and a great impression it made on me too. Much later (in 1994), I attended a press conference given by British Telecom about a new technology that would revolutionise the then-nascent Internet - the World-Wide Web (www), driven by hyper-text mark-up language (HTML). How the world has changed as a result.

And finally, below, the building where I worked for 16 years before leaving London for Warsaw - Centre Point. Infamous for being left empty as a wrongly-timed speculation while homelessness was rising dramatically, the tower was designed by Sir Richard Seiffert (yes, he also did the 1960s Euston development) for a property tycoon called Harry Hyams. In the end, the squatters were moved out, the CBI moved in, and a year later, I was working on the ninth floor.


This time last year:
Cockchafers out in force
High summer in Jeziorki
Stormy night
Wild deer in Las Kabacki forest

Meanwhile, in Gdynia...

While I was in Kazimierz, my wife and parents-in-law were in Gdynia to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Polish Navy. (A bit early, as the actual date was 28 November 1918; however, the year coincides with the Polish Navy's 5th World Congress). Above, right: my father-in-law, Tadeusz Lesisz, on board the ORP Blyskawica. He is the oldest surviving Polish naval officer to have served in WW2. He was Artillery Officer on this destroyer in 1942 when its fierce anti-aircraft barrage fended off a Luftwaffe raid on the docks of the Isle of Wight town of Cowes.

Below: My parents-in-law (front row, centre) during the ceremony in the Błyskawica's officers' mess; my wife sits behind them. Three seats along from my mother-in-law is President Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last Polish president-in-exile, who in 1990 handed the insignia of state of the pre-war Polish republic to the newly-elected President Lech Wałęsa, thus preserving the continuity of Polish statehood across the 45-year period of communism. [Photographs: Marynarka Wojenna]

To Kazimierz, for a wedding

To Kazimierz Dolny for the wedding of our events manager, Tessa, to Adam (above). The ceremony took place in Lazienki Park, followed by a drive down to Poland's most pictureque (and hence most touristy) small town for the reception. The wedding was exquisitely organised (as one would expect from Tessa - the best organiser I know!), wonderful food, music, setting, happy people.

Kazimierz Dolny also happened to be playing host to an international folk music festival, so the charming town (heaving at its very seams at this time of year) was even more crowded than usual. Below: The view from the gate of the church of St John the Baptist.

Kazimierz has some unique architecture that makes it a real gem among smaller Polish towns; the tragedy is that there are not more like it. Germany, France, Italy, Spain - not to mention England - have thousands of truly beautiful villages and small towns. Can anyone helpfully point out some more in Poland worth spending some time in?

Right: Looking towards Kazimierz's main square. Behind me was the pensionat at which I stayed, Pod Wietrzną Górą, which I can recommend for excellent service, lovely rooms, good food, air conditioning and excellent shower units.

But avoid peak tourist times - just look at that traffic jam!

Rain, wind and fire

As I left the office this evening, I could see that the weather was shaping up a summer storm. The cloud was dark, the wind was picking up; heavy raindrops were beginning to fall onto the dusty earth. Soon the rain was pelting down. Driving along ul. Sikorskiego, I noticed a plume of brown smoke drifting across the six carriageways. Pulling up in front of the gas station by the Canal+ building, I leapt out of the car into the pouring rain, the wind whipping across from the west, and I ran in the direction of a fire engine's flashing lights. There was a widespread grass fire in the scrubland between the road and the allotments beyond. Firefighters were engaging the flames, though they were spreading fast through the dry vegetation by the strong wind.

It was raining; hard and this would eventually help the firemen put the fire out. Note in the photo above how the sparks spread the fire, setting off mini-fires in the foreground. Thunder and lightning accompanied the heavy downpour; it's possible that a lighting strike sparked the fire. I continued home in the hard driving rain.