From the Mersey to the Tyne

Yesterday morning, I flew into Liverpool airport at the start of a week-long roadshow around the UK, starting in Newcastle-on-Tyne. The weather was perfect all day - too perfect in fact. I'd been hoping to catch more of that Bricktorian Britain atmosphere as my train took me from Liverpool Lime Street via Manchester, Leeds and York to a city noted for its fog. Instead - brilliant sunshine and cloud-free skies. More Italianate than Britannic.

Travelling across England from the north west to the north east, over the Pennines and up the East Coast, I was struck by a) just how incredibly industrious the Victorians (and indeed their Georgian forefathers) were and b) how much of their hard work remains, woven into fabric of the nation's infrastructure. In comparison, Poland, which spent the 19th Century under the dominion of Russian, Prussia and Austro-Hungary, is today a nation in fierce catch-up mode, having been bequeathed very little in terms of infrastructure by the ages.

Below: on final approach to Liverpool John Lennin International. The entrance of the Manchester Ship Canal is in the centre of the frame; a salmon-pink dawn approaches. To the left, the chemical industry of Runcorn; to the right, the River Mersey.

Below: the Tyne Bridges, Newcastle's signature landmarks. To the left, Newcastle, to the right, Gateshead. In this, the city reminds me of Oporto, where low- and high-level bridges link the city to Villa Nova de Gaia. And the weather was to match!

Newcastle, like all large British cities, has its fair share of stupendous Victorian engineering and architecture; I wish I had more time to spend wandering around with my camera.

This time last year:
Autumnal Gdańsk

This time two years ago:
What Independence Day means for Poles

This time three years ago:
Words fail me: what's the Polish for 'to fail'?

This time four years ago:
Autumn in Dobra

This time six years ago:
Autumn ploughing

Another office move

After one year and one week after our last office move, the BPCC is on the move again - to its fourth address since I started working for the Chamber (and indeed the 12th address I've worked in since moving to Warsaw). We say a rather sad farewell to Al. Szucha 3 - a beautifully restored old kamienica where we inhabited the sixth and seventh floors, well located for the ministries, and just after the opening of the Pl. Unii shopping mall across the road. Plus always a lovely stroll down ul. Agricoli to the British Embassy.

Waiting for my last tram out of Pl. Unii. A bittersweet departure.

We say hello to ul. Marszałkowska 89, where we join our Trade Team at the British Polish Business Centre, on the first two floors of the HSBC building. A splendid Class A office, with all mod cons, and extremely well placed for public transport. Five minutes from the platform at W-wa Śródmieście station (for the Koleje Mazowieckie service to W-wa Jeziorki), four minutes from the platform at Metro Centrooom, three minutes from east- and west-bound tram stops along Al. Jerozolimskie, two minutes from north- and south-bound tram stops along Marszałkowska, and a veritable plethora of bus stops surrounding Rondo Dmowskiego (as readers will remember, commemorating the Polish inventor of the roundabout, Roman Dmowski).

Right across the road from our new offices is a building now occupied by court buildings, but right up to the early 1990s, this was the Centralna Składnica Harcerska (central scouting repository), a goldmine of hobbyists' model trains and planes and sporting goods. I have fond memories of the place in 1966 during a childhood visit to Warsaw, a town far grander than West Ealing.

There will be no shortage of places to eat and drink around here. From the trendy Bobby Burger across the way to the swanky Butchery and Wine (what could be finer than a perfectly grilled steak washed down with an agreeable Merlot) on Żurawia, the hipster artisan multi-tap beer bars, Spiskowcy Rozkoszy and Kufle i Kapsle that I've written about - all within a few minutes walk. Indian, Egyptian, Brazilian, Japanese, Italian, Israeli and Lebanese restaurants - ditto.

Travelling home on the Koleje Mazowiecki train to Jeziorki, I'm forced to walk home along the muddy verge of ul. Karczunkowska because a) Ms Gronkiewicz-Waltz has not seen fit to build us Jeziorkians a pavement along its length and b) ZTM has arranged its timetable that in such a way that the eastbound 715 passes the bus stop by the station 30 seconds before passengers getting off the train can get to it.

Surely it's not beyond the wits of bus timetablers to work out that rail-bus interchanges are the most crucial element along a route, and that the bus should arrive at the station's bus stop two or three minutes after the train departs. And a propos o W-wa Jeziorki station, this morning I counted 73 cars parked along the muddy grass verges of ul Gogolińska and Karczunkowska. A record.

And from the train, I observed that ALL the lamps on the several hundred metres of the unused stump of the S79/S7 southbound are switched on - despite the complete lack of traffic for the next 10 years or so. I shall write about this at length - a scandal!

This time two years ago:
PiS splits - Solidarna Polska formed (anyone remember them?)

This time three years ago:
Tesco vs. Auchan

This time six years ago:
My father's house

Call 19115 Warsaw fix-my-street

Passing the Palace of Culture on Monday, I noticed a huge billboard on it bearing the number 19115 and the Syrena, the mermaid symbol of Warsaw in the corner, and the word 'Warszawa' above the '115' (click to enlarge). I was none the wiser until I saw today's Gazeta Stołeczna, which explained all. Launched on Monday by our mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, who remains in office after an inquorate referendum to remove her, this is a new one-stop shop service enabling citizens to notify urban problems such as pot-holes or broken street lamps. Below: the Palace of Culture, now flanked by Zlota 44 to its left (with a hideous blue neon stripe running up its side) and the Cosmopolitan building to the right.

A Warsaw-only service mirroring the UK's FixMyStreet, Warszawa19115 is a phone number, website and smart-o-fon app that channels all complaints onto one desk where... they will get fixed? We shall see...

What's already apparent is that Ms Gronkiewicz-Waltz is not intending to waste the months before the next local authority elections. Last month's referendum served as a wake-up call; if anything, it will prompt her into greater activity, thus increasing her chances of being re-elected for a third term of office.

My wish list for Warszawa19115? Clear up the mess left by builders of ul. Kórnicka /ul. Dumki. The retention ponds are finished, but there's a lot of rubble and muck left behind. Provide ul. Karczunkowska with a pavement. Put asphalt down on ul. Poloneza between ul. Krasnowolska and ul. Poleczki. Put asphalt down on ul. Hołubcowa (about 80% of it is still a dirt track). And get on with it before the elections.

I've just registered the state of affairs on ul. Kórnicka on www.Warszawa19115.pl; I'll keep you informed as to progress. As of now, I've had an e-mail confirming that my complaint has been noted.

UPDATE: Two days later, Thursday, 7 November. I get this message from the City Hall...

Zgłoszenie o numerze 104155/13 zarejestrowane w dniu 05-11-2013 o godzinie 22:33:58 uzyskało status: Zamknięte.
Jesteśmy do Państwa dyspozycji 24 godziny na dobę przez 7 dni w tygodniu.
Zapraszamy na Portal www.warszawa19115.pl
Z poważaniem, Urząd m.st. Warszawy.

Let's run that through Google Translate...

Report number 104155/13 registered on 05-11-2013 at 10:33:58 p.m. obtained Status: Closed.
We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Welcome to the portal www.warszawa19115.pl
Sincerely, The City Warsaw. 

This time last year:
Vapour trails at sunset

This time two years ago:
Autumnal blues

UFO credibility test

There's a lot of hokum out there in YouTubeland, I gather, as for the past few days I've been drawn back into UFOlogy, mainly on the back of those entirely inexplicable incidents in which the pilots of commercial airlines or military jets have described seeing objects in the skies that are (to them) definitely craft, definitely larger and faster than anything known to man - and their sightings have been corroborated by pilots from other planes and by air traffic control.

Watching many purported eyewitness testimonies of UFO sightings on YouTube, the rational mind has to ask itself: "what's more plausible - a) that some attention-seeking old guy fabricated a story that he worked for the CIA in the mid-'50s and saw an alien space craft in Area 51, or b) that creatures from civilisations outside our solar system are whizzing around out atmosphere?" The answer of course is a). Anyone with a bit of background reading and an intent to deceive can attempt to fool people. Some hoaxes have been proved to be more elaborate (much easier in these days of digital handicams and cheap editing software), but I'd still find it more plausible that a given video is a hoax rather than aliens.

But asking the same question of cases where two or more experienced aircrew in two or more aircraft witness something that to their trained and experienced eyes was literally out of this world is more complex. In these cases, cockpit voice recorders have preserved their reactions for posterity - the reaction of air traffic control, the voices of pilots of nearby planes. Is it likely that all four or more professionals have together made up some fake flying saucer story and then persist on sticking to it, despite fear of ridicule and career damage? And these testimonies backed up not by easily editable digital movie footage, but by radar recordings?

UFOlogy is a fine subject for this time of year (much as ghost stories and hobgoblins were in bygone days), it will be time to move on to other things soon. But just to wrap it up for myself - it does appear that there are inexplicable sightings of craft in the skies that are nothing like those built by man, and these have been witnessed by highly credible people with much to lose.

It may be that some can be put down to aerial phenomena - but some can't. The latter will intrigue us for a long time to come. But much of the baggage that accompanies UFOlogy today can simply be jettisoned as being nutty. New World Order, reptilians, reverse-engineered anti-gravity drives, Denver International Airport as the HQ of the World Government - plain nuts. But when pilots report strange objects of huge size, incredible speed and manoeuvrability - that needs to be take seriously. Though the interpretation of this is incredibly difficult and should not be attempted by anyone with a political agenda. Or with a large library of spooky music that they insist on laying down in the soundtrack.

The universe (indeed our own galaxy) is huge beyond comprehension, and our attempts to understand it using physics and cosmological models are still in their infancy. There's much out there that we cannot as yet hope to come close to understanding; which I why I say we should tread warily when it comes to governments coming clean as to what they really do know.

Worth reading some of the reports on the Wikipedia page listing alleged aircraft-UFO incidents.

This time last year:
Junction ready for road to unbuilt sports centre
(one year on - still no sports centre)

This time two years ago:
Park nad Książecem - Vistula escarpment, beautiful autumn

This time five years ago:
Obama wins US presidential election

From one autumn to the other

As I mentioned before, Poland has two autumns - the golden-leaved, blue-sky dry one, and the bare-treed, leaden-sky wet one. The latter is followed by the onset of winter proper. The last week has been most clement, with temperatures in the mid-teens C, and generally dry, with plenty of sunny periods.

Today, for the first time in over a week, I left the house and got on my bike. Getting on the bike (weight on my recovering left leg as I threw my right leg over the saddle) was a bit uncomfortable, but once on the bike, things went well, and indeed I covered over 8.7km without feeling the slight twinge of pain.

As I approached the level crossing on ul. Baletowa (no gates, no signals, main road), I saw a gaggle of eight swans (below) that had just left the ponds between ul Trombity and ul. Dumki; they were setting off northward. A magnificent sight!

I don't know whether they'll be leaving Poland, or moving to the pond they inhabited last winter (see this post) between ul. Hołubcowa and ul. Poloneza. This looked like a short northbound hop (I followed them as far my 55-300mm zoom would let me) over the fields between Baletowa and the new S2 expressway. We shall see.

Swans are becoming increasingly tolerant of humans living around them; with climate change and urbanisation, I guess that within a century or so, swans will be somewhat akin to large pigeons, living semi-ferally in an around the water features of our cities.

We shall also see how autumn progresses; certainly over the next few days we'll not see any frost; temperatures are forecast to remain between 5C and 10C, with rain tonight and on Tuesday night. Sunshine tomorrow... let's keep our fingers crossed that the Polish golden autumn will hang on for a bit longer.

I'm recovering well (thanks for the many e-mails!) and should be back in the office tomorrow. Each day brings noticeable improvement. I still walk with a slight limp and cannot stand on tip-toes on my left leg, but generally things are going better than the many websites I'd looked at had led me to believe. Must be careful not to overdo it!

This time last year:
Hopes fade for S7 to relieve Puławska

This time two years ago:
New office - first impressions (ul. Nowogrodzka)

This time three years ago:
The topography of dreams

This time four years ago:
A regular interchange

Extra-terrestrials on earth - time for disclosure?

An article in yesterday's Polska - The Times intrigued me - it was a full-page review of a blog about Polish UFO sightings. What struck me was the similarities between how the UFO phenomenon has played in the Western media and what was witnessed in Poland during the communist era, shut off from the mainstream discourse at that time. Mysterious lights in the night sky moving at sharp angles, whizzing about at several times the speed of an aircraft; crop circles; four-foot-tall humanoids with angled eyes and in shiny suits. All very familiar...

A few months ago, at my parents' house in London, we stayed up to watch a Channel 5 documentary about UFO incidents in Yorkshire in 1980. What struck me listening to the interviews with the police officers who had witnessed the incidents was the sincerity of their testimonials. These are not publicity-seeking cranks, but rather level-headed folk who had seen something extraordinary.

As coincidence would have it, while looking for 1950s American movies of the film noir genre on YouTube, up popped a speech from former Canadian defence minister, Paul Hellyer.



Having watched this, YouTube helpfully provided me with more links to clips with speeches from leading lights of the 'disclosure' movement - Steven Greer, Richard Dolan. Intelligent, plausible guys. Interviews with witnesses of major UFO encounters, such as the one in Rendlesham Forest in 1980. A Lieutenant-Colonel and a Captain. Not people given to fabrications, especially when both talking independently about the same incident. Certainly not a lighthouse nor Venus low in the skies.

Back in the 1990s, in the pre-Millennial, pre-9/11 era, when X-Files and Dark Skies were the sci-fi series to watch, and the early Internet (with a capital 'I' then) was full of usenet newsgroups discussing the UFO phenomenon, I felt sure that the ruling elites were sitting on one hell of a story and covering it up - ever since Roswell in 1947. Area 51, alien bodies at Wright-Patterson AFB, reverse engineered alien technology... This is where twaddle turns into twaddlology, where a real phenomenon is turned into myth, exaggerated and repeated by generations, and believed in with the same fervour as religious myths are believed in.

Midnight on 31 December 1999 passed into 1 January 2000 and the world was just the same as it had been before. It did change on 9 September 2001; and all the while the internet penetrated our lives, half of the human population today has a mobile phone with a camera on it - and where are the extraterrestrials? They've certainly not appeared in my life. Nor indeed of the life of anyone I've ever met. And yet a) there seems to be irrefutable evidence from highly credible people that UFOs - craft from other solar systems - have been visiting our planet, and b) that the powers-that-be are aware of this and are keeping it from us.




The Disclosure Movement wants mankind to know the truth that governments have kept from us for 65+ years. A big step in this direction was the Greer Disclosure of 2001, in which 20 senior military, intelligence and aviation personnel claiming first-hand experience of UFOs were brought together at the National Press Club in Washington DC. The quality of the testimonials was extremely high; since then, two former American astronauts have also testified.

Watching this stuff, I find it hard to refute the thesis. So many years, so many sightings (OK - 90% can be explained away), so many credible witnesses. Is mankind ready to believe?

On balance - no. The majority of us haven't seen UFOs, so its all a bit abstract, based exclusively on hearsay. UFOs don't touch our day-to-day lives and concerns. Disclosure, as Stephen Bassett would have it, made by the US President on a Friday evening (Eastern Time - after the stock-markets shut) to coast-to-coast TV, followed by two hours of analysis from experts) would be a cultural bomb that no responsible leader would want to set off.

Assuming it is true (and I'm totally agnostic), the shockwaves of such an announcement would be too vast to comprehend. Take a look at the preparations that SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) has in place to inform mankind in the scenario that the project finally finds incontrovertible proof of alien life in our galaxy via its search for radio signals (here). SETI's Post-Detection Protocol considers the cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact.

This is indeed massive. Take just three; religious, political and technological. The former is mind-boggling for those wedded to a given faith. Suddenly, the whole thing is turned upside down. How would such a disclosure affect the mind of a fanatical Shi'ite or Sunni Muslim, who until now has been interested only in blowing members of the other sect into oblivion? How would ultra-orthodox Jews or Amish folk come to terms with the fact that their leaders have got things slightly wrong? While the Catholic Church claims to ready for disclosure (since 2008), I can't see how universal Jesus is.

Politically - how will the ruling elite that has kept the truth (if indeed such it is) from us for so many years be able to justify that? How can our military keep up the pretence of claiming to defend us if extraterrestrials invade our planet with impunity (if indeed they really do so)? And moving on to the third area - technology - if there has been contact with alien civilisations, how do the politicians explain technology transfer? If they can live for several hundred years, why can't we?

Back in April 2010, market research and polling organisation Ipsos conducted a global poll on behalf of Reuters, asking people around the world whether they believe that alien beings have come down to Earth and walk among us in our communities disguised as humans. A bizarre question (surely a better one to have asked is 'do you believe our planet is being visited by creatures from other planets?'). But the answer is amazing - 20% of those polled across 22 countries believe aliens walk among us. This rather suggests that disclosure is not really necessary - a long, slow process of acclimatising ourselves to a reality of spacemen and flying saucers is already taking place. Through the cinema and popular culture, through YouTube and thousands of on-line forums, through the odd snippet (not too much, mind), here and there in the mainstream media.

In a scenario where aliens really are here on earth, I don't think there's any need for disclosure in a single one-off, dramatic, life-changing-forever way. Most of mankind is simply not ready to accept this as a truth (if it is indeed the case - and honestly, I don't know). Let's leave it like that for now.

Please, accept the mystery. The  universe is 13.8 billion years old; its furthest-known reaches are 30 billion light years away (explain that!). If aliens are moving about our solar system - let them be. They've not harmed mankind; they've not impacted upon my life or the life of anyone I know. The most important thing is not to waste time sitting around watching too many YouTube conspiracy mysteries and get on with living your life to its maximum potential.

This time last year:
Jeziorki pond development

This time two years ago:
Captain Wrona's perfect gear-up landing

This time three years ago:
Where's the daylight gone?

This time five years ago:
All Saints' Day - Wszystkich Świętych

(Internet) Radio Days

My enforced immobility has been made a pleasurable experience thanks to the internet - what a superb augmentation to human happiness! Not only can I keep in touch with my office and the outside world, I can watch films, learn (what a boon Wikipedia is!), and - a new discovery for me - listen to a wealth of radio stations that can provide exactly the mood I seek.

Watching Woody Allen's Radio Days (1987) made me realise how important radio used to be as the soundtrack of one's young life. Today, with such a plethora of digital channels available, one forgets what it was like to have only one radio station to listen to. In my case, it was BBC Radio 1 (from 1967 to 1973). This is what everyone of my age listened to; what was played was talked about. From 1973 onward, Radio 1 would have to compete for my attention with Capital Radio, until my budget stretched to the regular acquisition of records and cassettes. Into the 1980s, my only regular radio listening was the nightly John Peel programme on Radio 1.

So I have a great deal of nostalgia associated with Radio 1; I was delighted to find this wonderful website - Radio Rewind - which is stuffed full of the jingles that used to intersperse the non-commercial airwaves of the BBC's radio stations. (If your formative rock'n'roll years were in the UK, stretching from the late '60s into the early '80s, you must dive into these jingles - here.) A brief digression here - but when the BBC split its Light Programme into Radios 1 (for the youth of the nation) and 2 (for the easy-listening set), the Corporation had no one to turn to for recording jingles. These had to be done by session musicians in America to get around the archaic unionised structures within the Beeb.)

But one can only listen to so many jingles. The songs - I must have the songs. Not just those number one artists, but the less well-known acts that formed the fabric of the pre-Punk seventies - Colin Blunstone, Hurricane Smith, the Strawbs, Family, Nazareth, Ace, not to mention myriad American voices that formed an integral part of the soundtrack of my early youth.

The first wave of internet music revolved around peer-to-peer music 'sharing' of dubious legality [my thoughts on this issue here]. The cloud has allowed us to move on. President Obama's realisation that American's economy's forward trajectory is predicated on the dynamic growth of digital, and that this is more important than the individual interests of copyright owners and their lawyers, has helped. Much of what you can listen to and watch on YouTube and most internet radio stations is now entirely legal, and there at your fingertips.

Now, part of what makes radio unique is the way that the playlists are structured. Yes, you can put together your own, but even if you own a library of tens of thousands of digital tracks, you'll be listening to what you know, and in an order that you decide. Radio gives over that task to someone else. And that allows for serendipity - the chance to listen to something you'd not otherwise have listened to yourself. A good DJ's task is to entertain and to educate and introduce new sounds to listeners. This makes John Peel the greatest of them all - a role that in Poland was (and still is) filled by Marek Niedźwiecki. A good DJ loves the music, and informs, rather than being a monstrous ego in love with his own voice.

Internet radio is still in its infancy. Lacking disc jockeys, and without (as yet) period jingles, the radio stations offer only part of the whole experience of total nostalgia immersion. If the '70s is you bag, let me direct you here (SkyFM Hit70s) Listening to the playlist here gives good verisimilitude of what we'd have been listening to back then, with hits from both sides of the Atlantic.

However, for something beyond a surge of nostalgia, I found my favourite internet radio station is this one - RAB Radio 1 - American Rhythm'n'Blues from the early 1940s to early 1960s. Lots of Louis Jordan, Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, Howlin' Wolf, Lionel Hampton - I'm here for an old familiar atmosphere and discovery - of acts and songs as today unknown by me.

Like my old record player, cassette player, CD player, typewriter and indeed television, my radio has just become redundant, its functions taken over by my laptop - which serves as the universal centre of entertainment and labour. The theory of digital convergence has become real.

This time last year:
Another office move

This time two years ago:
Manufacturing a City of Culture

This time three years ago:
My thousandth post

This time four years ago:
Closure of ul. Poloneza

This time five years ago:
Scenes from a suburban petrol station

This time six years ago:
Red Arrows over Lincolnshire from 30,000 ft

On the mend, slowly

I write the post for myself, so in the future I can see how the muscular healing process progressed on me, aged 56. Over the years, the worst injuries that I sustained have been physical in nature, brought on in transit, carrying heavy things or running. Let this be a lesson to me, and at the same time be of use to anyone who's googled 'calf injury'...

It is just over five days since I pulled my calf muscle while running for the bus. With an overloaded rucksack (apart from the usual stuff - laptop, camera, a book, papers - I also had the power cable to keep the laptop going over the weekend, and two lenses that I'd got back from repair) I broke into a sprint across ul. Karczunkowska for the 809 bus to save me a 12-minute walk home. In mid-stride, I felt a sudden sharp pain shoot through my left calf; my immediate thought was that my heavy 10-24mm Nikkor lens had fallen out of my rucksack and onto my leg. But no - this was a muscle injury and a serious one at that. I caught the bus (thankfully!) and sat down, massaging my calf furiously (it felt like an unending, terrible attack of cramp). I limped home from the bus stop in much pain. That night, the cramp kept coming back - I did not sleep comfortably.

So. Saturday morning. How long would it take to recover, I wondered. Thankfully, there's a host of information online these days. Should I see a doc? Question 1: is there internal bleeding? (purple toes, foot, etc) No. Question 2: is the calf swollen? No. Question 3: is there any numbness in the foot? No. This is a Grade 2 calf strain, partial tearing of muscle fibres, five to eight weeks for full recovery.

Sportsmedicine.about.com suggests that I've not got the very worse degree of calf injury, so no rush to A&E. No point of blocking the surgery, taking up doctors' time better spent on those in a worse state.

That first day, I had to hop everywhere. The act of placing my left foot on the ground was very painful. Moving about required one-legged hops to the nearest handrail, table, door handle. My right leg, taking all the burden, became very tired of hopping.

Sunday was a bit better. With a bit of effort, I could reach down with my left leg (curled up like a claw) and touch the ground, using it to stabilise me so I could stand (just) on both feet. But distributing my weight equally on both legs brought on sharp stabs of pain in my left leg.

Monday - mercifully, the internet has freed us from the physical constraints of having to be in the office, so I managed to do 90% of what was needed online, and sort the rest out by phone. By Monday, there was no more pain in my left leg whatsoever - while resting. Lying in bed, working at my laptop, I'd suddenly stop and think - what am I doing in bed? Nothing hurts! Yet as soon as I placed my left foot on the floor and tried hobbling to the bathroom - ah! Yes. On Monday I realised that I could now get around the house more effectively by walking around on tip-toes. I could still not place my left foot flat on the floor. On Monday night, after a long soak in a hot bath - I found that I could.

On Tuesday morning, I could now stand with my weight distributed equally between both feet, though with a sense of tension in the left calf. Tip-toeing still the preferred mode of motion. Out of bed today, I spent the day working at the kitchen table, eating lots of pumpkin seeds, which according to Wikipedia are a great natural source of magnesium (no.1 in fact, dark chocolate being no.2). And magnesium, according to Wikipedia is a useful for staving off leg cramps.

By this morning, I'm now back to using both feet flat on the floor, though I can't advance my right foot ahead of the left foot without pain. So I'm walking around with a shuffling gait - left leg forward normally, by right leg can only move as far forward as to be parallel with the left leg - and there it stops. After another long hot bath, I discover than the right foot can now be placed some three-four inches ahead of the left foot without discomfort. Those three-four inches need to be extended to two feet (60cm) before I'd consider my gait to be back to normal.

I'd assess my progress as being around 4%-5% improvement a day, so I'm around 20%-25% better, with some 75% to go. I hope my leg is well enough for me to cautiously go into the office on Monday, which means I have another four days of rest at home before then. If I can place my right foot several inches ahead of where it can go today without stabs of pain, I'll be ready. Physiotherapy - yes, I shall book some sessions with Medicover. I need to be able to walk, cycle and run just as I did before, though one vital lesson has been learned - not to break into a sprint without warming up leg muscles first. And for the leg cramps - less coffee (one a day, not two or three), more water, more of those important minerals - magnesium and potassium.

As I write I'm in good spirits, though I missed not having been able to get out and about these past fine days, and I can feel I'm getting flabby around the middle without my usual exercise.

Today I discovered internet radio station RAB Radio 1, American rhythm'n'blues music from 1942-62. Absolutely brilliant. It allows me to hop from Jeziorki to a 1952 Cadillac Eldorado heading west through the flatlands of Kansas on Highway 24 towards the distant Rockies...

This time last year:
Thorunium the Gothick

This time two years ago:
Łódź Widzew or Widź Łódzew

This time four years ago:
A touch of frost in the garden