Classic cars, West Ealing

Some interesting vehicles caught my eye while Moni and I were out and about in West Ealing. Classic cars are more common in Britain than Poland, where the old car scene is mainly about preserving old east European and West German marques. Brits, having greater disposable incomes than Poles, will be more tempted to splash out on vintage tin.

Above: This - is an automobile. 1950 or '51 Chrysler Club Coupe, parked on Hastings Road, W13. I remember as far ago as the early 1980s, there would always be a huge 1950s American car parked here; a beautiful Cadillac or Lincoln... (wait, I'll search my archives...) Ah yes, here we are... 1983 or thereabouts. Below: 1957 Cadillac on Hastings Road.

Good to see consistency here! Over a quarter of a century of keeping these wonderful old vehicles on the road, this guy is performing a valuable service to automobile history.

Left: A 1965 VW Beetle outside Oaklands Primary School, on Oaklands Road, Hanwell W7, which I attended from 1962 to 1969. The Beetle was a rare example of a foreign-built vehicle which achieved significant sales in the UK before Britain joined the Common Market (as the EU was called in those days). French, German or Italian cars were an unusual sight on Britain's roads due to high import tariffs.

Above: Citroen 2CV, parked on The Avenue, W13. Back in 1986, when this particular example was built (judging from the number plate), I got close to buying a new one from a Citroen dealer. The car would soon be out of production, and I had a sentimental thing about the 2CV from my childhood French summer holidays. The car I test drove had six miles on the clock. As I steer her slow out of the lot for a test drive down Greenford Avenue, the indicator stalk falls off in my hand. With build quality as execrable as this, I pass on it; the first new car of my life would be a Renault 5 (hardly better in this respect!).

Beery litter louts

Before leaving London, Moni and I went for a long walk from the posh Cleveland Park area where I lived as a teenager to Hanwell where I spent my childhood. Drabness and decay; once proud Victorian and Edwardian buildings spoilt with back-lit plastic, garish paint and a here-to-day, gone-tomorrow approach to commerce quite absent from the solidity of yore.

In a word, West Ealing to me symbolises Britain's decline. Yes, you can escape - the affluent migrant-free villages the lie beyond the cities' economic catchment areas. Or emigrate. Faces on West Ealing Broadway are either coloured or Polish, or belong to the handful of indigenous Brits that didn't have the gumption to move out over the past half-century.

Yet what of the houses, of the generic terraced Victorian two-up two-downs that were once home to the traditional British working classes? Who can afford the £250,000 - £300,000 for a small, draughty, 130 year-old house in a grotty neighbourhood between the council flats and the railway line? Certainly not someone on a £13,000 service sector salary. Typically, it will be immigrant entrepreneurs and buy-to-let owners.

The well-known retail chains and posh department stores have closed down or moved on from the high street to the shopping centres like the one at Ealing Broadway a mile to the east, the shops in West Ealing cater to immigrants. As I mentioned last month, West Ealing is becoming visibly Polish.
Below: Please put your litter in a bin. The empty Polish beer container phenomenon was blogged last month by Toyah.


Left: Outside the Infants' building of my old school, Oaklands Road Primary.
The children's vegetable garden, in which I once grew salad cress, and an empty Tyskie bottle. O tempora! O mores!
Below: Graffiti on Jacob's Ladder footbridge over the railway line, West Ealing. At least there are no foul oaths directed at Legia's management or owners or at KSP Polonia supporters.


Right: even posh Cleveland Park is not immune to signs of encroaching Polishness.
Growing up around here in the 1970s, I can say that there have always been a great many Polish families living around here, but Poles' presence has never been as physically visible in West Ealing as it is today. Different generation, different upbringing.

50% off half-price and nothing to pay to June 2016

Poland's gone back to work after Christmas, but here in the UK, there's an extra two days of public holiday (on account of the fact that Christmas Day and Boxing Day fell on a weekend). In Poland - tough. Public holidays on a weekend - the workers lose out (national accounts do better).

So how have Britons been spending the day? In a word, shopping. So Moni, Eddie, Cousin Hoavis and his mum set off with me to Derby. Westfield Centre was packed to the gunwales. Table for five at Pizza Express? That'll be a one and half hour wait. 70% advertised off in many shop windows. Last year's tat that failed to move off the shelves. Want something timeless? Classic? Normal price. Do these people milling aimlessly about know what they actually want? Or are they merely tempted by the thought of bargains?

Outside the Westfield Centre, every other shop is either boarded up or advertising a closing-down sale. The opening of Derby's new mega-mall coincided with the recession hitting these shores. Some nice (read: non-chain) shops still survive around the Quarter by the Cathedral, offering something outside of the standard. Pound World and 99p Kingdom are doing boffo business, I pop in to buy some more reading glasses.

We find a Pizza Express in the Cathedral Quarter - a table for five magically appears just for us. And our waitress was from Wroclaw.

Derbyshire, Boxing Day

We arrived at my brother's on Christmas Day in time for a massive turkey dinner followed by Christmas pud, washed down with some excellent ale (Brakspeare's Oxford Gold). I managed to catch up on sleep, with another 12-hour night. Much needed after a hectic run-up to Christmas.

Boxing Day (drugi dzien swiat). A late afternoon walk, before dinner. Time to head up into the hills overlooking Duffield and enjoy scenery that's so different to our Mazowsze.

Above: dry stone wall with stile (cf. 'turnstile' = kolowrotka) on public footpath. Very characteristic of northern England. Below: further on along the footpath. Time to turn around and head back for another huge dinner.

Christmas Eve, England

We arrive in Manchester to find fine frosty weather, blue skies and a light dusting of snow, temperature hovering around zero.


Above and left: Bright red pillar boxes are an attractive feature of British street furniture (along with the few remaining traditional telephone kiosks and Belisha beacons). The children take the occasion to pose with two that grace the short stretch of Broadway in Cheadle.

Both pillar boxes are signed with the monograph 'GR' indicates they date back to the reign of King George VI.

Above: back from a trawl of the charity shops of Cheadle.

Yuletide break

Off to the UK with the children; taxi will be at the gate in half an hour. Taxi to Okęcie, WizzAir to Luton, thence hiring a car for onward travel to Manchester; wigilia in Manchester at my mother-in-law's; first day of Christmas . Then on to my brother's for Christmas day in Derbyshire (that nice journey over the Peaks). And ever onwards to London to visit my parents, then back to Warsaw in good time for New Year.

In the UK it will be muted consumerism. Continuity announcer: "And now on BBC One - Christmas murder. On Two, a murder double bill. Over on BBC 4 - mass murder. And starting now on BBC Murder - more murder." No thanks. Let's listen to the radio... "Just chill out, pull out that litre bottle of Waitrose vodka from your freezer, fill up a pint mug and listen to Classic FM..." Well, I think not.

A peaceful break to all my readers, hope it all goes well for you, lots of rest, time to recharge the batteries; hopefully a post here soon after Christmas Day.

UPDATE: Made it to Manchester. Got upgraded from a Ford Fiesta to a Nissan Note at Luton (no winter tyres of course, a beermat sized plastic scraper to remove ice from windows, windscreen wiper fluid frozen solid). We chose to drive over the Peaks rather than take the soul-less M6. Beautiful - snow and sunshine once more. Matlock Bath especially charming (below).

WARNING TO URSYNAUERS JOURNEYING TO OKECIE AIRPORT: Early this morning, the north-bound lane of ul. Gordona Bennetta was closed off to traffic. NO DIVERSION SIGNS. Our poor taxi-driver was blundering around helplessly looking for a way to the terminal buildings. He was about to take us all the way back via Poleczki and Pulawska to Motokow and Zwirki i Wigury (a detour of about 20 minutes and 70 zlotys), when we found that the unmarked diversion runs along the southbound lane of Gordona Bennetta. Infuriating.

Dense, wet, rush hour snow

Snow started falling in the afternoon. Instant knock-on effect on public transport - no buses for 20 minutes then three at once. Temperatures stayed below zero. The 162 was hideously packed. Leaving my office 12 minutes early, I arrive 16 minutes late at my destination, a mere seven bus stops away. Not good.

Indeed, once back in my car at Ursynów Park & Ride, I could appreciate the comfort factor of not being squeezed into an overcrowded bus. My own space, my own music, to which I can sing along to (loudly). The lure of the private car at this time of year is strong. To tempt motorists away from their cars, city authorities need to provide more buses and more bus lanes. More trams and Metro also appreciated!

Left: ul. Targowa in the heavy snow. One of many Warsaw streets named after Russian (or Soviet) generals. General Alexander I. Targov was responsible for murderous repressions following the January Rising of 1863. Other streets named after former oppressors: ul. Ogrodowa (Stalin-era Politburo member General Ogrodov) and ul. Towarowa (WWI field marshal, M.B. Tovarov). There are more.

Polish translation conundrum of the day: pretensja as in 'mieć pretensje do kogoś'. To 'bear a grudge' or to 'harbour a grievance' is, to my mind, too strong. Grudges and grievances one bears, or harbours, or even nurses (!) for years. Pretensje are usually forgotten about within days, unless the cause is endemic ('he's always late'). Pretensje can be easily laughed off, grudges can't. To have pretensions (airs and graces) is captured by the adjective pretensjonalny, which gives rise to the danger of the false friend 'to have pretensions against someone' when translating mieć pretensje do kogoś into English. Any better suggestions than those offered by Oxford/PWN and Getionary?

Kidnapped by Koleje Mazowiecki

For the first time since the introduction of the new railway timetables last Saturday week, I chanced a ride to work on Koleje Mazowieckie. Since the snows began, the performance of Poland's railways has been dire. My experiences so far this winter have been of cancellations and delays longer than the usual journey time. The introduction of the new timetable is usually entirely virtual, since trains keep running (on my line anyway) to the old timetable for weeks regardless.

And so it was this morning. The advertised 07:38 train arrived at 07:54 (i.e. as per old time table). Just a three-car set of EN-57 rolling stock (above) - totally inadequate for the jam of passengers trying to board. But by W-wa Służewiec I manage to get a seat.

So engrossed was I in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, that I fail to notice that the train pulled into W-wa Centralna rather than W-wa Śródmieście... The train emerged from the Tunel Średnicowy on the wrong track, passing W-wa Powiśle without stopping. Soon, I am being whisked, against my will, across the Vistula (below).

The train continues past W-wa Stadion and arrives (no doubt on time according to the old schedule) at W-wa Wschodnia, the eastern gateway station. I look round to see what's happening. I see the following sign (below) and challenge my bilingual readers to translate this a) literally and b) usefully into English.

The cause of this notice soon becomes clear; the station is undergoing a remont. I use the Polish word remont rather than 'repair', 'renovation', 'refurbishment', 'remodelling', 'restoration' (or one we saw last week in the Old Town, 'revitalization'), because it so direct and to the point. Indeed, I urge my English-speaking readers to start using this word in English - it is so useful. Which of the many different possible translations into English of remont most accurately captures the flavour of what's happening at the station right now? You'd need to be a consulting engineer to come up with the one English word that precisely defines this type of work. But remont - we all know what it means!

Above: Warszawa Wschodnia station undergoing its remont. Ticket booths are outside in the open air, most of the facilities are closed. The outside clock (click to enlarge photo) has stopped; it says 05:45. Trains are running late or very late. Finally I board a west-bound train and 50 minutes later, I'm back at W-wa Powiśle, and late for work.