Cars

A few personal observations. My first and abiding love in the automotive world was with American cars from the late 1940s to the late 1960s. Fins and Chrome, peaking with the 1959 Cadillac, but not forgetting the Hudson Hornet or the (original) Ford Mustang. Classic autos, big on style rather than go-fast ability or road holding have always appealed to me. My first three vehicles were (respectively) a Morris Minor van, followed by a 1963 GAZ M-21 Volga (black of course - and what a rarity in the UK!), then a 1955 88" wheelbase Land Rover Series I.

By the late 1980s I'd moved up the career ladder, and as managing editor of CBI News, I stumbled upon the idea of introducing an executive motoring column to the business leaders' magazine. For several years, Jaguars, BMWs, Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, Audis, Mercedes Benzes, Lexuses and the odd Aston Martin (as well as lesser marques) waited outside my door for a test drive. After several years of doing this, I came to the following conclusions:

1) Buying a car with your own money is the biggest waste of money you can achieve in your lifetime. If no one (i.e. your employer) is willing to buy one for you, buy the smallest and cheapest and most reliable car available that meets your needs. Invest the money saved on property.

2) Sitting barefoot in a Rolls-Royce or Bentley, feet immersed in lambswool rug, breathing in the heavenly aroma of Connolly leather, seeing only wood, chromed metal, leather and glass around you, and the Silver Lady or Flying "B" on the bonnet, makes you feel quite Godlike. Sit in any other car, and after a while, you forget whether you're in a Jag or Merc or a Nissan Micra.

Today, a full tank of petrol in the Toyota Yaris costs as much as a quarterly season ticket for Warsaw's public transport system. When I used to drive to work, a tankful would last a fortnight (one-sixth of the duration of a quarterly ticket). Plus parking fees, insurance, servicing etc. Plus walking between bus stop and Metro, Metro and office, keeps you fitter than blobbing out at the driving seat.

From the financial point of view, if you live within Warsaw's borders and no longer have children that need driving to school, it's hard to justify a car for day-to-day use.

Which is not to say I don't like some cars - aesthetically. Any decision as to what car I'd like to own would be primarily dictated by looks rather than performance or roadholding.

What could I consider owning?

Contemporary cars that I find attractive...

Opel (Vauxhall in the UK) Insignia. I like that retro look, harking back to the late '40s/early '50s. The four-door saloon (sedan) version, in a rich burgundy colour - nice. A bit of a rep-mobile, but a design that has the makings of a modern classic. I'd customise mine though:)

No longer in production, the Nissan Micra K12/K12C (2002-2010) is a car I've long fancied, looks-wise. Again, a retro design, which, in three-door guise, gives it the air of an American hot-rod from the 1930s, customised in the 1950s. Primer Gray and chromed steel wheels to give it that Two Lane Blacktop look...

Out of production for a few years now, the 2000-2007 Volvo XC70 is a bigger car than I'd care to own (not really having the need for all those doors and load space), but I love its looks. It's another contemporary classic, replaced by a corporate clunker with stuck-on silver plastic rhomboids applied in the mistaken assumption of making the current XC70 look more modern. Colours? Sand, navy blue, maroon - but not black.

The BMW Mini is my dream city car, especially in drop-top form with a frugal diesel engine. The Mini has a timeless charm about it, and quite honestly, there's little need for anything larger if 95% of your driving is around town. The Countryman is an obese irrelevance. If it is a mini, it's one that hangs down below the knees. The rest of the range, however, I consider quite wonderful.

Another convertible, though quite pricey, that tickles my fancy, is the Audi A4 Cabriolet (2000-2005). With a dark red soft-top. And diesel engine. More for the long-distance touring perspectives that will open up when ul. Puławska is connected to the rest of the continent via the S2 expressway...

Four-wheel drives can be useful on the few untarmacked roads between Jeziorki and the city centre, but generally I consider full off-road capability wasteful of fuel and space. Unless you have pigs to get to market. One 4x4 that I have hankered after for many years, however, is the Jeep Wrangler; again, must be with a diesel engine. A classic with a bloodline going back to the WWII Willys Jeep, a vehicle with character. Green or Sand. NOT BLOODY BLACK!

And that's about it. I can't say I care for any other contemporary vehicle. The ubiquitous Warsaw-issue black SUV with darkened rear windows driven by someone with a mobile phone clamped to their ear - makes me puke. Sign of a buc totally lacking in imagination.

Now, classic cars - don't get me started! Temat rzeka, Panie...

This time last year:
What's the English for kombinować?

This time three years ago:
The demographics of jazz

This time four years ago:
A day in Poznań

The meaning of Clarkson

Jeremy Clarkson is not a name unfamiliar in Poland; his books and TV shows are available here in translation; Świat wedłu Clarksona (four volumes of the stuff) is a concept that many Poles will have come into contact with in their native language.

The man has made his name and his fortune driving expensive cars around public roads while pressing the loud pedal. His forthright views on matters unrelated to the ignition of fossil fuels in the pursuit of thrills are often hilarious. His ranty writing style inspires rank-and-file bloggers in a way that only Bill Bryson can better.

So. On Wednesday, Britain's public sector went out on strike (well, some of them). Jeremy Clarkson said on BBC television:

"Frankly, I'd have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families. I mean, how dare they go on strike when they have these gilt-edged pensions that are going to be guaranteed while the rest of us have to work for a living?"

Obvious uproar. Over 21,000 complaints to the BBC. The main public sector trade union has called for his sacking. Even the prime minister, David Cameron, said to be a personal friend of Clarkson's, was forced to comment ("a silly thing to say... I'm sure he didn't mean it").

It will blow over, but will not be forgotten. However, Clarkson (though he probably doesn't twig) does has a serious point. The British public sector has become an economic absurdity, and economic absurdities in the long run face correction. The bigger the absurdity, the bigger the correction.

Amid the outrage, that point has been lost. Over the Blair-Brown years, the UK's public sector has been silently bloating, soaking up the slack in the labour market caused by 1.7 million manufacturing jobs heading east. Paid for at first by GDP growth and windfalls such as the sale of 3G licences netting £23 billion in 2000, this scheme started becoming unworkable as recession struck in 2008/9; since then, these additional public sector jobs (and their attendant pension schemes) were increasingly paid for out of debt.

Now, many British public sector workers are living a life of entitlement ("I'm doing the public a service, so the taxpayer owes me"). Well, nie do końca. It's time to count the cost. In Poland, for example, the minister of administration, Michał Boni, has calculated that it costs 50 złotys to administer 50 złotys of state benefits. This will have to change if Poland is to escape the fate of Greece and Italy. Britain is much further down the road to ruin than Poland (which as least has plausible growth scenarios to keep investors interested). Britain's public sector workers need to wake up to that unpleasant reality.

Until relatively recently, Britain was a land of pubs full of laughter, informed conversation and cigarette smoke. Each pub would have its own Jeremy Clarkson holding forth at the bar after three pints of Old Nutkin and commenting wittily upon the affairs of the day. Today, Britain's pubs tend to be joyless, sterile and half-empty places; the nation instead imbibes Herr Lidl's 3-month-old 'Don Pedro' whisky-style beverage at home in front of 46" TV sets. This, I think, rather explains the Clarkson phenomenon - we still need our public house pundits.

Sadly though, Clarkson is outliving his usefulness. How much of Britain's economic woe is the result of consumers believing that they were entitled to purchase that car Clarkson drooled over on Top Gear. He should give up driving expensive cars; instead, he should go to his nearest adult education college and study for a Higher National Diploma in economics. Then, he'll be able to apply his ready wit to affairs of state with at least some underpinnings of theoretical knowledge. Instinctively he's right - but his lack of gravitas now sits uncomfortably upon a man of his age.

This time last year:
Today, not so good.

This time two years ago:
In which I walk to work

This time four years ago:
Act 1, Scene 1, a blasted heath

Snow-free November

Well, that's November gone, and no snow.

Let's look back over this blog at when Warsaw experienced its first snow... (this is where blogging proves its worth as a form of popular record). We can see - well, not too anomalous. Having said that, there are rumours, whispers, from the south of Poland of an impending drought. Indeed, I can't remember proper rain since the second half of August. And people are talking about a warm (+12C) Christmas - will we get show this December? We did last year and the year before...

2010: 28 November (I missed it, but on my return to Warsaw on 29 November, it snowed and kept on snowing). December was snowy - in the UK too!

2009: 14 October (!!!) An absolute anomaly, the more so that November proved snow-free. However, the second half of December saw heavy snowfalls

2008: 22 November. Snow stayed around for a few days; December was not snowy at all.

2007: 14 November. It didn't settle for long, returned briefly a week later; December was pretty much snow-free too.

A final word about this year. Many's the time I've heard about it snowing (during communist times) on the May Day parade; white shirtsleeves and blouses with red neckerchiefs - and snow. Yet this year, it snowed on the evening of 3 May - free Poland's celebration of its Constitution Day. Bizarre when I think back - eight o'clock in the evening, it's still light outdoors - and there's the garden covered in snow.

This time last year:
Krakowskie Przedmieście in the snow

This time two years ago:
Ul. Poloneza bisected by S2 roadworks

Unashamed City of Dreams gorgeousness

Once again - a crushed velvet dusk in my City of Dreams. Look at how Zlota 44 (between the Palace of Culture, right, and Złote Tarasy, centre) is rising to find its place on Warsaw's skyline.

Two exposures - one (top) exposed for the ground, the other, for the sky. HDR (high dynamic range imaging) would allow for the capture of an image that incorporates the best of both pics.

Follow the Zlota 44 saga back over the past three and half years - here (Yellerbelly) and here (Scatts). Both guys know what they're writing about. See the building when it was no more than a hole in the ground.

A propos of dreams - my dreams are getting increasingly hybrid. One character that pops up in them frequently is my brother/son; an amalgam of my brother at Eddie's age and Eddie; neither and both. And the dreams are more often than not located in an amalgam of modern-day Warsaw, 1960s/70s London, and 1930s-50s USA. Such were the dreams I dreamt last night.

This time last year:
I'm so glad I'm living in Warsaw

This time two years ago:
Candid photography

This time three years ago:
Archival photos of the Rampa in action

This time four years ago:
Red sky in the morning...

An end to the Entitlement way of thinking

There must be some kind of way out here
Said the joker to the thief

The first lines of Bob Dylan's All Along The Watchtower* spring to mind as I watch the world teeter on the brink on economic meltdown. There must indeed be some kind of way out of here, but it's not going to be pleasant. A face-off between young protesters and their banker foes will not, however, produce any roadmap as to the exit route from the crisis.

I can sympathise with the voice of a generation whose prospects are getting bleaker by the day, the Occupiers of Wall Street or London or Spain's Indignados and other groups of protesters. My problem with them, however, is that they have no solution to the problems besetting the global economy; all they can offer is a generalised list of woes that anyone can pick up from reading the papers.

Problems. Take the eurozone crisis. We all have a good idea of what would happen if, for example, Greece were to replace the euro with a new drachma. A run on the banks, capital flight - wealthier Greeks taking suitcases of euros out of the country to havens safe, printing new banknotes and minting new coins, making adjustments to bankomats** and vending machines, re-pricing all products in all shops. And the economic fall-out - suddenly, Greece would be the cheapest place in Europe to holiday, but, as the Greeks don't actually make anything, everything they need to fit out hotels and restaurants has to be imported from a prohibitively expensive eurozone.

We don't know what course of action to take. Keep the Greeks in, or push them out? Pain one way, pain the other. Greeks? Who's next? The Italians? A problem one order of magnitude greater. Then who? France? Germany? Britain? The USA? China? Contagion! Panic! The Great Depression, all over again. Just 80 years on.

Let's look at the root causes. I go back to Student SGH's brilliant essay from early last year, in which the anonymous author looks at the two main drivers of the market, Fear and Greed. He postulates that it was not so much Greed that sank the markets, but Lack of Fear. Now, I'd also like to add another root cause, namely Entitlement.

When anybody thinks "it's my right (to get money from the state for doing nothing/for leading a bank into failure)" then you know that Absurdity has got the upper hand. Entitlement-thinking leads to sub-optimal performance in the market place. Mnie się należy.

• Because I'm the child of wealthy parents, I deserve an iPhone 4S for Christmas.
• Because I'm a single mum, the State has a duty to provide me with free accommodation.
• Because my company is French (or whatever) it should be protected from global competition.
• Because my company is state-owned, and I'm in PSL, I must become Prezes.
• Because I graduated with a Third in Media Studies at John Lennon University, I deserve a well-paid job in TV.
• Because my bank's Too Big To Fail, I deserve a huge bonus from the tax payer.
• Because my parents will leave me a big house, I don't have to work too hard right now.
• Because the value of my house will keep rising, I'm entitled to exotic holidays and flash car.
• Because it's done so up to now, my company's market share will keep growing indefinitely.
• Because my parents are wealthier than my grandparents, I'm going to be wealthier still.

As you can see from the above list, entitlement thinking affects people across the entire spectrum of society. The blame cannot fall on the bankers alone. People should take on more responsibility upon their own shoulders - should your bank fail - take the blame, sell your mansions and helicopters and put the money into the accounts of the small savers who've taken the blow. Take the blame for your own fecklessness rather than expecting the taxpayer to bail you out. Less entitlement - more individual responsibility.

Getting used to economic well-being gets you soft. Poles, who in the space of a generation have been through economic hardships undreamt of in the West are, I think (and here, of course, I'm forced to generalise) are much better situated to ride out the coming storm than the 'softies' of the pampered West. Since 1981, Poland has endured the fifth-deepest economic depression of the 20th Century; empty shelves on shops, inflation of  800% a year, and shock-therapy transformation from which many provincial towns and rural areas have not yet recovered from.

Young Poles certainly feel less entitled than their British peers. They know that life's hard, work's a grind, but there's no one around to spoon-feed you. If they can't find a job in Radom or Gorzów, they'll fly to the UK to look for work. Hence the Polish barmen with Master's degrees in engineering and Polish chambermaids with Master's degrees in law.

Sustainable Growth, the chimeric Grail that corporates strives for, cannot be achieved by armies of pushy salesmen foisting unsuitable financial or insurance products or endlessly updated consumer electronic technologies upon unwary consumers. (Incidentally, I have yet to meet one person to rave about the wonders of BlueRay discs.) As consumers, we must save more and spend less. When we do spend, we should part with our money for things that we shall treasure, not junk destined for the bin. (How much of the money the Britain currently owes China is buried in landfill sites around the UK?) Business should accept that only true innovation is the way forward; consumers should pull things out of factories rather than sales forces push them into the consumers' living rooms.

The economic crisis will not go away quickly. It will be here, tainting the lives and prospects of a young generation just ready to enter the world of work. It will hit those societies that have had it too soft for too long. The injustice of it all is that the politicians, bankers and corporate leaders that have misshaped the world economy up to 2007, with all its absurdities and imbalances, will among the last to feel the pain upon their own skins. And that is what the Occupy movement is all about - a frustrated yet impotent cry of anguish. But no solutions.

AFTERTHOUGHT. I look at the title again. What rubbish! There will never be an end to the Entitlement way of thinking! It will return once this current crisis is gone and forgotten, it will return once another generation of political and business leaders says "an end to boom and bust", starts thinking that we're on a upward sloping trajectory that will continue upwards for ever. Once that thinking sets in, all manner of people will start believing that "it's owed to me".

* Jimi Hendrix recorded the definitive version.

** Bankomat - a word that needs to be adopted into English.

This time last year:
West Ealing - drab and sad suburb

This time two years ago:
To Poznań by train

This time four years ago:
Late autumn drive-time

Intelligence and the Ladder of Authority

Every human being has an innate need to impose his or her will on another human being. This is inextricably linked with the fact that we are mammals; a biological imperative to have a clearly-defined hierarchy is born with all of us.

Whether it is a parent trying to instil values unto the next generation, a boss telling an employee what to do and how to do it, a sergeant-major barking out commands to new recruits or a householder instructing a domestic servant as to what needs doing around the kitchen, there are social hierarchies in which there is an intrinsic expectation of who is to be top dog.

This is the ladder of authority. It is based on age, status, experience, brute physical presence - but increasingly, over the millennia of human evolution - on intelligence. It is most visible among adolescent boys - in the playground, on the pitch, in the classroom (trying not to appear a swot, but to demonstrate effortless cleverness); they are yet too inexperienced to work out ruses how to rule by stealth.

Everyone wants to be boss. Even over their children or spouse. It is difficult for anyone to accept that in a small group, that they are not dominant. They will create excuses, make up stories, role-play - do anything rather than admit a lower standing on the ladder.

There's an official ladder, based on formal hierarchies, family trees or job titles and then there's what's really going on. Here's where the interesting interactions are going on. Peer-to-peer. That lovely line in The Office - Tim to Gareth - "you're not assistant manager. You're assistant to the manager".

We can sniff out weakness in another human, very quickly. We can tell who's really boss. Or so we think. And if that other person thinks that they are the boss - for what ever reason - there's bound to be conflict. Giving in is just not in our nature. Giving in is a sign of submissiveness, what's worse - that the person with whom you are in conflict with is dominant.

This plays out in the international arena, behind closed doors in politics. So many ruses can come into play; Stalin inviting Churchill to dinner at his private dacha after Churchill's first meeting with the General Secretary probably changed the course of post-war Europe by appearing to be placatory and showing his human side - which threw Churchill off guard. How much of what's being determined by Europe's leaders now is not being done on the basis of logic, but on the basis of human personality - dominance and submissiveness? How did Silvio Berlusconi - a farcical figure if looked at through the prism of cold logic - maintain power in Italy for so long?

We all set out wanting to be Top Dog. Even a Pope would not have got to the top without a strong will, a tough personality, determination to push others aside to get to the summit. Then there is that moment... I'll let the immortal Uncle Monty (from Withnail and I) explain:

"It is the most shattering experience of a young man's life when he awakes and quite reasonably says to himself: I will never play The Dane. When that moment comes, one’s ambition ceases."

The theatrical metaphor of playing Hamlet extends to life. I got to play The Dane briefly (two years as general manager of the Polish operation of an international publishing company) but after the stress and pressure decided that I have neither the greed nor lust to dominate others needed to remain a senior executive in a global corporation.

Human life is a game in which a great many of our interactions are a trial of strength between two or more players, striving to be one up on the other(s). "You get the broom." "No, YOU get it!" "Open a Second Front now!" "The British and Americans are not ready yet!"

Once you recognise this, once you have the awareness of what is really going on when you ask someone for something, or they ask something of you, once natural positions are established, conflict can give way to partnership.

Again, I'll offer the most profound piece of advice that I can offer as a result of my 54 years on this earth - get to understand your biology, and rise above it to fulfil your potential.

This time last year:
Edinburgh portraits

This time two years ago:
Kiedy ranne wstają zorze

This time four years ago:
Thoughts on the Nature of Dad Rock

New train timetables - Radom line warning

Thursday's Gazeta Stołeczna carried an article that filled me with dread. The last two paragraphs of this piece. The paper has seen the new railway timetables that come into force on 11 December (long-time readers of this blog will know that the introduction of new timetables mean chaos on the tracks at the best of times). For commuters coming into Warsaw along the line from Radom (calling at Warka, Czachówek, Zalesie Górne, Piaseczno and Nowa Iwiczna) the news sounds ominous. From four trains in the peak morning rush hour between 7:00 and 8:00 to two.

Well, let's not take news at face value and compare the new and old timetables:

Old - departures from Piaseczno to Warsaw (Koleje Mazowieckie)
6:15 - 6:46 - 7:03 - 7:20 - 7:33 - 7:51 - 8:40 - 8:57

New - departures from Piaseczno to Warsaw
6:06 - 6:41 - 6:56 - 7:11 - 7:35 - 8:19 - 8:38 - 8:59

Well, on paper, all eight departures between 6:00 and 9:00 are still there, though spread out more. Indeed, between 7:00 and 8:00 there are only two trains, but the number of trains between six and seven and between eight and nine have been increased from two to three each. So a bit of alarmism, but even so, that gap between the 7:35 and the 8:19 service is way too great. That train will be utterly packed.

Fewer trains to town?

To make matters worse, the semi-fast services from Radom and beyond to Warsaw are also being scaled back. In a letter to the Radom edition of Gazeta Wyborcza, users of the TLK and Interregio trains into Warsaw complain about chronic delays, overcrowding, ancient rolling stock - and now, curtailments of services in the new timetable. The final paragraph warns that desperate passengers will take to blocking the tracks.

Once again, we see mixed signals. On the one hand, Warsaw's authorities are clearly trying to wean the populace from driving into town in private cars. On the other, cash-strapped local and regional authorities are unable to dip into their budgets to support rail services. What are people from Piaseczno to do? Between 7 and 8am, there are just ten buses from Piaseczno to Warsaw. Given that each is able to take around 200 passengers, standing and sitting - that's a mere 2,000 Sand City dwellers that have that option. Plus, as we know, ul. Puławska is one solid mass of near-stationary traffic at that time.

No one seems to care. ZTM is not fussed that Koleje Mazowieckie can't cope; Koleje Mazowieckie doesn't care that Przewozy Regionalne and InterCity's TLK services are being cut; the city authorities are in no hurry to paint bus lanes down Puławska, or to provide a cycle path alongside the roadway - so what happens? People continue to drive to work, or at least to drive to the three Park+Rides at Stokłosy, Ursynów and Wilanowska Metro stations (room for 556 cars).

I find it inconceivable that rail services are being trimmed back. Bear in mind that a single six-carriage set of EN57 stock can take 1,360 passengers (as many as seven buses or around 900 cars assuming 1.5 passengers per car), trains really are the optimal form of travel.

Looking at an analogous commuter railway service in the UK, Slough to London Paddington, there are currently seven local trains leaving the town for the capital between 7:00 and 8:00am. As six-car sets, these trains can carry around 800 passengers in (slightly) greater comfort and much higher speeds than the half-century old Polish commuter trains.

Joined-up government is needed. Warsaw needs workers. People come into the capital each day from Radom (100km away), even Łódź (135km) as well as many nearer satellite towns. Merely leaving clogged-up truck roads, beset with roadworks, to act as conduits that get the Warsaw's economy moving and shrugging shoulders at the inertia on the railways, is irresponsible. Frustrated workers are not productive workers.

* Between 7:00 and 8:00, public transport can move a mere 4,800 people from Piaseczno into town, assuming that no one boards the bus or train at intermediate places like Nowa Iwiczna, Mysiadło, Dąbrówka, Jeziorki, Pyry or Dawidy. That really is pathetic.

This time last year:
London notes

This time two years ago:
Silent and Unseen - in your bookshops now

This time three years ago:
Frustrated by ul. Puławska - rat-run absurdity

This time four years ago:
Some thoughts on recycling

Selling old magazines - OK or not?

And lo, upon TVN Fakty did they show the Authorities cracking down upon the Small Man and the Small Woman trying to make a living by selling clothes and things upon the highway side. And the Authorities liked not that these people be engaged in commerce without letting the State share in the trade. Mayors from Kołobrzeg, Łódź and Kraków explained that 'dziki handel' makes their streets and pavements look bad. And the Small People wept; for they have no other way with which to sustain their families. The Authorities seized boxes of clothing from the Small Man, sealed them and sent them even unto the Courts of Law.

The real reason for this high-profile clampdown is not to bring beauty and order upon the pavements of the land; it is so that Poland can be seen by the Ratings Agencies, the European Commission and the bonds markets getting tough on non-payers of VAT. Now, given that some 45% of all revenues flowing into the Polish state budget comes from VAT, squeezing out the non-payers from the market makes very good sense. Tough on the Small Man and the Small Woman, but they have for years been squeezing the revenues of the people one notch above them on the food chain who do pay VAT, do pay ZUS on their employees, do pay CIT on corporate profits. Tough on the customer of the Small Man and Small Woman; but their savings have been bypassing the state treasury and thus contributing to the budget deficit and to public sector.

Which as we can see from the experiences of Greece is not a good thing.

So. This evening, waiting for my train at W-wa Śródmieście, I noticed my favourite second-hand magazine stand was closed (below). Clampdown? These stands are the bane of Poland's publishers. Some types of magazine - classified ads, for example, have a shelf-life measure in days. But many hobby mags for example - cycling and photography being my two interests - can be bought months later without deleterious effect. Knitting patterns, computers, military history, motoring - likewise.

The process works like this. Magazines appear originally on news stands on a sale-or-return basis. What does not get sold in Ruch, Relay, Kolporter or InMedio ends up in recycling bins. As the retail price of waste paper is 30 grosze a kilo, while a magazine can get re-sold for 2zł - 5zł (depending on how old it is, how expensive it was), it makes sense to bring the old copies back onto the market.

Among the unsold months-old Uwarzam Że and Nowe Państwo magazines lie gems (English-language titles among them) for a fraction of their former price. Of course, no VAT goes to the state coffers, because what's 23% of the input cost if the input cost is zero?

My speculations about whether the Straż Miejska and Urząd Skarbowy had raided the bowels of W-wa Smródmieście came to an end when a few minutes later the shutters went up and it was business as usual (below).

Below: As you can see, a wide selection of titles on sale, very modestly priced to sell, buy one, get an even older one free - but nary a VAT receipt to be seen.

Below: And another such stand, this one on Platform 2. No doubt PKP Nieruchomości that rents out square metres in the innards of its subterranean passages (same thing goes on at W-wa Wschodnia and Zachodnia) is not too fussed about the fiscal niceties as long its revenues roll in.

With Germany unable to sell of its bonds today, we can see that Europe really is in trouble. Yet Poland has a sufficiently big grey economy that if were to be made to pay like the rest of the retail and distribution sector, budget deficits could be patched up. But sights like those above cannot be seen in Germany or Britain (what would W.H. Smith and John Menzies say?). If Finance Minister Rostowski can muster the state to force the VAT- and excise non-payers to contribute, Poland could pull itself up both fiscally and civilisationally.

This time two years ago:
Warsaw's woodlands in autumn

This time three years ago:
Still here, the early snow

This time four years ago:
Another point of view