Today's answer to the Old Boys' Network

I was surprised and honoured to be invited to be one of the guest speakers at a get-together of Warwick University graduates (and indeed students) in Warsaw. The event celebrated the university's 50th birthday. When I started the place was but 11 years old - part of the massive expansion of higher education that the Labour government had invested in from the mid '60s onward.

With British higher education being so much better than what Polish universities offer*, many young Poles head off to the UK to do their degree courses. And Warwick - a hotbed of radical socialism when I was there - has matured into an establishment that ranks in the top ten of all UK universities and in the top 100 of all global universities. I'm rather proud of that, even though in my day, student life was about punk rock and occupying Senate House. Today's students - not funded by generous student grants, and having to find £9,000 a year for tuition fees that in my day were paid by the State - take their studies more seriously I wager - especially if they're from countries like Poland.

Below: group photo from the event. Standing centre (stripy tie) is Her Majesty's Ambassador to Poland, Robin Barnett - who went to Birmingham University down the road from Warwick.

And how things looked 36 years ago - this is me holding forth at the Students Union hustings in 1979 (rather grainy photo courtesy of Nick Morris).

The event, held at Warsaw's Pure Sky Club overlooking Złote Tarasy was excellently organised and really enjoyable - I had some extremely interesting conversations with fellow Warwick graduates, and I will definitely be up for more networking with this group.

Britain's global 'soft power' is made up of things like this. Great universities, recognised the world over, attracting the brightest students from many countries. Back home, the lessons learned in the UK - not just academic studies, but best practice across different aspects of life, can all be put to good use building a better future for all.

* Most global university rankings have between two and five Polish establishments in the top 500 - the best no higher than 300th. The UK has four in the top ten.

This time last year:
Pluses and minuses of PKP InterCity

This time two years ago:
When transportation breaks down

This time seven years ago:
Full moon closest to Earth

Tottenham Court Road revisited

Back again after a while - this used to be the nearest Tube station to where I worked for 16 years (at Centre Point from 1981 to 1997). At first I used it daily, but the sheer awfulness of the Tube in those days prompted me to change to bicycle or bicycle plus train to Paddington from the late '80s on. Even so, from time to time I'd be forced to use the Tube, so Tottenham Court Road - so I knew it very well.

Closed for the best part of this year, the Central Line platform reopened two days ago, so a visit was in order en route to a business mixer held nearby. I was expecting more change - at platform level, things looked as they did in the 1980s (below). After 11 months out of action, there could have been a sense of work having been... er... finished. The ceiling panels have not been fitted, the tiling is as was.

Much of the mosaic tiling by Eduardo Paolozzi, dating back thirty years, back to the days when I'd commute through here daily, is still in place. Paylozzamoni, as Private Eye used to call him, was well remunerated for his mechanical chickens and consumer electronics, though I never liked the style; if the lot disappeared to another site, I wouldn't be in the least bit dismayed.

Does any Londoner feel any sense of emotional attachment or aesthetic pleasure from passing these mosaics at Tottenham Court Road? I much prefer the late Wojciech Fangor's dynamic typography adorning the second line of Warsaw's Metro.

Up at concourse level, there are improvements - more space, better channelling of passengers towards the escalators. The modern concourse reminds me of ones on the recent Jubilee Line extension.

The station, located at the very centre of London, will also have two CrossRail platforms when the project is completed in three-four years time. This will mean many, many more passengers passing through. Tottenham Court Road, at the intersection of the Central Line (since 1900) and Northern Line (since 1907) is in any case extremely busy. It is busy with two existentially different breeds of human - the commuter and the tourist. It's like comparing carnivore and herbivore. The former is in a hurry and knows precisely where they're going. The latter has time on their hands, and is unfamiliar with the topography of the place. There are huge numbers of both here. You're rushing to a meeting and a Spanish backpacker asks you if this is the Piccadilly Line.

Stepping out at the entrance by Centre Point, I was immediately disorientated by the changes. Gone is the Astoria theatre on Charing Cross Road; gone is the block of flats across the street. I paused for a second to look round, trying to work out where New Oxford Street now is. Immediately, three commuters crashed into me, all of them too engrossed in their smartphones while rushing up from the station.

The changes round here are massive. And massively inconvenient. Streets cut off to pedestrians, being routed round the long way. And though work on the CrossRail redevelopment has been going on for six years, it is obvious that there's still a vast amount still to do. Meanwhile, the very promise of CrossRail - linking the main lines coming into London from east to west under the heart of the capital - is driving up house prices with the promise of shorter commuting times.

I trust the new station entrances will be able to handle greater traffic flow than the old ones. Change is all around. New developments mean more commuters. London attracts more and more people from around the world, to live and work, and to visit and spend.

This time last year:
Zen and the Art of Publishing

This time three years ago:
Wrocław, another Polish city of neon

This time four years ago:
Ronald Reagan remembered

This time five years ago:
Accident of birth

This time seven years ago:
Under the Liberator

This time eight years ago:
Jeziorki on old maps

A moving documentary about Warsaw

Dan Cruickshank's BBC4 documentary about Warsaw is well worth watching. I watched it tonight with my father - a Warsaw Uprising veteran - for the second time in a week.

Apart from being a truly uplifting story about how a nation resurrected its capital, it's a personal tale of a return to childhood. In 1956, the seven year-old, Dan moved to the city when his father became the Warsaw correspondent of the communist Daily Worker. (This detail reminds us of how many 'useful idiots' the USSR had working for it within the British elite.)

The documentary follows Dan Cruickshank as he returns to Warsaw for the very first time since he left the city as a boy. He finds the apartment in which the family lived (on the corner of the Old Town square, Świętojańska 33/2), and shows us pictures of buildings he drew as a child with amazing levels of details (not surprising then, that he'd grow up to pursue a career in architecture).

Warsaw was razed to the ground by the Nazis but lives again, a thriving, vibrant city that blends 21st Century skyscrapers with a rebuilt Old Town. Nearly 90% of Warsaw was destroyed, Mr Cruickshank reminds us. The story he tells is one of a heroic city's courage and willpower. "Warsaw came back from the dead in a most miraculous of resurrections," he says.

The destruction of the city was "a premeditated crime, devised before the war had even started - to destroy the city and kill its inhabitants. To destroy Warsaw was to destroy Polish hopes for the future, to destroy its identity." Looking over Nazi documents held at the IPN, Poland's national institute of remembrance, Mr Cruickshank noted that Hitler's plans called for the total annihilation of Warsaw and its replacement by an architecturally banal, smaller German settlement, from which the conquered lands would be administered.

Footage from the incredible 3D animation Warszawa Miasto Ruin (below), shows the state of the city after the Nazis had left, point zero from which the rebuilding had to take place. The question facing Poland's new rulers in 1945 was just how to rebuild the capital.

The role of Polish town planners and architects who managed to convince the Soviet placemen in charge of the country that the Old Town should be restored to its original glory was crucial. Mr Cruickshank sets out the political situation that Poles were in after the war: "The Soviets had plans of their own. Poland had passed from being under one totalitarian overlord to another." By 1956, regime had arrested quarter of a million Poles for wanting an independent Poland, says Mr Cruickshank, saying that 23,000 had been killed under Stalinism.

Against this background, there were two competing visions for the rebuilding of Warsaw - straight, broad boulevards, with stone-clad apartments for the apparatchiks - or rebuilding the city as it had been before, the gargantuan vs human scale. Planners of the new communist regime wanted to build a modern city for the workers, a socialist utopia. But to buy in the population, the communists realised that the city needed to have its heart back.

The role of the rebuilding of the Old Town in post-war communist propaganda was significant. The slogan Cały naród buduje swoją stolicę ('The whole nation builds its capital') - worked, because Warsaw loved its Old Town and wanted it back. I was moved by the interview with the elderly Warsaw lady who recalled as a child spending Sundays with her family moving the rubble. The communists bought off discontent at the price of compromising their vision of a grandiose city built for a Homo Sovieticus worker army.

It is worth looking at the images for odgruzowywanie Warszawy on Google Images. "When people of Warsaw wanted to put the horrors of Nazi occupation behind them, they had to do so under the shadow of Stalinism," says Mr Cruickshank.

And then there's the Palace of Culture. "A vision of a socialist utopia. A Soviet vision for the new Warsaw. The unwelcome gift from the Soviet authorities, paid for from the exploitation of Poland's natural resources, a Soviet brand burnt into the heart of the city," he says.

About half of the hour-long documentary is dedicated to the story of the rebuilding of the Old Town and the Royal Castle, and how it was done. I learned several new facts. The Old Town as we see it today is not an absolute replica of how it looked before the war, but rather an ideal of how it looked like in its glory days in the 18th Century. The plans were based on Bernardo Bellotto's paintings and pre-war technical drawings made by architecture students. The City Museum - located in three of the five houses in the Old Town that survived, thanks to their fire-proofed interiors - contain many original features including painted ceilings from the early 18th Century.

Work on rebuilding the Royal Castle - seriously damaged in 1939 then totally destroyed in 1944 - didn't start until 1971, and was largely paid for by Poles, including those living abroad. The communists didn't want it. Royalty and lavish interiors are the very stuff that inspires revolutions, said Mr Cruickshank. Of the treasures currently on display in the castle, 80% of that which had survived had been hidden from both the Nazis and the communists. Historic doors were smuggled out after the war by being used to carry away in rubble. But much was recreated. Behind the throne, some sixtty or so silver eagles. The originals were all looted by German soldiers. One turned up in New York in 1991. From it, the rest were re-cast. The result is that today, "with its sumptuous gilded interiors, the Castle looks as if the war had never happened - and I suppose that's just the point," he says. "This is a heroic story for a city of heroes."

Aesthetically, it works, concludes Mr Cruickshank. The people of Warsaw had recreated their city "as a vital, total, work of art. Seventy years on and World War 2 is a distant memory. Warsaw today is a boom town..." To prove the point, he visits Warsaw Spire, at an earlier phase of construction without much of its cladding. This will be, he says, the city's second-highest building after the Palace of Culture. "The resurrection of Warsaw has been miraculous, from a city almost 90%, destroyed a place of despair and desolation," he says as the camera down sweeps across a modern skyline. "We can learn much from Warsaw. Confidence in the future. Passion and verve, commitment, determination and love;" the camera cuts away to the large Kocham Warszawę sign on the Spire (below).

I hope Dan Cruickshank's documentary will one day be shown on Polish television. I'm proud of the way the BBC has portrayed Our City.

This time two years ago:
On being rich in Poland

This time two years ago:
The link between health and happiness explored

This time three years ago:
The black SUV, the black SUV... (with the darkened rear windows)

This time five years ago:
Atonement

This time eight years ago:
Where I'm from, and why

"Extreme weather events are now a feature of the British climate"

Watching British TV as the second 'once-in-a-century' flood hits Cumbria in six years, I realise why the British are more acutely aware of climate change than Poles. Whether it's the Somerset Levels, the upper reaches of the River Severn or the Thames, Oxfordshire or Cumbria, Britain catching the effects of climate change in the neck. Increased energy caused by higher global temperatures are creating more moisture in the North Atlantic; more powerful winds are being generated, lashing the western parts of the British Isles with increasingly frequent storms and downpours.

As global leaders continue seeking a solution to climate change in Paris at COP21, the effects are hurting tens of thousands of flooded households in the UK.

Since I arrived in London five weeks ago, Britain has already been hit by four 'named storms' - Abigail, Barney, Clodagh and now Desmond. The north-west of England and south-west Scotland have been most heavily affected. Day after day, the weather forecasts, showed conveyor belts of dark clouds that have been dumping rain incessantly on Lancashire, Cumbria and the Borders. The streams up in the hills have swollen, the ground sodden, bringing more and more water into the valleys. The final straw came on Saturday, when nearly 14 inches (34 cm) of rain fell in 24 hours on the Cumbrian hills. It was a record rainfall, the largest ever recorded in the UK.

The effects on towns like Appleby, Carlisle, Cockermouth, Kendal and Keswick have dominated the TV news headlines. Water pouring over the top of floodwalls; houses with water halfway up the ground floor rooms, railway lines washed away by floodwater. Experts are on TV non-stop saying 'we told you so' - this type of weather event is now becoming a norm; in my childhood this sort of thing only happened in other, lesser developed, parts of the world. The costs to the economy - insurance companies mainly, but not only, have been estimated by PwC at between £400m-£500m. Half a billion starts to make itself felt in a nation's GDP. The previous floods, in 2009, cost the economy £179m.

Flood defences built after the 2009 floods, meant to withstand a once-in-a-century event, were 'overtopped' to use the frequently used neologism. Critics of government cuts have pointed to flood defence projects cancelled for budgetary reasons, but there's a general realisation that no amount of investment in flood defences can hold back the results of ever-wilder weather where such events, once anomalies, will become commonplace.

Here in London, the rain has been far less pronounced, but the temperature today hit a balmy +13.8C, way above the average high for December of +8.1C. Warmer than Warsaw's high today of +11.1C, which in itself is way above the average high for December, a mere +1.9C.  But climate change has had - to date - far less adverse impact on Poland and Poles. Poland has had the occasional bit of flooding, the drier-than-usual summer, a few small and sporadic forest fires. Nothing that seems out of the ordinary, nothing that would engender anxiety, caution or changing attitudes. Indeed, if anything, not having numbing frosts in winter while enjoying hotter, drier summers is seen as a wholly positive change.

In any case Poland - for the good of its coal-mining community and its energy independence - remains wedded to burning coal to generate electricity into the long term. The carbon dioxide being pumped out is not harming Poland, so the thinking goes, so keep on pumping. Except that the climate is a zero-sum game. There are winners and losers, Poland's a winner (for the time being at least); and the Home of Solidarity is not too fussed about the effects of its carbon dioxide emissions outside its borders.

This time two years ago:
Cheaper public transport for Varsovians

This time three years ago:
Swans on ice

This time four years ago:
Cars

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

This time seven years ago:
The demographics of jazz

This time eight years ago:
A day in Poznań

A second try at automatic writing

I'm in the mood - feeling the inspiration. A glass of wine, I close my eyes and wait to connect... Waiting for the channel to open... Here it is... Let it run –

Alwyn called me to the front parlour window. “Look toward the steeple! Look” I looked across at the steeple over the way, bunting blowing in the wind. “'Course, there... it's...” But then I could only see the swallows swooping and gliding. Time to clear up after tea. Men are hurrying up the street. “Come on! We must follow them!” Excitement, like a big football match, or the circus coming to town. Them posters have been up for days. Alwyn's rushing upstairs, combing his hair as he runs, with an eager smile. “Come on! Hurry!” he shouts from his room.

I'm in the hall lacing up my boots and Mam's laughing at us with the tea tray with all the tea-things in her hands. The house seems small with so much commotion going on. “Never you mind!” I laughed, answering the usual question that Mam hadn't asked us yet. Alwyn comes thumping down the stairs, wearing his school blazer. “Windy out,” he says. The door opens out onto the pavement and we join the merry band. Some are on bicycles, but most are walking briskly or running.

Across the road, the George Tavern is emptying. Everybody's heading to the Rec. The Recreation Ground. We pass the church at the end of our street, crossing the tram tracks, there's a throng surging through the Rec gates –

[At this precise moment, my reverie is interrupted by the doorbell ringing. It's someone looking for our next-door neighbours and ringing ours by mistake. My train of thought has been disturbed. I get up, walk to the kitchen, return and - PAFF! There it is... I have it! Back again...]

– and yes, above us – there it is – a rising and falling note, like the engine of an motor-omnibus – it's an aeroplane! Up in the sky, white wings catch the weak sunlight against billowy clouds and we watch it circle the town. It's getting smaller and smaller, then it makes a rising turn, disappearing into a cloud – and reappearing on the other side, It's heading back towards us! There's an elderly gent dressed like an admiral or something, holding up an old brass telescope to his eye and tracking the aeroplane as it comes down lower and lower... men had roped off a big part of the field where we were not allowed to go, and we watched the aeroplane getting closer and closer, lower and lower it came and it was getting louder and louder... but then... I can't see any more over the heads of all the people gathered neither can Alwyn, and so we push forward, nipping through the crowd to get to the front. I can see policemen on duty. And look! There's that one that cuffed Alwyn for taking a shortcut through cemetery last week!

We crawl through beneath a forest of people's legs – we're desperate to see it. We get right up to the ropes, getting our knees scraped and muddy. The aeroplane was looking like it's going to land. Then suddenly there's a roar as its engine speeds up again and it lifts up again, wobbly, skywards... The pilot waves at us, and everybody cheers! My, it's blowy – the wind is pushing the aeroplane over to the left, but the pilot's coping. He makes another lap in the sky, flying over the town and out towards the sea before turning in again, getting closer and closer... this time he puts the wheels onto the grass, the aeroplane bounces a few times then rolls to a stop. The engine splutters and falls silent. A cheer rises up! The policemen dash forward to protect the aeroplane, and following them, the crowd surges towards it from all sides of the Rec. Alwyn and I race like it's Sports Day.

The aeroplane looks complicated from up close. “Stand well back!” orders a policeman. Indeed! I can see why! The aeroplane looks not only complicated but very, very fragile. It's all wire and wood and bicycle wheels and white canvas. A man from the newspaper is standing there taking notes and a photographer holds up his big camera to take a picture. Then another reporter and another photographer burst through the crowd, panting. The smell of petroleum spirit fills our nostrils. The pilot stands up in his seat and the crowd starts cheering – he takes a bow and takes off his scarf and waves it – the photographer asks him to wait as he changes the plate. The pilot jumps down to the ground and takes a bow, gives the side of the aeroplane a pat, like you would to a faithful horse. Again everybody cheers. Alwyn points to the words painted on the side “Wake Up England!”. England most certainly has.

In the distance, I can hear the honking of an motor-car as it makes its way slowly towards the aeroplane, parting the crowd. In it is the Mayor and his wife! Their chauffeur drives right through the police cordon and stops sharp just behind the aeroplane. The Mayor steps out to congratulate the pilot, shaking his hand vigorously. Another photograph. I'll ask Mam to buy the papers on Monday! Another motor-car approaches. Some men jump out with cannisters full of petroleum and a step-ladder. They go up to the fuel tank behind the pilot's seat, above the engine, and pour in the fuel. A while later, the Mayor returns to his motor-car, the pilot climbs back up into his seat, the men start the engine up, swinging the propeller behind the engine.

It fires up! Black smoke comes from the exhaust pipe for a few seconds, the propeller whizzes round so fast you cannot see the blades spinning! At the word of command, the policemen start pushing back the crowd to give the aeroplane space to move forward. It is swung round to face the wind, a path is cleared.

The engine roars louder. The aeroplane starts moving, gathering speed, faster and faster it races forward, bumping along the grass until it parts company with the ground then gingerly lifting off into the sky, higher and higher, above the rooftops it climbs, then it banks to the left, then it does another circuit of the Rec, flying low. We can still make out the pilot's face. The crowd's still cheering and waving; the aeroplane straightens out and gets smaller and smaller, finally disappearing over the horizon, above the steeple and off towards Blackpool.

Alwyn and I head off home amid the crowd. We had seen Mr. Claude Grahame-White! We had seen an aeroplane! Should we tell Dad? Will he be angry? We raced back, running ahead of the crowd, everyone still excited at the event.

On the way home, we popped our heads into the George Tavern. It was nearly empty. There was Dad, sitting upright with his back against the wall with the window, cloth cap on his head, a little bit of beer left in his glass. His face was expressionless. Had he seen us? We hoped not. He'd be getting home angry. We knew that face.

The front door was on the latch. Mam asked whether we'd seen the aeroplane. “Oh yes! Whole town turned out to see it! Mayor was there in his motor-car!” “D'you see your Dad?” “Yes – at the George.” She looked resigned to her fate, got rolling-pin ready. She'd had a hard life, but was able to give back as good as she got. Alwyn and I went upstairs, got out our pencils and started drawing. His picture were nicer than mine. As always.

This time three years ago:
Poland's progress up Transparency International's ranking

This time eight years ago:
A day in Poznań

A walk through my childhood Hanwell

Across the tracks, across the Uxbridge Road... geography makes such a difference. Where are you from? It matters you know...

Each morning, from between the age of three and a bit to the age of four and a bit, my mother would take me to the nursery school on a house on The Avenue (corner of Arlington Road) from home in Hanwell. She'd usually take me over the footbridge, which locals call Jacob's Ladder (below). In those days - the early 1960s, most trains were still steam-hauled; I remember the sudden cloud of dense, damp fog, warmer than the ambient air and slightly sooty in smell that overwhelmed the bridge whenever an express train puffed through underneath. There was wooden signal box around here where this photo was taken. I loved watching the Greenford-bound push-pull train disappear round the corner, up the branch line to the right, though I had to be held up to see over the side. The main line, built in the 1830s, links London, Slough, Reading, Bath, Bristol and South Wales.

Down through what was in the 1960s a scattering of pre-fab housing, now a high-rise council estate, past the magistrate's court, past the Green Man, Woolworths, the Old Hat and the Halfway House, then turn right into Grosvenor Road, and here starts London W7. This is Hanwell, still part of the London Borough of Ealing, but no longer W13. And Hanwell W7 represents the most westerly district of Postal London.

Heading down Grosvenor Road, I behold a most fplendid fight. The legendary Reg Allen (London) motorcycle shop, unchanged since my childhood. And a treat as I passed it today - an Indian-built 500cc Enfield Bullet parked outside.

And inside - shelves upon shelves of vintage petrol tanks, speedometers, clutch plates - everything you need to keep your classic British vintage BSA, Norton, Triumph, Ariel, Vincent or AJS on the road. Round the back, a military Royal Enfield dispatch rider's bike in olive drab awaits restoration. And to think this shop was open for business over 50 years ago, when I was a small boy! [Read the history of Reg Allen (London) here.]

Further on down Grosvenor Road was a factory manufacturing garments, which employed many local women. The owner drove a Bentley S3 in silver and grey, which he'd park outside. The factory shut long ago and on its site now stands a small housing estate.

Past the Grosvenor pub (below), no longer smelling as it did with a unique aroma of hops and tobacco. Past an arcade of shops on Oaklands Road that used to contain Tanner's (named after the owners? Or from the fact that most things it sold - sweets, newspapers, toys etc would cost around a tanner - sixpence in old money?), a greengrocer's, Lawrence the Butcher's, and DeVee hair stylists, associated in my mind with my mother preparing herself for a glamorous night out at my father's office dinner-dance, usually held at a hotel near Heathrow Airport.

And then - turn left off of Oaklands Road into Croft Gardens to see the house where I grew up and spent the first 12 years of my life. Here it is - on the right of the photo below. The two garages on the right were designed and built by my father. The original front garden wall has been replaced, the magnolia tree is still there. When we lived here, the pebble-dashed exterior was painted white, as were the windows, with pale-blue window sills and a pale-blue door.

From September 1962 to July 1969 I attended Oaklands Road Primary School (below) - three years in the Infants, four years in the Juniors. A rare treat awaited me today - as it happened, it was the school's Christmas fair. It was open to the public! I arrived shortly before it was due to close, and - for the first time in 46 years, I stepped back into my childhood. Amazing emotions. The playground, the corridors, the classrooms, the staircase - more garishly painted for the kids of today - but the bricks, the windows, the parquet floor, the gym equipment - all as it was, just one-third smaller than it used to be. My perspective as an 11 year-old has changed. The air-raid shelters in the playground have been turned into vegetable gardens, but everything else was immediately recognisable. Only the cars outside have become more numerous and much larger.

Onwards across Boston Manor Road, and down Trumpers Way towards the Grand Union Canal, that links the Thames at Brentford with the Midlands. Below: the huge warehouse, now a roofing centre, resonated clearly with me as a child. Viewed on a summer's evening from Humes Avenue, the sight of this five story-high corrugated shed on the canal's banks took me back to another place, another time. In those days, it was painted green and was open at the front to the canal (that entire wall where those windows are today) with ceiling-mounted cranes to move goods from the barges.

The canal was the furthest extent of my childhood travels. My bicycle at the time, a single-speed 24" -wheel Hercules Jeep which I got for my tenth birthday, served me well for explorations of the back-end of Elthorne Park and towards the new M4 motorway.

The River Brent joins the Grand Union Canal (below), with the river forking off to the right while to the left, you can see the first of the six locks of the Hanwell Flight that takes the Grand Union up to Southall. Just out of sight behind the trees is the Ealing Hospital, where my children were born and where my mother died.

Away from the canal, towards the Lower Boston Road, an enclave of mid-19th Century houses takes on a special charm at tea time, as the sun sets and the street lights come on; Grandstand on the telly, then Final Score, the early-evening news, the Saturday rituals of England. Below: Green Lane, Hanwell. Changing and yet unchanging.

The western reaches of Postal London are divided north-south, W7/W13/W5. But the real dividing line is not the artificial one devised by postmen in 1856, but the old Great Western Railway line as it made its way westward from Paddington. Below: I cross under Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Wharncliffe viaduct to re-emerge on the north side. A long walk back along the Drayton Bridge Road, and I'm home. More childhood recollections on my old blog about that here.

Another good local walk - 11,261 paces. More exploration of Hanwell beckons!

This time two years ago:
Burn less gas - do Ukraine a favour

This time five years ago:
Early evening atmosphere

This time seven years ago:
Toponyms - how many names has Jeziorki?

This time eight years ago:
On the road to Białystok

I have trod the upward and the downward slope

Horsenden Hill, One Tree Hill and the Grand Union Canal

What an unusually mild day in London today; sunshine and a top temperature of 13C. And given that meteorological winter started four days ago (astronomical winter starts in under three weeks time), that's quite remarkable. So after some office work and a late breakfast I set off for a walk to catch some rays. And - as it happened, a bus. On the spur of the moment I decided to catch a 297 heading for Willesden Bus Garage, and got off on Horsenden Lane North, at the foot of Horsenden Hill. As I crossed the bridge over the Grand Union Canal's Paddington Arm, I caught this amazing sight (below):

Blasting out over the water for all to hear was Mott the Hoople's magnificent 1972 glam anthem, All The Young Dudes (which music trivia savants will know was penned by David Bowie). Can you see the guitarist on the stern? And the name of this amazing narrowboat - DILLIGAF (google it)!

Up towards the hill. I knew it well - I've luged down its snowy sides on a length of plastic safety barrier; I must have been one of the first people to ride a mountain bike up it and down it in the mid-'80s. That marvellous bit where you could get well airborne. And in the early '70s my Polish scout troop was up here sending semaphore signals across the Brent Valley to be received in Cleveland Park a mile and half away, using bedsheets on long sticks.

The paths toward the summit are slippery underfoot, it's been wet (though not as bad as north-west England these past few weeks). Some deciduous trees have still not shed all their leaves. The slope averages one-in-ten as the path climbs from the canal (33m above sea level) to the summit, (79m above sea level). Below: looking northwards at the triangulation point at the top and Harrow beyond.

Below: turn eastwards and you'll come across a golf course and a view towards Wembley Stadium, and Hampstead in the distance.

Below: On the links, the low winter sun filters through the trees. Although the golf course looks deserted, there were quite a few golfers playing a round this morning.

Downhill all the way and back into unremarkable suburbia; I pass Sudbury Town tube station on the Uxbridge Branch of the Piccadilly Line. My attention was drawn to the typeface on this beautiful enamel sign; this is a very rare petit-serif version of the corporate Johnston typeface used all over the London Transport network, and dates back to 1932, when the station was opened. The building itself is a fine piece of architecture, designed by Charles Holden.

Walking from Sudbury Town towards Alperton, I chance upon a park called One Tree Hill (below). This place is just one and half miles as the crow flies from my parents' house - and yet not only have I never been here - I was until this morning totally unaware of its existence! Wrong side of the tracks, canal, dual carriageway... Yet something about this serene sunlit hillside sparked an atavistic congruence, an anomalous familiarity moment.

I return towards Horsenden Hill from Alperton following the Paddington Arm. Near Alperton, the canal is alive with swans, coots and ducks. I counted at least 20 swans. Just after I'd thrown them my last handful of unsalted cashew nuts, I noticed a sign in English and in no fewer than six Asiatic alphabets saying 'do not feed the birds'. Below: a trio of cabin cruisers berthed along the canal.

Approaching Perivale, I notice that the mix of empty beer cans littering the towpath has changed from the Stella, Guinness and Fosters at Alperton to Lech, Perła and Tyskie. It would be interesting to do a map of London by empty beer can. Below: narrowboats on both banks of the canal. On the other side, the golf course show above.

Below: return from the Hill. It looks like rural Derbyshire, but these canalside cottages are located just outside Postal London, and well within Greater London. This is where the top end of Horsenden Lane South meets the bottom end of Horsenden Lane North. From round the corner is a bus stop, seven stops from here is Cleveland Road. Unlike Warsaw, where bus stops give you precise times for each bus throughout the day, in London, you just get the vague information that at this time of day, buses call past the stop every '9-12 minutes'. I chance it, and walk on another two stops before an Ealing Broadway-bound 297 bus arrives.

Below: the view of Horsenden Hill with which I am most familiar, from the top end of Cleveland Park, just by the bus stop. Between here and there lie Scotch Common, the River Brent, the A40 Western Avenue, the Central Line and the Grand Union Canal Paddington Arm.

A good day's walking - 12,200 paces (9.8km), and discovery of new places so close to home.

This time two years ago:
Giving to charities - in the UK and in Poland

This time five years ago:
Birdlife in winter

Patriotism and Nationalism: what's the difference?

I love Poland - I'm a Polish patriot. I live in Poland out of choice. Not by default. My family moved to Warsaw in 1997 as the result of a conscious decision.

I want the best for Poland - for my country to move quickly along the upward path to modernity. I want a civilised, polite, liberal democracy; a normal country. like the UK I grew up in and still hold as a exemplary model for other nations to emulate.

I love Poland, its cities, its landscape, its history, its ways. Each year, I holiday in Poland or the UK. This summer I visited many beautiful Polish towns and cities, delighting in Poland's progress. Next summer I shall do likewise.

Polish patriot yes, nationalist - no.

My first association with the word 'patriotism' is the joyous crowd waving Union Jacks while singing Land of Hope and Glory at the Last Night of the Proms in London's Albert Hall.

My first association with the word 'nationalism' is the fanatical jack-booted crowd sieg-heiling Hitler at a Nuremberg rally, hate-filled faces flecked with spittle.

What makes patriots different from nationalists?

The difference is in their attitude towards the 'other'. If you hate someone regardless of their individual characteristics simply because they're from elsewhere, you're no longer a patriot.

Personally, I feel no antipathy towards foreigners, nor for people of other races. I don't dislike Russians - I merely dislike (intensely) their regime. A great nation like Russia - the nation of Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky, Bulgakov, Tarkovsky deserves better governance.

Neither do I consider Poland nor Poles to be innately superior to other nations.

But then there are people and people. I'd rather much rather talk to an intelligent and cultured person from Chile, India, Zambia or Russia than be irritated by a stupid boorish person from Poland. I share little in common with the Pole who swigs from his tin of Lech in Greenford Park, then discards the empty can on the grass, uses swear-words as punctuation while proclaiming his superiority over 'lesser races'.

Nationalism has the stale smell of a small, messy bedroom in which someone's spent too long. Bad breath, body odour, flatulence, old cooking smells - and to go with them - tinnitus. Incessant ringing in the ears. That's what the inside the brain of a nationalist must feel like. Small horizons, limited perspectives, not much in the way of imagination. What does a nationalist want? To lord it over other nations.

Future prospect for the nationalist's country? A more competitive economy? "Pass". A more innovative economy? "Er, pass on that one too". A better functioning state? Here, the nationalist starts to get animated. "Ah yes! State = Nation; a big, powerful Nation requires a big, powerful State" - and all those cushy jobs where loyalty trumps talent.

But a patriot would want - rather than a big state - a well-functioning state; just big enough to perform its tasks professionally. To protect the citizens from internal and external threat. To support the sick, the needy (but not the lazy). To educate the young. And to do it well. With the minimum number of functionaries earning a salary from taxpayers' money. Indeed, for the functionaries to emulate Britain's Civil Service - professional, and certainly not party-political.

Working where I work, at the interface of business and government - which I've done in the UK (16 years) and in Poland (13 years) - I am aware of how complex the business of government is and how difficult it is to keep the economy moving in the right direction. To do it right, you have to have the right people, with the right skills, keeping the organs of state on an even keel. I worry about our democracies; as the world becomes more complex, it is increasingly tempting to vote in populists offering simplistic slogans and half-baked analysis. And nationalism - telling the less-intelligent voter than their plight is the result of external enemies - is the road to perdition, as any elderly German would tell you.

I think a key word is 'glory'. Do you want to live in a glorious nation, or one that's a bit more humble, practical, able to deliver upon its promises to its citizens.

Flag-waving? A Polish flag hung on our balcony for 63 days from 1 August to 3 October to commemorate the Warsaw Uprising, in which both of Moni's and Eddie's surviving grandparents fought. But a European Union flag also flies from our balcony from time to time.

This time last year:
Poland's progress in the international rankings

This time two years ago:
The Transparency International Corruption Perception Index for 2013

Also this time two years ago:
Poland's rapid advance up the education league table: PISA 2013

This time three years ago:
Life expectancy across the EU: more comparisons