Brexit - what next

I realised that hopes of preventing Brexit were dashed the moment Farage announced that the Brexit 'Party' Co. Ltd. would not be standing against incumbent Conservatives, across their 317 seats. This meant that on those constituencies the pro-Brexit vote would not be split. Yesterday's parliamentary elections in the UK were a straight choice between Brexit and Marxism. Corbyn's Labour got the pounding it so richly deserved. The lowest number of Labour seats since 1935; the first time that a party in opposition for over nine years actually lost seats. An utterly useless, shameful, Brexit-enabling performance.

So what next? Johnson has a 80-seat majority in the House of Commons, easily enough to get the Withdrawal Agreement Bill through Parliament and the UK formally out of the EU by 31 January. (Failure to so, it should be remembered, will lead to a no-deal crash-out).

The Withdrawal Agreement Bill is the easy bit. The hard bit will be to complete an economic Free Trade Agreement and the political Future Relationship Agreement. These will be hard because time is tight. Johnson might be celebrating today, but soon the reality will dawn. The transition period, which follows immediately after the UK leaves the EU, finishes on 31 December 2020. The very same day it was due to finish had Theresa May managed to secure a Brexit on 29 March this year. Unless extended (again, with the agreement of all 27 EU members plus the UK), the transition period will be nine months shorter than anticipated in Article 50 - and all the detailed stuff will need to be worked out during that time. It will need to be done hush-hush, away from the tabloid headline-writers.

If Brexit can no longer be stopped, it needs to be as economically and politically mild as possible. A cold not a flu nor chronic bronchitis. One that does not lead to dismemberment.

I do have faith in Her Majesty's institutions - in the Civil Service - to do the right thing, to provide the right advice, to ensure no cliff-edge, no unexpected no-deal scenario suddenly popping up. Remember - the Civil Service has done right up to now. Yellowhammer. The Civil Service will not allow the UK to be flushed down the toilet by zealots. Wise negotiations leading to a trade agreement that allows for bilateral trade with the minimum of extra red tape or tariffs. And a political agreement that keeps the UK as close as possible to the EU. For the good of all parties.

Remember, Putin has been aggressively pushing for Brexit from the outset. His agenda is to splinter the West, exacerbate divisions. Putin's trolls will undoubtedly still be militating for a no-deal Brexit to happen somehow, and to break up the United Kingdom.

This time two years ago:
Kick out against change - or accept it?

This time four years ago:
Warwick University alumni meet in Warsaw

This time five years ago:
Pluses and minuses of PKP InterCity

This time six years ago:
When transportation breaks down

This time 11 years ago:
Full moon closest to Earth

Politics and personal responsibility

I've long considered myself more of a conservative than a socialist, a small 'c' conservative believing in a small government that delivers essentials services and regulating a free market, personal freedom and responsibility - but freedom that does not step on the rights of others.

My favourite British politicians were many of those in government between 1991 and 1997 - the John Major years; Ken Clark, Michael Heseltine, Chris Patten, Geoffrey Howe, Malcolm Rifkind - decent, pragmatic men who have left the Conservative Party that it was then, the one I used to vote for.

I do not like any of the current British conservative government; I consider they have taken a wrong turn somewhere along the road and would not (were I still living in the UK) vote for them. Lightweights, lacking moral fibre or any great intellect. The most ideological, the least pragmatic Conservative government of my adult lifetime.

This from David Gauke MP, a former Tory now standing as an independent in South West Hertfordshire:

The fact that John Major, Michael Heseltine, Ken Clarke, Chris Patten, George Osborne, Amber Rudd and Rory Stewart have all endorsed me suggests that the Party we’ve all supported in the past no longer exists.

The alternative in Thursday's General Election* is the Labour party, led by Jeremy Corbyn - who has taken it down another wrong turn. It is not the party of Tony Blair or Gordon Brown, but something akin to the Socialist Workers' Students' Organisation, a bunch of leftie students out of touch with economic reality. Corbyn's ideological proximity to Soviet Marxism repels me utterly. His fence-sitting uselessness when faced with Brexit appals me. He would make a disastrous prime minister.

From the Financial Times:

Rarely have British voters been presented with such stark choices, ranging from Jeremy Corbyn’s hard left economic policies to Boris Johnson’s pledge to drive through a hard Brexit. But the election’s outcome is still in doubt

My personal manifesto is based upon my own dislike of asking others for help. By not expecting help from government, there's more help for those who need it more than I do. Self-reliance rather than entitlement. My freedom ends where others' freedoms begin. Your freedom to roar through Jeziorki regardless of speed limits ends where my freedom to walk safely along streets lacking a pavement begins. Your freedom to burn crap to heat your home ends where your neighbours' freedom to enjoy unpolluted air begins. Your freedom to worship (or not) whatever deity you choose has no end - as long as you don't impose upon my freedom to do likewise.

Brexit is a mistake; I have not had any answers from any Leavers as to how the UK will make up lost economic ground by quitting the EU, the world's richest trading bloc on the EU's doorstep. Nor have any explained in what way being in the EU these past few decades has hurt them in their lives personally, nor what EU law has held them back from achieving their personal potential. Brexit will be bad for the UK, which may well splinter as a result; it is bad for Poland, bad for Europe, bad for civilisation.

Tomorrow's election is pitifully painful. People who wish to stop Brexit (over 220 opinion polls taken since July 2017 show a definite preference for remaining in the EU) are torn between wasting their vote on a party that has no chance of power (the LibDems) or voting Labour with the risk of inviting the Marxist Corbyn into Number Ten to unleash his dangerous ideology on a nation. Tactical voting makes sense in many constituencies - but is there enough discipline among Remainers to see it through?

It is a tragic choice. I'm glad it's not a choice I'm having to make. I'm sad my father won't make it to the polling station this time.

* This is the first UK General Election to be held in December for 96 years.

This time last year:
Consciousness, memory and spirit of place

This time two years ago:
Polish Perivale

This time three years ago:
Power in the vertical

This time seven years ago:
And still they come [anomalous flashbacks that is]

This time eight years ago:
Classic glass

This time nine years ago:
What's the Polish for 'pattern'?

This time 11 years ago:
"Rorate caeli de super nubes pluant justum..."

Warsaw's Christmas lights, 2019-20

The gloomiest time of year made bright; the Christmas illuminations were switched on at the weekend and will be lighting Warsaw, making a difference to our samopoczucie. The 'Royal route' (Trakt krolewski) along Nowy Świat and Krakowskie Przedmieście to the Old Town, is traffic-free every weekend; with the crowds of sightseers strolling up and down, there's the feeling of this is what cities could look like if only they got rid of cars (and kept the buses to the main thoroughfares). It was a lovely feeling walking in the middle of the road!

Below: looking south from the junction of Nowy Świat and ulica Świętokrzyska

Below: from the steps of Świętego Krzyża (Holy Cross) church - where Chopin's heart is interred - looking towards the statue of Copernicus. It was from here, on 2 December 1943, that my father witnessed the Germans machine-gunning to death 34 Polish prisoners taken out of the back of a truck on Nowy Świat.

Unlike the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square, a gift to the people of Britain from the people of Oslo as a token of gratitude for British support to Norway in WW2, which is a real tree some 20 metres high, the 27m-tall one (below) on Plac Zamkowy is artificial, still it draws the crowds.

Below: a favourite with the children - the train followed by wagons of presents. There are two of these. One, on Pl. Herberta Hoovera, and one here, in Mariensztat. Tip for parents - this one is far less overrun, no queues to get on it.

Below: on the corner of ul. Piękna and Al. Ujazdowskie, stands this peacock, a reference to the ornately plumaged denizens of nearby Łazienki park.

Below: my personal favourite is back - a Jelcz 272 'Ogórek' ('gherkin'), as used by Warsaw's public transport in the 1960s and '70s.

Below: outside the premier's offices, Al. Ujazdowskie opposite Łazienki park looking south.

Below: outside my offices, ul. Świętokrzyska looking west.

The Christmas lights will be with us until early February.

Warsaw Christmas lights 2017-18

Warsaw Christmas lights 2016-17

Warsaw Christmas lights 2008-09

This time last year:
Pawlikowski's Cold War

This time four years ago:
"Extreme weather events are now a feature of the British climate"

This time six years ago:
Cheaper public transport for Varsovians

This time seven years ago:
Swans on ice

This time eight years ago:
Cars 

This time nine years ago:
What's the English for kombinować?

This time 10 years ago:
The demographics of jazz

This time 12 years ago:
A day in Poznań

The Body - A Guide For Occupants

Author Bill Bryson is beloved by bloggers - his style is exemplary. Erudite yet easy to read, with a folksy wit that keeps you on the author's side. This is the fourth of his books I've read (he has written 20); his best to date is A Short History of Nearly Everything (which I reviewed here).

The Body - A Guide For Occupants was published just two months ago, and I am grateful to my brother Marek for getting me a copy.

In the space of 386 pages (augmented by a rich bibliography), Bryson looks at the human body from every aspect; skin and bones, brains, organs, blood and guts (and gut flora) and every activity - eating, sleeping, conception and birth - and the diseases that plague us. Everything well explained with plenty of references about how we thought things worked - and how we think they work now - and there's still many unknowns that science has yet to crack. Plenty of gallows humour, especially at the expense of physicians long gone who were so badly mistaken.

Despite Bryson's cheerful demeanour, there is a pessimistic undertone to the book. The villains are the food industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the American healthcare sector and our consumerist lifestyle. Corporate profits are actually harming us, he suggests.

The year 2011 was the first in history, he says, when more humans died as a result of diseases brought on by civilisation (heart, specific cancers, Type 2 diabetes) than died of infectious diseases. The number of people suffering from Crohn's disease and asthma is rising ever higher - and science doesn't know what causes them - except that they are far more prevalent in rich countries than in the developing world.

As we eradicate old killers, new ones creep up to take their place - new ones that we're bringing upon ourselves.

Bryson continually stresses the need for exercise and good diet, something Americans clearly lack (the average American walks half a kilometre a day!). Sugar is the killer, unnecessary calories consumed and not exercised away. Another potential killer is the gross overuse of antibiotics, prescribed by doctors in many cases where they are literally useless. The result is that bacteria are building up resistance to antibiotics and our immune systems may in future be unable to protect us against new killer bugs.

Big pharma's focus on developing new 'blockbuster' drugs that will fight diseases like Alzheimers is is becoming less and less effective - far fewer new medicines are entering the market as their efficacy is proved in clinical trials to be insufficient. Indeed, poorly-performing drugs that offer the patient little benefit are too commonly prescribed. Atenolol, a blood-pressure reducing drug that my mother was on for many years was later found to "reduce blood pressure, but did not reduce heart attacks or fatalities compared with giving no treatment at all. People on atenolol expired at the same rate as everyone else, but had better blood-pressure numbers when they died."

For health-conscious readers such as myself, the book is a case of confirmation bias - reading it makes me smug about my exercise routines and diet. For others, especially the drive-your-butt-to-work community and those of you over-fond of cakes, biscuits and confectionery, it may act as a wake-up call. "Going for regular walks reduces the risk of heart attack or stroke by 31%. An analysis of 655,000 people in 2012 found that being active for just 11 minutes a day after the age of 40 yielded 1.8 years of added life expectancy. Being active for an hour or more a day improved life expectancy by 4.2 years. As well as strengthening bones, exercise boosts your immune system, nurtures hormones, lessens the risk of getting diabetes and a number of cancers (including breast and colorectal), improves mood and even staves off senility." Ah, and porridge. Eat porridge, because oats scour the intestines and remove the bad cholesterol. Daily porridge kept my father in good health right up to the end (at 96).

It is a book to be read at a young age; like A Short History of Nearly Everything, which every high-school pupil should read before starting university, The Body needs to be compulsory reading for teenagers before they get into a lifetime of bad habits. [One lesson for me is to go to bed earlier - there's a link between rising blood pressure and falling asleep in the early hours.]

This time four years ago:
Extreme weather and the British climate

This time six years ago:
Cheaper public transport for Varsovians

This time seven years ago:
Swans on ice

This time eight years ago:
Cars

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

This time 11 years ago:
The demographics of jazz

This time 12 years ago:
A day in Poznań

Poland's education paradox

Every three years, the OECD - the rich countries' club - issues the result of its PISA survey (Programme for International Student Assessment). It compares education attainment, measuring 15-year-old pupils' scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading. The 2018 edition, comparing 72 countries, was published on Tuesday.

Once again, Poland does well. It's in the Top Ten for reading and maths and at number 11 for science. Given that China, in the broadest sense, takes up four separate places in the Top Ten (four cities in mainland China -  Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang - and Hong Kong, Macau and Taipei), Poland actually does very well.

Among European countries, Poland is beaten in reading by Finland, Estonia and Ireland; in maths by Estonia and Netherlands, and in science by Estonia and Finland. Although for some (methodological?) reason, Poland didn't do so well in the 2015 survey, the one conducted in 2012 also had Poland in two of the three Top Tens (for reading and science). In 2012, 2015 and 2018, Poland was well above the OECD average in all three areas.

Set in a global perspective, Poland's performance as a country in its ability to educate its teenagers is notable. Compared with the teaching methods used in Finland, widely praised by educationalists, Poland's high schools are somewhat pedestrian. They still emphasising rote learning rather than the acquisition of knowledge through analysis or testing of hypotheses, tutorial-style discussion or teamwork.

My own theory is that the fancy stuff comes later. When a brain is young, it absorbs facts; you learn to make sense of them later. The Polish system doesn't let down the less gifted, less academically inclined children - they bang in the facts along with the bright ones and regurgitate those facts in exams. Zakuć - zdać - zapomnieć - 'cram, pass, forget' is an old watchword from Polish schools. Yet somehow, they end up doing much better than British schools; in the latest PISA report, Poland stands four places above the UK in reading, eight places above the UK in maths and  three places above the UK in science. Despite far lower budgets and resources (and don't even mention teachers' pay), Poland's schools perform*. Parents' attitudes are important. From whatever social class one is from in Poland, there is an appreciation for learning. The term 'girly swot' for a pupil (of whatever gender), doesn't function in Poland - kujon is nowhere near as insulting, carrying with it a hidden undertone of admiration. Parents rich and poor, urban and rural, all appreciate the importance of education for getting on in life.

Educationally, things work comparatively well in Poland - until the pupil passes their matura (high-school final exam, A-Level equivalent) and goes to university. Here, the system is little different to school. Cram and regurgitate. Run around with a little book (indeks) collecting signatures to prove you've been to lectures. Do not - under any circumstance - undermine the professors' authority by asking them difficult questions.

So while Poland's in the Top Ten when it comes to 15 year-olds' educational attainment, there is not one single Polish university in the Times Higher Education's 2019 global Top 600 ranking. Whereas Italy has 38. Universities. In the global Top 600. Italy. A country ranked 22 places below Poland in high-school reading, 21 places below Poland in high-school maths and 29 places below Poland in high-school science.

Five years ago, Poland had two universities in the Top 400 (Jagiellonian and University of Warsaw); today they languish between 601 and 700. [More about this here.]

It is therefore unsurprising that the brightest Polish school leavers go abroad to study, repelled from Polish universities by the unreformability of its elderly professors. And once those young Poles have gone, it's few of them that come back to Poland to put their talents to use back home. Only 3% of Poles who've made it Oxford or Cambridge return. Brains gone for good.

So we get to the paradox. Polish schools' output is highly prized by foreign investors, who keep on coming, setting up successive shared-service centres and business outsourcing operations of ever-higher levels of complexity and sophistication ("we're looking for a couple of hundred PhDs in maths to do quantitative analysis for us"). Poles are thirsty for knowledge, life-long learners, ambitious and demanding new challenges. This is what foreign investors like. If only Poland's professors were to take a view more suited to the realities of the modern world. It will still be a decade or two so before the last of the professors who started teaching at Poland's universities in communist days finally shuffle off to the Great Lecture Hall in the Sky. Until then, they will block Poland's progress.

* Fieldwork for the survey was conducted before the radical - and I'd say entirely pointless - reform to the Polish school system, that puts middle-school pupils aged 12-15 with primary school children rather than with the 16-19 years-olds in high schools.

This time last year:
What I was going to say at COP 24 (but didn't)

This time two years ago:
Milton Keynes

This time three years ago:
Warsaw by night, early winter

This time six years ago:
Burn less gas and do Ukraine a favour

This time nine years ago:
Early evening atmosphere

This time 11 years ago:
Toponyms - how many names has Jeziorki?

This time 12 years ago:
On the road to Białystok

Night time's the right time for snapping Warsaw in late autumn

Above: Rondo ONZ One, as seen from ulica Emilii Plater, looking down ul. Pańska, which runs all the way west to ul. Towarowa, and is truncated by the building you see in front of you. Incidentally, rare is the Polish street name that always uses first name and surname; it's usually surname only.

Below: The Palace of the Youth, on the north side of Stalin's Palace of Culture, facing ul. Świętokrzyska.

Below: my favourite stretch of Świętokrzyska, where the two competing shops, both selling kitchenware, compete for the same clients. If one hasn't got exactly what you're looking for, the other one well may have. And note the trees that now line the street; they were planted last autumn. Can you spot Ziggy Stardust? He's in several of my photos of this street...

I quite often see film shoots happening in central Warsaw; here's one on the corner of Świętokrzyska and Emilii Plater.

Left: lovely neon, marking the current location of the museum of modern art (Muzeum Sztuki Współczesnej). To the left, a sheet-metal fence marks the site of the old Emilia building, former home of the museum and before that the location of Stołeczne Przedsiębiorstwo Handlu Wewnętrznego 'Meble Emilia' (The Capital City Enterprise of Internal Trade 'Furniture Emilia')


Below: down underground, looking into the transversal railway tunnel. This is the main line tracks running east from Warsaw Central station (W-wa Centralna). In the distance an InterCity Pendolino train crosses over the points.

Below: also looking east along the transversal railway tunnel, but this is the suburban line. The long-distance tracks lie beyond the wall to the left. Photo taken from the end of platform 3, W-wa Śródmieście station.

Two London Stock Exchange FTSE 250-listed companies are present in the new Sezam building (opened June 2018). They are recruitment firm Hays, and Spaces, part of IWG (International Workplace Group, better known under its old brand, Regus). Between the footpath (foreground) and ul. Marszalkowska (beyond which is Sezam), there will soon appear a new 20-story office building, Central Point, right outside my office window (to the left of this frame). Fitting, as I spent years working at Centre Point in London.

If you think Warsaw looks good now - wait until the Christmas lights come on later this week!

Bonus shot: Three generations of Warsaw architecture

This time last year:
Autumnal travel woes

This time four years ago:
Thoughts on Polish hypochondria

This time seven years ago:
Blogging resumes as Orange gets its act together

This time eight years ago:
The meaning of Clarkson 

This time nine years ago: 
A bad day on the railway

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

This time 12 years ago:
Act 1, Scene 1, a blasted heath

Jeziorki's ponds are drying up

It's been a while since I last took a stroll around Jeziorki's ponds in daylight; I was quite shocked to see how low the water levels are, especially at the southern end. A combination of a hotter-than average year and of local-government neglect (the reeds are growing unchecked, soaking up the water) has led to a drying out of the ponds.

Below: the stump of a low-voltage power-line post was left abandoned by workers when the ponds were deepened in 2011. Usually, a tiny slither is visible above the waterline, a gull standing on it; today the whole post lies high and dry.

Below: looking north - acres of mud where water used to be. From a distance, the greenery looks like fresh grass, but it's mould, slime. Squelchy if you go in too far from the shoreline.

Left: reeds, growing out of control. They have powerful and efficient roots that push deep into the soil, sucking out the water. For the first few years since the park was established, there would be annual visits by men with machines to mow the lawns and cut back undergrowth.

I fear a return to the situation before 2010, when the ponds were crossable on foot, because the drainage ditches emptying surface water were choked by foliage, builder's debris and household rubbish. The result - catastrophic flooding in June 2010.

Right: the wooden pier at the southern end of the middle pond - no water in sight. The reeds here have taken over. . The few remaining birds that have not yet migrated standing around on the (very) thin ice on remaining patches of open water. The low water levels might explain the scarcity of diving birds such as grebes and pochards this summer - it's too shallow to dive!

Below: although there's more open water visible at the northern end of the ponds, it's clear the rushes are moving in, silently, inexorably, year after year. Will our swans still have a lake to return to? It's been their home for 11 years - but how many more?

I hope the local authorities will do something about the encroaching reed beds - it would be tragic if after all the work, all the investment into creating a wonderful environment it were all to go to seed once more.

This time three years ago:
Jeziorki - second track, second platform

This time four years ago:
Pitshanger Lane wins London's High Street of the Year award

This time six years ago:
Trouble ahead in Ukraine.

This time nine years ago:
Jeziorki, dawn, winter

This time 12 years ago:
Tuwim's Lokomotywa in English

Late-November pictorial round-up

Some pics that didn't make previous posts, but which merit a viewing anyway. Below: Plac Hallera, Praga Północ. An overlooked piece of socialist realist architecture, dating back to 1957, by which time the style (and the ideological direction which spawned it) were passe. Until 1990, this square was named after some communist whom Stalin had murdered in 1938, but who was rehabilitated under Khrushchev.

Below: round the back of W-wa Zachodnia (Warsaw West) railway station, rows of social wagons housing workers on the big infrastructure project that will be renovating W-wa Główna station, further east. The skyline of Warsaw is rising ever higher...

Below: approaching W-wa Główna - this was the former terminus for commuter trains coming in from the west. It is being rebuilt to serve the same purpose during the planned reconstruction of the transversal lines crossing underneath Central Warsaw. Behind it rise the new buildings around Rondo Daszyńskiego.

Below: 'piwo z ranka, jak śmietanka' - a morning beer is like cream. This is one of the bars in the underground passage linking bus and train stations at Zachodnia. For some reason, one is not prohibited from smoking here, so a unique and nostalgic atmosphere for anyone liking that smell - beer and cigarettes.

Touch and go for my trip to Kraków the other week - I could see my connecting train from W-wa Jeziorki to W-wa Zachodnia was delayed by well over 20 minutes. So plan B - take bus to Metro, Metro to Centrum, walk (or rather run) from there to W-wa Centralna. Below: my train , standin' over there, on Track 2, Platform 3, about to depart at 08:45. It's 08:40, so I made it.

Below: Czachówek - where the Warsaw-Radom line crosses the Skierniewice-Łuków line.

Below: further down along the Warsaw-Radom line, Sułkowice station. Now the new 'up' line has been completed, the old 'down' line is being ripped up.

A beautiful day on the działka.

Below: heading back to town from Jakubowizna, I pass this house, "shining hard and bright/'cross this dark highway".

This time last year:
Artificial Intelligence vs Artificial Consciousness

This time two years ago:
Viaduct takes shape in the snow

This time five years ago:
No in-work benefits for four years?

This time six years ago:

Third snow-free November in a row

This time seven years ago:

Another November without snow

This time eight years ago:
Snow-free November

This time nine years ago:
Krakowskie Przedmieście in the snow

This time tenyears ago:
Ul. Poloneza closed for the building of the S2