What does it take to get a roundabout built?

A big thank you to Marcin Daniecki for spotting this one - a story on a local portal about the Biedronka store currently under construction near W-wa Jeziorki station.

The planned entrance to the store is to come off ul. Karczunkowska - right on the bend of a road along which drivers tend to go far too fast. It would make sense to build a roundabout here (rather like the one by the entrance to King Cross Ursynów). But apparently no - because there are plans to build a viaduct over the railway line 250m away. As we know, these plans are gathering dust on some shelf at PKP PLK and will continue to do so for many years.

But the many drivers turning left into Biedronka from Karczunkowska will expose themselves to a sideways shunt from cars hurtling eastbound along the road. How many serious crashes are needed to convince the authorities that a roundabout here is absolutely essential?

Judging by the volume of traffic turning into Lidl on ul. Puławska, I expect that a Biedronka will attract similar custom. Some of it will come from other other side of the tracks, but I guess much of it will come from Puławska. Unless there is some form of traffic management at this junction, it will be a very dangerous one.

This low shed will become a Biedronka.

Straight ahead for Biedronka - across a bend in a fast road

Turn left for Biedronka - across a lane of speeding traffic

Turn right for Biedronka - watch out for pedestrians crossing

It is evident that some form of traffic-calming measures are needed; a roundabout is the only practical solution. But will the developer/investor want to spend money on it? Better than dead customers.

Judge for yourselves...

[Two years on: I've seen the aftermath of one non-fatal car crash on this junction since then.]

This time last year:
God's own risk

This time two years ago:
A third of the way through Lent

This time three years ago:
Balancing surfeit and shortage

This time four years ago:
Congruent consciousness

Putin: tactical genius, strategic failure

Who do you think you are kidding Mr Putler?

The west is disarray, uncertain as to how to respond to the Kremlin's carefully planned aggression aimed at breaking up Ukraine. It looks increasingly likely that Putin may win Crimea, maybe other bits of eastern Ukraine. But so what? He's played out his last good cards, he has precious little in reserve. At its heart, his long-term game plan lacks any goal other than maintain Russian (read post-Soviet, read Putin+pals) power for as long as possible. Why? For power's sake, not for sake of the prosperity and well-being of ordinary Russians or their neighbours.

Russia is a hollow giant. Other than raw materials it has little to sell to the West in terms of things or ideas. It is imploding demographically, it is faced with tumult from its Muslim republics, it is collapsing in terms of infrastructure. Its biggest long-term threat is not from the West, but from China, which is eyeing the resource-rich lands across the Amur. China's population density is 141 people per square kilometre, Russia's is but eight. China needs lebensraum and raw materials; will Russia be ready, willing or able to defend Siberia, several time zones away from the Kremlin?

With the West less dependent on Russian energy (shale gas, LPG, renewables, investment in energy saving), the Kremlin will have less of a throttle-hold over its western neighbours.

An economy based on the extraction of raw materials is unsustainable in the long term. Where's the innovation? What happened to Medvedev's 'silicon city'? You can't create successful innovative clusters by diktat. Putin's dream of a Eurasian Union to rival the EU is another sham; a cosy bunch of dictators denying civil liberties to their own peoples is hardly a vision of lofty ideals to rival that of Schumann and Monnet.

Putin has shown his true face to the world, to those willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The massive slump in his trustworthiness as perceived by the West will hit the Russian economy hard in the long term. It will further hit Western firms' willingness to invest in Russia. It has hit the rouble, it has hit the Moscow stock markets. And Russia's crude disinformation services, be they Russia Today TV channel or the army of online commentators posting bogus comments on English-language news media have been exposed and held up to ridicule; doubts have evaporated. The work of the 40-rouble army will no doubt be seen again on the forums, message boards and comments sections of British media in the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum and indeed an eventual referendum on the quitting the EU (so-called 'Brexit'). Watch out for bogus Scots Nats and Ukippers; they write in increasingly good English and also amplify extremist voices.

For young Ukrainians, continuation of the Soviet Union under a different name means an end to any dreams of a decent life for themselves at home. It means more of the same; victory of might-is-right over decency and fairness. A Ukraine that's still a puppet of the Kremlin is one that needs to be kept corrupt, with feeble institutions and controlled media. It cannot be another way.

It is in particular the young Ukrainians that are hungry for change; they look over the border at their counterparts in Warsaw, Budapest or Bratislava and see a model of how they'd like to see themselves. The generation that was born in an independent Ukraine rather than the USSR has an entirely different outlook than the children of the war veterans that parade around in their bemedalled Red Army uniforms. And in between, a generation of 30- and 40-year-olds who've seen the last two decades of their lives stolen by venal politicians.

The true Putin has come out of the shadows, not the genial host of the Sochi Olympics or the conciliatory statesman at Westerplatte in September 2009 but a darker figure, bereft of any redeeming features.

Whatever the outcome - and I hope it is a peaceful one maintaining Ukraine's integrity - young people in Russia will look at what happened in Kiev's Maidan from November to February and consider how long they will put up with the way things are.

A final point to consider: if Russia is indeed so great, with such a great future - why are its wealthy elites getting their money and their children out of the country? Russia is like a colonial empire in reverse - ransacking its own natural resources and taking the cash to foreign capitals. Putin's elite live the life of colonial masters - abroad. See this article about Yanukovych's stash.

This time two years ago:
Socialist Realist architecture in late winter sun

This time three years ago:
The Cripple and the Storyteller - part II

This time four years ago:
The station with no name
[update: W-wa Dawidy station got its sign last autumn]

This time five years ago:
Lenten thoughts on motoring

This time six years ago:
Flowers, spring - already

A long, long wait finally over

Twelve years and one month after moving into our house, we are finally connected to the town drains. Below: I came home last night to find the septic tank with its top off and the outflow pipe from the house connected to the sewer pipe (installed in October) that runs through our estate.

Below: this morning, at 7am the men were busy filling in the septic tank with earth and packing it down with a pneumatic hammer.

I got home from work this evening to find the job (on our house at least) done. Completely and totally. Paving stones neatly So finally, freedom from that septic tank anxiety that mounts as the fortnight wears on - will it spill over before Pan Norbert* turns up to empty it? All that remains to do now is to fit a separate meter for the outdoor taps, to ensure that we're not charged sewerage fees on water that's used in the garden.

It was a great feeling to flush the loo knowing that the wastewater is heading for a water treatment plant via a network of pipes and sewers, rather than being held in a ten-cubic metre tank awaiting a ten-tonne truck to clog up the roads getting to and from our house.

There are EU funds available for filling septic tanks, but the procedure is long and there's no guarantee your application will be successful. Better, then, to bite the bullet, pay for the work, get it done quickly and save on those 230 złoty (£46) septic tank-emptying fees - that's over £90 a month. A big thanks to our neighbour Tomek, who expedited the whole process.

At last, I feel civilised - civilised that is in the sense of being part of the city, the city we pay our taxes in, civilised as in belonging to a city. Now all that's needed is that pavement along ul. Karczunkowska...

* Pan Norbert - not cheap, but very reliable, and always willing to help out in crisis situations.

This time last year:
No more revelations

This time three years ago:
Free will vs. destiny

It's that time of year again

For the 23rd time in a row, it's Lent Time. Starting from midnight tonight, finishing on Easter Sunday, 20th April, forty-six days distant. I shall limit my food and drink intake, toughen my body and feed my mind with philosophy. The goal is to achieve that annual cleansing, strengthening of will and re-focusing on the Higher Purpose.

This year, I will be abstaining totally from alcohol, meat, sugar (other than that found naturally in fruit and vegetables) - and then the easy stuff that I've either stopped eating anyway, or have massively cut down on. Cakes and biscuits, salt snacks, confectionery. The will to stop doing something is the easy bit. The will to do something outside of the routine is harder.

Physical exercise - an average of 10,000 steps a day. I have a pedometer, but a smartphone app like NoomWalk does the job just as well. And sit-ups... last Easter, I ended Lent on 50 sit-ups twice daily. Rubbish... Starting soon after New Year, I've built up my sit-ups to 100 twice daily - and that's before Lent's even begun. I'll continue that 100 twice a day as a bare minimum. Since New Year, I've trimmed a whole inch (nearly 3cm in fact), so my girth around my fattest part is now 39 inches, down from over 40 inches (99.2cm from 102.2cm). A long way to go to my target, 36 inches.

And reading matter... This Lent I shall be reading Wiesław Myśliwski's Traktat o łuskaniu fasoli ('Treatise on Shelling Beans'), for some Polish metaphysical folk philosophy.

"How many issues and happenings are the work of chance, and how many of our conscious actions? A treatise on what is important, more important and most important."

I know that fellow blogger Paddisław is joining me this Lent, along with Paweł and Martin - do join in if you are a regular reader. Fasting in contemplation is good for body and spirit.

To celebrate the end of the Carnival, I drank a bottle of Lyme Bay Jack Ratt Vintage Dry cider, which I washed down with a bottle of Lyme Bay Sparkling cider. The former was the better of the two, a cider that captured the essence of a drizzly day on an English beach, a quiet, contemplative cider. still and dry.

I'll raise a glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc to those who stuck it out with me at Easter time!

This time last year:
Future Trends in the Economy

This time two years ago:
Communist Poland's secret rail disasters

This time three years ago:
The Cripple and the Storyteller: a short story

This time four years ago:
Dogs begin to bark, hounds begin to howl

This time six years ago:
Another light dusting

Sunday in the City

Sunday, the Lord's Day, a day of rest; even in the City of London. On my way from Ealing to Stansted Airport via Liverpool St Station, I decide to take a walk from the West End (WC2) through the heart of the City (EC4).

Above: Tucked away behind Centre Point, where I used to work for 16 years, is this tenement which looks condemned to be demolished. Other than the Korean shops on the ground floor, it is deserted. Will York Mansions and Clifton Mansions (52-56 Bloomsbury High St) still be here next time I visit?

Left: Old Bailey. The thoroughfare, rather than the Central Criminal Court; a building opposite. For London, this is as quiet as it gets. There are still a few tourists wandering around at this time of year, though this is the low, low season. Most of the flagship stores are closed on a Sunday; cafes, pubs and restaurants are open. 

Right: The church of St Andrew's Holborn, in the ward of Farringdon Without (the 'without' meaning it lay outside the London Wall).

Like many of the places of worship in the City of London, it is a Guild Church, ministering to those who work, rather than those who live within the Square Mile. A mere 7,375 people are resident within the Square Mile of the City of London, according to the 2011 Census.

Below: Looking down Lombard St. The spire of St Edmund, King and Martyr, a Christopher Wren church,  is visible, dwarfed by the new office development at 20 Fenchurch St, the so-called 'Walkie-Talkie'. The 160m-high building is controversial because of the way the concave glass surface beams sunlight down onto the street below.

Below: at the epicentre of finance. To the left of this photo, Threadneedle St and the Bank of England. To the right, Cornhill. The splendid building in the foreground is the Royal Exchange. The people in front of the building were Spanish. As it's Sunday, the City is very quiet.

St Helens Bishopsgate; just behind it stands Sir Norman Foster's Gherkin building (30 St Mary's Axe). The 15th Century church, damaged by IRA bombings in 1992 and 1993, has become popular with the many French-speaking people living and working in the City.

Indeed, I must say, that on this visit to London, French was the most common language I heard, followed by Spanish - Polish a long, long way after those two. A mass had just ended as I walked past, many well-heeled professionals and their small children emerged from the church to board their four-wheel drives and head off for lunch in Dalston or Bermondsey.

I continue on foot; by the time the day has ended, at the Sheraton Hotel in Kraków, I have covered nearly 16,000 paces (over 12.5km).

A Sunday morning outside of the tourist season is a good time to wander around the City of London, to see the sights and feel the klimat or ambience of its streets, it temples spiritual and financial.

This time last year:
God's teachings

This time three years ago:
In praise of blue skies

This time five years ago:
WAM PLUNK BISH BASH ZUNK
(For Molesworth fans - Ronald Searle's obituary in the Economist is a must-read)

This time six years ago:
Four weeks into Lent

Spring makes its mark in Ealing

A weekend in London, the contrast between Warsaw when it comes to the advanced preparations for spring is visible. Warsaw still feels several weeks away from those magic days when creation turns from grey to green. Here, it's happening already. London has had a wet and windy winter, without snow. My father tells me there were only three frosty mornings from early December through to the end of February. And it's worth remembering that Warsaw experienced a heavy snowfall on 31 March last year, so winter can still return there.

Crocuses in my parents' back garden...

Daffodils in my parents' front garden

Crocuses blooming in Cleveland Park, West Ealing

No room to squeeze a postcard between parked cars, Gordon Road

Edwardian parade, Ealing High St.

Shop front unchanged since my childhood: City Radio Stores, Bond St, Ealing

Shop front unchanged since my childhood: Reg Allen, Grosvenor Rd. W. Ealing

Tomorrow, I fly to Kraków.

This time last year:
Waiting for the warmth to return to Warsaw

This time last year:
Remembering Poland's 'Accursed Soldiers'

This time three years ago:
Getting the balance right between work and play

This time five years ago:
Sublime Jeziorki sunset

This time six years ago:
Sunrise getting earlier

Civilisation and a civil society

Once upon a time, the land was ruled by meanest, baddest bastard with the biggest fists, the foulest temper, the most cunning mind. His ambition to rule was greater than that of any of his rivals, who would often pay for their resistance to him with their lives.

As the centuries passed, men of learning would be co-opted by the large-fisted ruler to help him rule even greater territories; intelligent, calculating men. He reached an understanding with them: he would share his wealth with them, they would lend legitimacy to him. The ruler's sway extended, encompassing ever-greater territories until they became the kingdoms still recognisable today.

The men of learning devised the doctrine of Divine Right of Kings. The ruler had become king not because he was larger-fisted and more brutally uncompromising in his quest for dominance over others - but because this was the will of God Almighty. Such a scheme worked well for a while, supported by the world's first global corporation, the Church of Rome. Absolute monarchs would slaughter their own subjects in vast numbers during wars fought for vanity or in avoidable famines. Came the Enlightenment, and men came to question the authority of God as vested in the infallible Church, and in turn, of their ruler.

Some rulers lost their head; others gave ground gracefully. In place of the sons, grandsons and great-grandsons (and sometimes even daughters) of the big-fisted bastard, a system began to emerge which set up checks and balances to ensure that no one human being or family ended up too dominant*. Parliaments were first elected by the powerful few; eventually universal suffrage gave every adult the chance to select their rulers.

But as the vote became accessible to the poor and the poorly educated, along came some clever, ambitious, big-fisted people got together around a new idea for gaining power and becoming rulers themselves, an idea that evolved symbiotically along with democracy. It's called populism. "Vote for us, and we'll legally take the rich man's money (through taxation) and we shall redistribute it to you poor people (in benefits). And because there are more of you poor people than of those rich people, the democratic system will ensure I get elected and remain in power".

This idea proved so popular that all political parties to one extent or another took to it. Without some measure of redistribution, maintaining power was impossible. Politics became a question of moving a slider up and down society, determining to whom should be given (and how much) and from whom should be taken away (and how much). Getting this balance right was now key to winning and maintaining power - not having large fists and an aggressive mien.

Democracy ensures that the people who rule over us are smart; the system keeps them in check. When it emerges that actually they are stupid, they stumble and fall. Victor Yanukovych certainly believed he could cling onto power balancing the interests of the Kremlin, his oligarchic cronies and the Ukrainian people. He has been exposed as a stupid and venal ruler - an one with stupendously bad taste too. (Read this excellent analysis of Yanukovych by ethicist Prof Peter Singer.)

Democracy is the least-bad system created by humans for ruling themselves. It is not perfect; trips to the ballot box are few and far between. If they were more frequent, institutional paralysis would set in. I'm sure that in future, a more participative system based on e-ballots or mobile voting on local issues will evolve.

What I'm writing about here applies not only to governments and states. More broadly, the march of civilisation (I admit to sharing the Whig view of history - that over time, things tend to get better) affects the economy too. Big businesses can get too big, too powerful; they can collude with one another to the detriment of the consumer and the economy. And here, in a democracy, a proper set of checks and balances is required to wisely regulate business in such a way as not to block the natural, healthy entrepreneurship of the ambitious, courageous and visionary people, but on the other hand not to allow big-fistedness of corporations to smash the interests of the consumer. From the late 19th Century, in America, home of 'capitalism', cartels of colluding businesses have attracted the attention of the well-run state.

The Russian model of governance is way behind the west, despite the sham show displayed on Russia Today. Money generates power, which generates more money, used in turn to buy more power and so on. The regulators are told what to do. The interests of the state and the interests of the big-fisted bastards are one and the same. The difference between Putin and Yanukovych is that the former is intensely clever (the kind of chap who'd have made a good mediaeval pope) while the latter was a dullard, unable to grasp the macro implications of the way he ran the show.

The Russian way, going back to the Mongol occupation, is that you fawn to your superiors while tyrannising your underlings. "I'm it, you're shit." Your underling must be kept in place, brutally if needs be. For one day, they will topple you. No concept of 'win-win' or mutual trust.

Civilisation will flow into Ukraine from the West; the process of nation-building must begin right now, based on the creation of strong institutions that enjoy the trust of the people. Regulators who regulate fairly and wisely, and block the emergence of any big-fisted thieving bastard. Ukrainians have paid a high price for ridding themselves of their bandit president; to ensure that further banditry and robbing of the state does not occur, a civil society must now arise bottom-up, supported by countries and institutions that offer models of good governance.

* North Korea is the exception that proves the rule.

This time last year:
Images of God

This time two years ago:
City-centre living, Warsaw-style

This time three years ago:
Communist plaque on Zygmunt's Column

This time six years ago:
Three weeks into Lent

The new dupes of Moscow

When I was a student in the UK in the late '70s and early '80s, the Cold War was entering its decisive phase. The West, determined not to be cowed into submission by the Kremlin, was re-arming. Margaret Thatcher was buying a fleet of Trident nuclear missile submarines while Ronald Reagan was deploying Pershing II tactical nuclear missiles in Europe and reinstating production of neutron bombs to counter the threat of massed Soviet armoured formation thrusting westwards.

None of this was popular with the British (and Western European) Left, who, rather than being supremely thankful that this deterrence was keeping them out of Gulags, were protesting that the West should unilaterally disarm and lay down its nuclear shield.

I recall my friend Richard B. striding into a church hall in Royal Leamington Spa one Saturday lunchtime in early 1980 where the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was holding a fund-raising bring-and-buy sale. Richard walked to the middle of the room full of tea-cosy hatted feminists and waistcoated tin-whistle-blowing beardies and bellowed out "YOU ARE ALL DUPES OF MOSCOW!" Later, he was seen shaking a tin along the Parade, collecting money for Trident missiles with which to deter the Russians.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979 and the emergence of Solidarity in 1980 brought an end to any youthful delusions I might have had as to the true nature of the Soviet Empire. My mother's experiences in a Soviet forced labour camp four decades earlier were also difficult to ignore. And those well-meaning, woolly-minded lefties that saw the USSR as being morally equivalent to the West were just plain wrong.

The Soviet Union, through its security services, saw fit to meddle in the affairs of other countries using stooges, sympathisers and fellow-travellers to muddy the waters.

And so, today, the USSR's successor state and the KGB's successor agency are engaged in disinformation practices. Rather than pumping cash into dull ideological rags like the Morning Star or weirdo leftie groups that few took seriously, the Kremlin's disinformation strategy today is more subtle, more modern, propping up both extreme left and extreme right.

Each day, an army of English-speaking commentators is scribbling away on the online comments pages of mainstream Western media. Nicknamed the '40-rouble army' (after the sum of money a Kremlin commentator gets paid per comment), you will see their handiwork on many websites from The Economist to the Daily Mail.

These people write to order about issues that affect the Kremlin directly or indirectly. They are recognisable by their tone; frequently provocative, insulting, attacking the author (or commentator) personally. They are persistent too, returning to a thread to ensure that they have the last word in any argument. They wield false facts and disinformation. They often use unorthodox English (in particular their misuse of definite and indefinite articles, a giveaway), dropping in the odd Latin word, and displaying a rather pompous style. In contrast to Ukippers, whose comments may well be full of spelling mistakes and punctuation errors - but whose writing at least has a natural, native English flow.

The 40-rouble army is well versed in the arts of black propaganda. They latch on to populist movements and use divide-and-rule strategies and tactics. The EU and the US are regular targets, so they will attack (for example) the EU using similar rhetoric deployed by anti-EU populists.
They will wade into arguments supporting Ukippers who use terms like "EUSSR",  stirring up anti-EU sentiment for all its worth. All busy bashing Brussels. The reason is obvious - EU membership has changed the former captive nations of the Soviet bloc from poor dictatorships into rapidly-growing democracies. Putin doesn't want Russians to aspire to this.

Example (copy-pasted verbatim from a comment under a Daily Telegraph article)

"I am not sure that people are aware of how dangerous the current situation is. We are possibly heading towards a 'Cuban Misslile' crisis in intensity. They are rounding up judges, Senators - anyone with links to the genuine government and charging them with treason and other crimes. They have already imposed the new front central banker. However that is not the serious bit other than for the victims of the new lynch mobs. They are already fomenting strife in the Eastern Ukraine. Attack mobs. Particularly the Crimea. Russia cannot let its naval base go. It is essential to all its strategic defence and it is now clear that the EU/US axis (of pure evil) is planning some sort of confrontation that could lead to outright war. I suggest this is possibly the whole idea. Long in the planning. The west is desperate for war - its economy is in utter ruin from debt. They are warning Putin not to go in. But he has little choice if the East starts to crack. We are entering dangerous times indeed and just remember it was our corrupt and treasonous politicians in the thick of it. Quite happy to jeopardise this country and every person in it. To gamble with the lives of every living thing on the planet. For greed and power. The Russians have done nothing to provoke this crisis - it is Western in concept and so far in its illegal action."

This does not sound like the work of 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells'. This is coming at you from the corridors of the Kremlin. Yet the author claims (I have emphasised the words in bold italics) to be British. "Our corrupt and treasonous politicians..." "...this country..." Clearly, they are not.

In the run-up to the European Parliamentary elections, those of you who follow the comments on the online media, keep a close eye on who posts what - I'm certain that the Kremlin's 40-rouble army will make its presence felt. A little bit of low-risk, easily-deniable mischief that helps sow discord and discontent among the citizens of the EU. The Kremlin is ready to stoke it for all it's worth to weaken the EU by one large, strong member.

At the end of the day, for all its faults, and they are manifold, the EU has proved to be a great civilising influence - membership of the club has been a huge success for Poland. And anyone who says otherwise is a dupe of Moscow.

This time last year:
Late-winter commuting, Jeziorki

This time five years ago:
Lent and Recession - a nice parallel

This time six years ago:
Early intimations of spring (no such luck this year!)